Episode 230: Big Cactus Rescue
Big Cactus Rescue has grown quickly from a single cactus bought during the pandemic. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Transcript
Episode 230
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
plants, cactus, pots, people, greenhouse, grow, instagram, cacti, collecting, cat litter, bit, water, repotting, collection, called, terracotta pots, brutal, long, succulent, years
SPEAKERS
Martin Ciderspiller, Jane Perrone
Jane Perrone
Are you ready for some truly brutal plants this week? Well, stick around for my visit to Big Cactus Rescue. Welcome to the show. I'm Jane Perrone. And this here is my podcast, On The Ledge, packed with so much plant information for your ears that you may well need to listen twice! A soupconne of housekeeping: just a reminder that I'm performing live at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show this very night Friday, 8th July, at 9pm in the Marketplace Theatre with my special guest, Gynelle Leon, so if you catch this episode early, and you're able to pop along, please come and say hello! I will have On The Ledge merch to hand out to anyone who reveals themselves as a fan! If you can't make it to the show and still fancy getting your hands on some On The Ledge merchandise, there's 15% off everything in my On The Ledge shop starting today and running 'til 12th July. All you need to do is visit the shop to take advantage of that discount, pick yourself up an On The Ledge t-shirt, hat, tote bag, badge. Pop along to janeperrone.com and click on the shop link to go straight through and make your purchases. Right, plug over! Let's get cracking with my chat to Martin. Martin is a live sound engineer by trade. So before the pandemic, he spent a lot of time away from home, travelling, but when COVID hit, all of that disappeared and so what did he fill his time with? Well, I think you can guess! I went to meet Martin in his back garden greenhouse last week to find out about his passion for spiny plants and why you shouldn't take yourself too seriously on Instagram! So, as always, check out the show notes while you're listening, for any plant names that you might miss and also links to tons of useful info and pictures of Martin's amazing greenhouse.
Martin Ciderspiller
I'm Martin! I run the Instagram page Big Cactus Rescue. I've been doing it for a couple of years.
Jane Perrone
We're here in your greenhouse, accompanied by your tortoise. What's your tortoise's name? I didn't ask that!
Martin Ciderspiller
Sherman.
Jane Perrone
Perfect name for a tortoise! We're here in your greenhouse and it's kind of weird being in here because I've seen so many stories and reels of this wonderful greenhouse and your cacti, that it's kind of cool to be finally here! I guess I want to know where this all started.
Martin Ciderspiller
I've always been kind of interested in cactus, but I never knew anything about them. And then, yeah, I was working a lot. And then the pandemic hit and everything suddenly stopped. So I suddenly had time. And it was kind of the same time I moved here and had a big garden. I was trying to think of things to do with it and then it quickly escalated!
Jane Perrone
I mean, talk about quickly escalated! Martin, we're in here, roughly how many cacti? Probably a good two hundred or more?
Martin Ciderspiller
Probably more. I've got no idea. I've never counted them!
Jane Perrone
It's best not to! It really is best not to! What was it about cacti in particular? I mean, you've been through your house, I've just walked through your house, and you've got some houseplants in there, so obviously you are growing other kinds of plants. But what is it about cacti in particular that set you on fire?
Martin Ciderspiller
I don't know! I mean, initially, I don't really know. They just kind of look cool. But the more you learn about them, the more fascinating they become, like, they're incredibly hardy. You can, you know, from where they come from, they hardly get any water, they live in full sun they, yeah, and if you can cut them up and they'll just grow roots, like, so they're ideal if you're away quite a lot because it doesn't really matter if you don't water them, you can leave them alone and they do their own thing. They actually do better if you just leave them alone.
Jane Perrone
We must mention the metal connection, because anyone who's watched your Instagram will know that your reels are not accompanied by the usual bog standard kind of tunes that you get. They're accompanied by a wonderful sort of thrashing soundtrack of, presumably, some of your favourite tracks?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I don't really know how that started!
Jane Perrone
It's awesome, can I just say!?
Martin Ciderspiller
I've always been into metal. I just, kind of, when I made the Instagram account, I didn't really know what I was doing with it and I just found it funny, putting a picture of a beautiful flower with some screaming metal and it just became a thing and now I can't stop it! It's, like, that's the little niche that I've found and lots of people are into it and it's fun!
