TWO Astrophytum asterias Superkabuto sweeties, 200106

Description: This sale's specificsGrade: 2Year of cross: 2020These are plants that I germinated from overseas seeds that were supposedly for plants with Superkabuto, Ooibo characteristics. Now, I know that there are three plants in the sales photos, but I'm going to talk about the two with large amounts of flocking.I'm using the first sale image as I make my comments. Plant #1 (Top right): Definitely the star of the show, this plant is about 35 mm in diameter. It is beautifully heavily flocked to the point that it just glows. There is less flocking on the ribs, really highlighting the large areoles. It gives the plant a wonderful star-shaped pattern. Yum yum!Plant #2 (Bottom left): A nice superkabuto about 40 mm across, with scattered, large, elliptical areoles, and large flocking pattern throughout. This is an excellent plant, worth being sold by itself. About that third plant....Frankly, I'm pricing this sale for just those two plants, but I'm going to throw in that third plant, which is a lovely Ooibo plant with scattered pinpoint flocking for free. Free because you can see there is damage to two parts on the epidermis and that just really ticks me off. However, in a few years those marks will become invisible. Oh, and the mouse that did it....it's sleeping with the fishes, as my relatives in Chicago would say. I have no idea of flower color for these plants, but if these flower and come out a cool form I may bump up the price!All the photos are of the exact plants being sold.You will get all the plants in the sale images, unless I mention something different above. I will ship the plants knocked out of the pot....mostly bare root but not completely bare root, since I won't wash the roots. (I want to avoid too much damage). Please don't offer to buy only a portion of the plants shown...it's a group sale. If you can find cheaper Astrophytum of this quality someplace else, GET THEM!About breeding and grading Astrophytum asteriasAstrophytum asterias is an extremely popular plant, and for a damned good reason. It's just one of the coolest life-forms on the planet! I breed Astrophytum asterias, looking for characteristics I prize. I'm fond of heavily flocked Superkabuto types, where the plants are strongly covered with big patches of flocking. I'm particularly in love with V-type patterning. On the other hand, I don't particularly care for plants covered with mutant areoles (i.e., Hanazono plants). I don't like to graft plants just to speed them up a little bit, so these plants been growing on their own root systems since day 1, and I've just let them take their time getting bigger. I also looooove red-flowering variants. While the normal flower is a nice yellow form, trying to breed for red-flowering plants can result in lilac, red, or garnet flowers. Along the way, I'll sometimes generated other variant flower colors, like cream, ivory, or akabana (rainbow) types.Common color: Butter yellowRarer colors: Pale straw yellow, deep yellow with orange coreEven rarer color: ivory, cream, lilacRarest color: dark red, deep garnetSuppose I have two nice plants that I cross to try to make some nice superkabutos. I cross the plants, harvest the seed, germinate them, and care for them. After about 18 months I'll start looking for nice results. The selection process begins...Below is a grading system I've come up with. (Incidentally, if you ever see anyone else using this grading system....well, I can't vouch for their ratings. This is eBay, after all, where folks loooove to exaggerate!)Grade 1: For every cross, with great seed set, I might get 80 little seedlings. Of these, about 2/3 or so may have rather unimpressive markings. They're great plants, sure, but may be mostly unflocked, or flocked with pinpoint spots throughout. I consider these "grade 1" plants. I might sell these in community pots. Interestingly, these pots sometimes include higher grade plants that I just didn't notice, because the fancy attributes sometimes take another year to emerge!I'll often raise "wild type" or nudum plants and sell them as Grade 1 pots. Also, yellow-flowering plants from my attempts to get red-flowering plants will fall into grade 1 plants. Finally, the occasional plant with some sunburn damage will go here....knowing that in time any sunburn patches will be hidden on the underside of the enlarging plant.Grade 2: In a good cross, maybe 1/3 have good markings. These will have promising spots of flocking that are bigger than pinpoints--the flocking is in little patches. These are plants that I see referred to as Kabuto or Superkabuto. (I think that originally these plants didn't merit the Superkabuto name, but over time people have used Superkabuto to describe them, mostly as a marketing thing. So I do too...when in Rome.... I'll