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Cats, cactus, nectar and plants (long)

Hi All, especially Cami...

        Having 6 cats I sympathise with your problem!  My pots both inside
and out have always been prey to digging cats, not to mention the dogs
going in afterwards to hunt for 'goodies'. (Yes, I know it's gross, but the
dogs seem to think they are digging for hidden treasure!) Outside I have
covered the pots with chicken/rabbit wire, the mesh is anything from half
an inch to 2inches.  It isn't fixed with nails or anything, just bent over
the sides of the planter, being careful there are no jaggy edges to tear
skin or clothes (a bit fiddly to do, but I fold the raw edges under...) 
The plants grow up through the mesh just fine, and as my tubs have seasonal
planting in any weeding gets done when the plants have died down.  For the
one tub that has a permanent plant in (a miniature Elm tree, Ulnus
Katherine Hillier), I have made a cut in the wire for the trunk to grow
through. I also have an old sink that I use for germinating seeds that have
a long dormancy, needing both frost and heat before they sprout - like
trees.  For this, my husband has made a frame which just sits on the edges
of the sink - actually, if I remember right, it is an old gate he once made
and then recycled. It is easy to take on and off and has the added bonus of
keeping the birds off the pots and the pup from stealing them - he just
loves flower pots!

        Indoors, I put screwed up newspaper onto the surface of the pots,
not very pretty, but it does stop the digging!  I water over the newspaper,
it keeps the soil damper and gives a nice humid atmosphere (winter-time,
the plants are kept almost bone dry, to cope with the cold in the
sunlounge, so the paper is dry too and if/when I water, I try to keep it
between the gaps in the paper.)  Now the only problem I have is a kitten
who thinks mossy poles are climbing frames and cactus pots are stepping
stones!  I've lost count of the times I find an empty pot, or a cactus
denuded of its pups, only to find them in another part of the house:-).

        Which brings me to your cactus, sometimes when a cactus has
reached the end of its life, it will respond by putting out the kind of
growth you describe, If I were you, I'd carefully remove the pup before it
gets the rot which seems to be attacking its parent;  cut it off with a
clean blade and let it dry out for a few days, then you can put it *onto* a
pot of your normal cactus compost, the roots should make their own way into
the soil.  All my cactus are top dressed with gravel, it stops the cats
digging - or maybe the spines do that!

        I don't know anything about orchids other than the fact that I
always seem to kill them :-), but it sounds as though your flowers are
secreting nectar, much like the Hoya flowers everyone was talking about
while I was lost I cyber-space;  quite a few plants do this, something to
do with attracting insects for pollination I think, or in the case of some
orchids I think I read that the nectar encourages ants to set up house and
they then protect the plant from any mauding animals which may eat their
seeds (symbiosis is the word I was looking for.). - I know my Abultions
also have this sticky mess from the flowers, though all they seem to
attract are white and green fly...

        Finally, I had a good day on Saturday, rescuing plants; I came
home with a scarlet Abultion and a variagated Ficus Longifolia, both half
price :-)... now all I have to do is to find a space for them.  Can't think
what happened to the space I made when I sent all those big plants down to
Glasgow with my son!  BTW, they are all doing well, revelling in the extra
space and lack of animals.  The first time my son watered them, he nigh on
drowned them, but I was in time to rescue them and they are none the worse
for it.  The variagated Aspidistra has responded by putting out a leaf
which is nearly all white - I only got leaves which were mostly green!
(sigh)  I saw a wonderful ceropegia in the garden centre, think it was C.
wilsonii (tho' my memory might be faulty here, as I can't find that in my
books; the nearest description I could find was C. sandersonii), huge green
flowers about the size of a 10p piece.  Maybe if I go back in a week or two
they might be half price too... 

         Must quickly tell you about a house plant our local supermarket
had in (and to which I succumbed, naturally.) It is just called 'Velvetea',
it has purple leaves with red veins, purple stems and flowers which are
very difficult to describe - if you know the Impatiens called 'policeman's
helmet', you'll get the idea;  they are like a round hollow ball, with one
end open, about 1" in diameter, with two proper petals forming a lip at the
bottom of the opening.  The sphere is white inside with red lips and
pinky-red markings going to the stamens, the two petals are white, shading
to orange where they join the sphere.  I think it is an impatiens of some
sort, the stems are succulent like a 'busy lizzie' and the leaves look like
the New Guinea hybrids of Impatiens, the flowers are very much like the
Himalayan Balsam (I. glandulifera) which is a naturalised wild flower along
the river banks not far from here; and the seeds are also very much like
all the impatiens group (I hope to save some,  will let you know...)  I do
wish that when 'new' house plants came onto the market, they would name
them properly, my books are all fairly upto date, but of course don't show
the very newest!

        Well, back to my war against whitefly.  Oh! I nearly forgot,
someone asked me if I had a picture of my old Gloxinia - I would have, but
the camera is in Glasgow!  If the flowers still look good by the time my
son remembers to bring it back, I'll try and get a decent pic for my web
site - might even try to get a few other plants up as well, although the
season is rapidly drawing to a close now, the AV's are pausing for breath,
the cactii are all setting seed and the Oleanders and Abultions are past
their best... next spring I shall be prepared with camera and film.

Liz Bradbury in a sunny Blairgowrie, Scotland. (I've just noticed
the so-called 'mini' Clerodendrum, bought last year -now 10' tall- has its
first flower on...)
(visit my website at its new address:
     http://www.triumvirate.demon.co.uk )
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