Jane Perrone
It is really fun. Even if you're not a fan of that particular genre. I'm not gonna say it's my it's my favourite, but I just love the way you combine tracks and your sense of humour on your Instagram, it's wonderful. Have you had . . . what reaction do you get from the kind of the old guard, older cactus grower / collector to what you're doing?
Martin Ciderspiller
Well, I don't think they really see it. Like, there's a huge community of people, of younger people who are just getting into this hobby and, obviously, there's millions of older people, but the two tend to be quite separate. Like, the older people have got a hell of a lot to teach and they know everything, so it's like, you know, speaking to them, it's like, quite amazing. But yeah, Instagram tends to be a sort of younger crowd and especially the ones that follow me because it's all screaming metal!
Jane Perrone
And does anybody, I think I saw something recently where somebody was taking objection to your soundtracking of cacti?
Martin Ciderspiller
Well, I've got this running sort of theory, which is just a joke, about, you know, 'Hail Satan and Satanism' which is just, to me, it's just funny, heavy metal imagery. I don't take it seriously at all. But obviously there's some people who might find that slightly offensive, which I find even more hilarious, so I push it even further, the whole Satanic Panic thing is just funny to me.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, I mean, I do find it really funny as well! I mean, anyone who can even imagine that you're taking that seriously, I don't know where their head is at, but it does make me laugh. I mean, the music to me does add something because, as you say, these plants are kind of extreme plants,
Martin Ciderspiller
Brutal plants and they go well with brutal music.
Jane Perrone
What are some of the most brutal plants in your collection? I mean, I'm just turning around to look at some of these guys because I think we might have some brutality over here!
Martin Ciderspiller
Oh, yeah, this is the brutal section! My favourites of the most brutal are Ariocarpus over there and Copiapoa. Different habitats: the Copiapoa are from Chile, they grow in the Atacama desert where they get practically no rain they get mist only and they grow incredibly slowly and there's a lot of variation, depending on where they're from, the same species can look completely different depending on where it grows. And the same with growing them in a greenhouse, or growing them, you know, in habitat. If you're really horrible to them, hard-grow them, full sun, no water, they look more like they do in habitat, which is amazing; crusty and gnarly and brutal.
Jane Perrone
They are gnarly and brutal. This is very, very, very true. And then the Ariocarpus, I think, again, very, very brutal, but they've got a slightly different vibe going on. I mean, one could even say a little bit fluffy. Here, we've got a bit of fluff! I wonder if some of these features are - as you say, very little rainfall - but maybe they're collecting fog or something? Is that how they're getting their moisture?
Martin Ciderspiller
No, these are from Mexico, so they do get rain in the summer but they grow in limestone, which most plants can't grow in, like pure out-of-the-rock, and yeah, they're pretty brutal, too. They look cool. Again, they're super slow-growing, which appeals to me, because I find it fascinating that a plant would evolve to grow so slowly, but it's because they have so few resources, practically no soil, very little water, harsh sun and, yeah, look how cool they look!
Jane Perrone
Yeah, they're like sort of a, some kind of, I want to say some kind of star but that sounds too sort of sparkly. It's like some kind of negative of a star, or something! It's just this . . . and what I also love about your collection is they're all planted, or mostly planted, in terracotta, which I personally love. And you've done a lot of careful work with the substrates here. Tell me a little bit about how you choose the substrates for your cacti.
Martin Ciderspiller
So the pots, I'm almost as obsessed about the pots as I am about the plants, like I've acquired a lot of these old clay pots, and they're quite, I mean, they're not hard to find, but to get a big collection of them, you have to be on the lookout all the time. But they tend to be, like, behind people's sheds and, you know, neighbours have got them and don't know what to do with them, they're all over the place. You just have to collect them. And yeah, I love them. They're cool. There's a lot of benefits to plastic pots but these really old Victorian clay pots, they're not porous, so they act just like plastic pots and they're great. And substrate, yeah, I just, I'm always looking for cool gravel when I'm out walking or running and I go out with a little hammer and collect it!
Jane Perrone
And how do you know that you're, I mean, presumably that's just sort of geological knowledge that you're getting the right substrate? Do you worry about pH and things like that?