sell these in community pots, but perhaps with fewer plants in the pot or at higher cost than Grade 1. I might also put medium sized plants of specialty types, like nudum in here.Grade 3: After about another year, I'll look more closely at my pots of Grade 2 plants, because in time, a small portion of these plants will show much bigger flocking patches. I'll select these for more observation. A this stage, even non-fanatics may comment on how the plants look different and interesting. These are the Grade 3 plants, and I might sell these in pots with 2-4 plants per pot. Very large, nice nudum plants might also go in this category.Grade 4: The nicest Grade 3 plants are pulled out and are typically potted up in solo 2" pots. At this point, I'm very interested in the plant because it has real potential, and really has earned the term Superkabuto with no qualifications. I may sell these plants, or hang onto them for future observation. These tend to be sold in single pots, and are often almost flowering size. Flocking may be very dense, but in particular I like the following features (note this is all my own terminology)....Striping: Sometimes the flocking spots are arranged in strong, usually single rows that follow the centerlines of the plant lobes. I call that "striping."Banding: Sometimes the flocking spots are arranged in multiple rows that follow the centerlines of the lobes. This is what I call "banding." Jaguar: I know it when I see it....the spots are often clumped in such a way that they remind me of the spots on a jaguar.V-type: The flocking is arranged in V patterns. Very often, the V pattern is mixed with other flocking characters.Ooibo areoles: Something else I look at is how the areoles are expressed. Oversize areoles (Ooibo) often work very nicely with the flocking---with the areoles set inside flocking patches.Grade 5: Very occasionally a Grade 4 will be so wonderful, I'll keep it for a few more years. These are my fancy-pants plants that are very likely to be snatched from the evaluation benches and incorporated into my own collection. I really have too many plants, so I try not to add anymore...but occasionally I'll get something this good. These are my Grade 5 beauty plants. Yummy. Insane amounts of V-type patterning may pop plants into Grade 5.Each tier is increasingly difficult to get to, increasingly rare, and yeah, increasingly expensive because it pains me that much more to sell them.So now you know how the sausages are made.General cultivationThese plants are somewhat challenging for many to grow. Rot appears to be the biggest cause of mortality. I don't have serious problems with the species, perhaps because I grow my plants in a completely inorganic medium. Since I do that, I must fertilize lightly with each watering. I grow this plant in light (30%) shade--they can burn if you grow them in full sun and aren't careful. If you grow them in heavy shade they don't do well. I let the plants get well over 110 F (43 C) during the summer, so they can take a lot of heat! They can take winter temperatures at or slightly below freezing, but be carefulI have never seen pests on it. As such, this pot of plants should be considered reasonably pest-free. Note, however, as with all plants, you should take suitable pest precautions when you incorporate them into your collection. Just before I ship the plant, I'll give it a careful lookover, to make sure it is free of bugs. If I find any problems with the plant, I'll contact you before shipping the plant, and we can discuss what to do. If you find bugs on it when it arrives, please contact me immediately. Shipping, and combined shipping, and add-onsPlease ensure that your shipping address will not expose the boxed plants to extreme conditions. Mailboxes in full sun can become dangerously hot, and I will ship to cold climates at your risk. If you want to buy a heat pack, you can. See my listing for a heat pack.If you want, you can buy soil packets from me to go with your plant purchase. I only sell soil baggies with my plant purchases as I want to sell plants, and not soil. You can get a baggie of regular inorganic mix, my "juvenile mix" which has a bit of organic mixed in, or even my seedling mix. See my listings for that. If you buy more than one item from me, just pay for it all up front. No, I do not use eBay's combined shipping tools as they are not appropriate for such irregular objects as plants. Instead, pay for all your items (yes, including all those shipping charges), and then when I box everything up I will calculate the new shipping charges, and refund you the difference via PayPal. This is fast and efficient, and this way the plant spends less time in a dark box.

Price: 45 USD

Location: Woodland, California

End Time: 2024-08-30T03:00:34.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD