genus Wilcoxia
Monica Swartz (Fri, 16 Sep 2016 19:00:33 PDT)

Hi Dennis and friends,
I have never stuck my nose in Wilcoxia flowers! I'll try it next time
they flower. As for pots, I root them in tall one inch pots in pure
Turface MVP. They can be slow but reliable to root. As soon as they
have roots, they start making the big tubers, so they go straight
into 4 or 5 inch pots. The pots I use are as deep as they are wide.
It's strange to put a spiny stick thinner than a pencil in a pot that
big, but the roots will fill the pot in a single summer. I think the
'rule' of underpotting cacti means that Wilcoxia will rarely survive
in typical cacti collections despite their spectacular and frequent
flowers. They also don't like full sun since they grow inside bushes
in the wild, and as I mentioned before, they are magnets for scale
and mealybugs. They clamber up between shelves in my greenhouse and
spend the winter dry. I try not to let the greenhouse drop below
freezing. I have only been growing them since returning to Texas and
I doubt Wilcoxia could have survived the heat of the low desert near
the Salton Sea where we lived before. I found by experience that very
few cacti can survive 120F+ high temps! Dennis should have no
problem growing them in the midwest as long as they are protected
from cold. I've never grown them from seed. Would you water daily
like with other cacti seedlings? I always thought cacti needed so
much water to start life because of shallow sparse roots, but
Wilcoxia has big roots.....hmmm.
good luck, monica