Martin Ciderspiller
They're all, pretty much everything is potted with cat litter, with a little bit of soil mixed in and pretty much everything does well in that and the top dressing is just to make them sort of look like the habitat that they would grow in; the Ariocarpus has got limestone on the top but I wouldn't pop everything in pure limestone.
Jane Perrone
Right. Got you. I do love these terracotta pots. I too have an obsession and I just love the differences between them. And I've got to the sort of connoisseur stage where I'm, like, "Oh, yes. Now this is a really old one because you can see it's been, you know, thrown by hand" or something! They are each very individual and beautiful and, as you say, lots of people don't really put much value in them and don't really want, you know, they're happy to get rid of them. So this is how you can beg, steal and borrow!
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, you do get to become a bit of a connoisseur, you can sort of tell how old they are and when they were made and what factory they were made in just by looking at them, once you've been around with them for long enough.
Jane Perrone
You have got some things in plastic. What do you use plastic for? Is it the younger seedlings coming through?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, just the seedlings. They need tiny little pots and there's too many of them to pop in terracotta.
Jane Perrone
This isn't something I've ever asked a cactus person before, but square pots, is it just that you can tessellate them and save space, or is there anything more to the square pot?
Martin Ciderspiller
It's purely that you can fit more on the bench.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, that is a pretty good strategy. They are very popular. I've got very few. They're not very popular, square pots, apart from cacti and succulents, I think, so . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
That's because cacti and succulent collectors get obsessed and end up running out of space, so they have to squeeze as many as they possibly can.
Jane Perrone
I'm sure, I'm sure you're right. So you built up this collection quite quickly. Where were you getting the plants from?
Martin Ciderspiller
So, initially, I made the Instagram account, Big Cactus Rescue, and that was just a silly play on the Big Cat Rescue that was on. Remember, 'Tiger King'?
Jane Perrone
Tiger King!
Martin Ciderspiller
We were all watching during lockdown, the whole world, so I just made a silly play on that, but a few people assumed that because it was called that, I rescue cacti, and they were, like, "I've got some cactus that, you know, I need to get rid of. Can you / do you collect them?" and I was, like, "Actually, yeah, okay! Sure!" And that kind of went on and on and then I just drove around, collecting people's abandoned, old plants and then I wrote an article "In My Greenhouse" for the BCSS magazine and quite a few people contacted me after that, saying "Would you like to come collect some plants?" and it grew quite quickly from there.
Jane Perrone
That is a real problem in the cactus-collecting hobby, isn't it, where you get older collectors who just can't look after their plants any more? And what do you do with a load of cacti that are large, unwieldy, not necessarily something that any old person would want to have in their house because not everyone is like us and can see the attraction?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, yeah, there is, I mean, the cactus collecting in this country, it's got a very, very old history, the BCSS has been going a long time. So a lot of people that were really into it are now getting to the point where they're very old and can't necessarily look after their plants, or they're passing away, sadly. And then their family inherit all these huge collections and they have no idea what to do with them and I think the best thing to do with it is pass it on because these plants will live longer than people you know. They live a very, very long time. So I've started seeing myself as a caretaker of these now and eventually I'll pass them on to someone else. And that's what happens.
Jane Perrone
It's a fantastic collection. Is there - as, clearly, a collector - are there other things that you're still in search of, that you haven't yet managed to get hold of to add either to these collections, or other genera?
Martin Ciderspiller
I'm always always on the lookout. The price of things has gone crazy, so I'm not, like, buying up quite as enthusiastically as I was at first because the price of everything was gone up, but yeah, there's loads of stuff I haven't got. I mean, it never ever ends. It will never end! Like, I've just, more recently, got into these African caudiciform-type things, and that's a whole other world.
Jane Perrone
Oh my gosh, yes! I see you've got a lovely big Sinningia there. That's a beautiful specimen.
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, that's awesome. That belonged to an old lady. She had it for, like, 60 odd years.
Jane Perrone
Is that Leuchotricha?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah.
Jane Perrone
The size of that! Oh my gosh! Like, I've never seen one that big! That's a good - it's what? I don't know - 20, 30 centimetres across that tuber? I don't even know. That's impressive! That is a beautiful plant. Well, I just did an episode on those recently, in the podcast, and yeah, they're really fascinating plants. And then you've got the Adenia and also a plant from my childhood that used to be really popular but really went out of fashion; Euphorbia millii.
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I've got a couple of them!
Jane Perrone
I mean, that, again, is a really brutal plant.
Martin Ciderspiller
It is. It is.
Jane Perrone
That's, I mean, I remember being seriously spiked by that, but also quite beautiful, with those coloured bracts of red and green and different colours, but not very popular anymore. They used to sell them everywhere. I don't know what's happened with those. I guess people are too, health and safety.
Martin Ciderspiller
Maybe. I'd never actually seen one until I got those. I didn't know anything about them. Obviously now I know everything about them!
Jane Perrone
Yeah, you've caught up! Let's talk about getting attacked by your cacti. Like, this must be, occasionally, a hazardous sport! Are you quite clever at . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
People talk about getting attacked by them, right, but they don't move! Like, it's you attacking them and them defending themselves?
Jane Perrone
That's a good point.
Martin Ciderspiller
Give them space and they're fine.
Jane Perrone
That is a really, really good point.
Martin Ciderspiller
But no, you get, you get, I mean, I'm sure you know, you can handle them all you want, it's just, the right amount of pressure, you can do whatever you want. If you squeeze them, they're gonna stick.
Jane Perrone
How about repotting? Any repotting tips because I think that's where I usually come a cropper, is under-estimating how heavy something is as I try to turn it out, or . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I mean, really, there are some really obscenely spiky stuff that you cannot touch, as much, as gentle as you are. So, just, like, a towel or something, just wrap it in a towel, or something like that, is what I generally do. But I just let them spike me! I quite enjoy it! It's a high!
Jane Perrone
You definitely know you're alive when you've had an encounter with one of these plants. I think that is what I would say about it! I guess I'm just a really clumsy person and I do, I mean, I have quite a few Agave about the size of the ones you've got here, you know, like 25 centimetres across, which I regularly trip over, fall on to, I guess I'm just not very careful, that's basically my problem with it! But, you know, if you're gonna get impaled by something, I mean, that is, you know, an agave spike like this one I'm just touching here, is kind of an epic thing to be impaled on.
Martin Ciderspiller
They are. They're actually dangerous, the Agave. I've got a giant one out there. If you bend over to, kind of, look at it, one will just stick you in the face.
Jane Perrone
Yeah. You have to be, eye injuries, I think, are the one thing I do genuinely worry about. But then you've got lovely things like the monkey tail here, which is so beautifully tactile. And, you know, if you want a little bit of mindfulness, you can just come and give that a little stroke,
Martin Ciderspiller
It's still brutal though!,
Jane Perrone
It is still brutal, it is still very brutal! I would say, looking at this collection of plants, that flowers are not your particular passion, although you have got some flowering cacti.
Martin Ciderspiller
Well, all of them flower, and I love the flowers.
Jane Perrone
And also, that's part of your, presumably, part of your breeding programme, in that you're collecting seed at the end of it to . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I've got quite a ridiculous amount of seed going on. I'm not exactly sure what I'm gonna do with it all. It's all in the propagator in little tubs, right. I've got a lot of Ariocarpus coming, but they're so slow. They take, you know, two years before they're, sort of, the size of a pea.
Jane Perrone
But that's a good thing, I think, in a way, because unlike, say, growing, I don't know, tomatoes, or even, you know, the Swiss cheese plant, you can have that little tub for two years and you don't have to do anything with it! It's quite, it's quite liberating in some ways! And I guess that, for me, is part of the joy of this hobby, is that you're, sort of, taking, understanding and getting a sense of the whole process, from that tiny seed right up to the massive, venerable plant at the end of it, that's been going for years and years. And tell me a bit about watering. You've got all your plants on this lovely sturdy staging here. Is it just a question of flooding this every now and again, letting them soak it up in those lovely terracotta pots?
Martin Ciderspiller
So I've got three water buckets out there. They collect rain from the roof of the greenhouse. Then I've got a little electric pump that goes to a hose. And yeah, I just sort of water each one individually about every two weeks. Maybe less with the bigger pots.
Jane Perrone
My question with that is, do you have a nice, sort of really fine thing on that, because I am finding that I displace mulches doing it that way. So . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
I've experimented and experimented with different methods of watering and every single one takes all day! There's nothing I can do about it. But I think I've got it nailed now, whereby the, because the ideal way is with a little watering can that I've got. It's perfect because you can adjust the flow and it doesn't just blast off the top dressing. But I've got this watering handle thing now, that acts very much like a little watering cannon. It just trickles water on nicely. It doesn't squirt, you know, spray it, it just pours at the right speed. So it's really easy. And I've also now got to the point where I've repotted everything in pretty, almost pure cat litter, that molar clay cat litter stuff, so it's just saps water, it absorbs it really, really quickly, which makes watering really easy. If you've got a pot that was compacted a bit, and you can't get the water in, it's really frustrating because you have to keep going back to it while it's slowly sucks it in.
Martin Ciderspiller
Let's talk more about this cat litter litter issue because I think some listeners might be confused, although it's fairly common in cactus-collecting circles. You've got to get the right cat litter, haven't you?
Martin Ciderspiller
Definitely! It's the molar clay, the pink molar clay. They sell it under various different brands, but it acts just like pumice. Like, a lot of people use pumice. It's really absorbent, so it's keeps the water away from the roots, but it still maintains the humidity and it drains really, really fast. But the cat litter is just a lot cheaper than pumice, in this country, anyway. I mean, you know, in America, you can get pumice everywhere, but here, you can get it at, you know, pet shops, and super cheap, so . . .
Jane Perrone
Do you have to rinse that through first? Does it come a bit dusty?
Martin Ciderspiller
No. That's the great thing. You can use it pretty much straight. I mix it with, like, a sieve, John Innes, just a bit of that, just to, sort of, bind it together. But yeah, it's good stuff. I recommend it. And I've got everything in it now and and everything in it works. So you know, you know, when you've watered, they're all going to be at about the same level. So the bigger pots will take a little bit longer to dry out. But generally everything's dry by a week or two.
Jane Perrone
And just the supermarket thing? You've got loads of cats!
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, yeah, I've got an account with Pets At Home now, I get a discount with.
Jane Perrone
Oh, yeah. Okay, because I imagine you're getting through quite a lot of cat litter! But then again, repotting, I mean, I guess when you get a new plant, and you might want to change the substrate and stuff, but a lot of these plants, I imagine, will be in the same pot for a long time?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah. I've done an awful lot of repotting, but now I've got to the point where I'm kind of happy with the mix and I'm happy with everything, so they only need to be repotted when they outgrow the pot, really. When they grow so slow, that'll be a while. You can just pick and choose which one you want to do, instead of doing everything, which is a nightmare.
Jane Perrone
And what about pests in here? Do you have any preventative measures for things like mealy bugs, which can be a peril?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah. So there's no mealy bugs in here, touch wood. Every single new plant that I get, I will strip it of all its soil, blast it with a hose within an inch of its life, clean it, soapy water, completely scrub it and then give it a bath in a pesticide solution before I repot it, and before it comes in the greenhouse, and doing that has kept them away. I mean, a lot of the plants that I've been given and collected are completely infested with mealy bugs. And I can't have them coming in here. So literally every plant, I'll treat before it comes in.
Jane Perrone
It's got to be done because it's such a terrible, such a terrible problem, isn't it? It's a real, it's a real issue. But that sounds like a good preventative regime to keep them from causing problems. I mean, you've got another greenhouse there. Am I going to come back in five years time and there's going to be, like, four greenhouses here?
Martin Ciderspiller
There's been various greenhouses. This one is fairly new. I had another one that was a bit smaller. I keep filling them and then having to get a bigger one. It seems to be the way! I think what I'd like to do eventually, is get one that's at least double the width of this and then get rid of that one, so I've got just one, because I have to heat it in winter, and heat in more than one greenhouse just becomes ridiculous. So just heating one is sort of manageable. So, yeah, I'll get a big one eventually, probably.
Jane Perrone
And in winter, obviously, the UK gets a little bit cold, not ridiculously cold. Do you insulate? And what kind of heating are you using? And what temperature are you keeping it at?
Martin Ciderspiller
I should insulate. I insulate with bubble wrap, but last year, I didn't, because I just couldn't be bothered. It's such a mess.
Jane Perrone
I totally hear you.
Martin Ciderspiller
Like, the only way to do is to take everything out and it's just got to the point where I don't have anywhere to put everything. So no, I don't insulate. I use two fan heaters in here and they're both on separate temperature controllers at either end. I don't let it get below five degrees. And that's it, really. So the fans are on pretty much 24 hours, just moving air around and the fan heaters kick on and off on cold nights, but it doesn't really get that cold down here, so it's only a few nights of the year that the fan heaters are working hard.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, we're not, in this part of the country, I think, it's not, usually in the winter, it's not too bad. Last year was quite mild, wasn't it, so we never know, but I think you're right about the insulation. It is such a faff, yes, such a pain!
Martin Ciderspiller
It does make a difference but then you've got to take it down, like, a few months later.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, I totally hear you. Do you grow any cacti indoors, or do you keep them all out here, or do you find it's easier to get the right conditions?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, they're all out here in the summer. There's a few, more sensitive ones that can't handle the five degrees that I'll move indoors. I keep them all on windowsills, I've got some growlights on most of the windowsills. So there's the Brazilian stuff, some of the African stuff that . . . I mean, the vast majority of of cactus and succulents can handle really, really, really low temperatures just fine, so long as they're completely dry. But there's a few that can't if they're from more, sort of, tropical places. So yeah, I have a nice little display on the windowsill in the bedroom in the winter, which is quite nice.
Jane Perrone
So when do you stop watering these guys, just to make sure they're nice and dry for that winter season?
Martin Ciderspiller
When? They want to be sort of completely dry by October, late October. If it gets below 10 degrees at night, they want to be dry. And then I don't start watering again until it gets above 10 degrees at night, which is late spring. So there's a good, sort of, eight months where they're completely dry and it's great because in the spring when they're first watered, they're all shrivelled and shrunken and, you know, looking really ill and then you give them a drop of water and, like, a few days later, they're all twice the size and plumped up.
Jane Perrone
I love that moment. It's so good, isn't it because you always sort of doubt yourself and you think "I've done it this year! I've left it too long. I've left it too long!" and then, you know, you you could stick to your guns and then when you do water you get that amazing reaction.
Martin Ciderspiller
It's always so tempting because, you know, when it's in the spring when it's so bright and sunny and warm in the day, and you're like "Let's water everything!" but you've just got to hold off because nights do still get cold. Yeah, it's great. The minute you give them some water, they all burst into flower and they swell up and it's a good time.
Jane Perrone
It is indeed. It really is impressive. And you have got some really impressive specimens in here. Any particular favourites, or standouts for you, that you want to tell me about?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yes. So this one we were talking about earlier, this Sinningia, it's so cool. It belonged to an old lady and she had had it for, like, 60 years and she used to carry it from her greenhouse to her house every winter and then back again in the spring. But it just got to the point where it was too heavy for her, so she asked me if I wanted it and I was, like, "Hell, yeah!"
Jane Perrone
Wow, that could be a record breaker. I don't know, that looks . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
I've never seen one that big and I've looked. Even if you do the hashtag on Instagram and millions come up, like, they're all little, tiny little things. The leaves are drowning out all the stuff behind it now, but the leaves completely die back, as you know, and it just sits on the living room floor in winter.
Jane Perrone
I mean, I don't know how old it is?
Martin Ciderspiller
I wouldn't know!
Jane Perrone
It's hard to say, isn't it? It's just so impressive. It's such an impressive plant. Yeah. Any others?
Martin Ciderspiller
Well, we talked about the ariocarpus before. Oh, we can talk about these things I've been growing: Welwitschia mirabilis. You know about these?
Jane Perrone
I do. I was just reading, I don't know if you've got the new Cactus World . . . ?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, there was a little article in Cactus World about them.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, the BCSS journal.
Martin Ciderspiller
I've been growing them for quite some time and they are absolutely fascinating.
Jane Perrone
They're not, they are, I mean, I will put some information in the show notes for more, for those who want to seek out more information because they are completely . . . I mean, the leaves, I think the leaves can get, in habitat they don't get that long, obviously, but I think the leaves can get like 150 metres long, or something ludicrous?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, but it takes them, like, a thousand years to do that, but in the desert, they get all shredded up and they just end up looking like a giant mound of . . . Just bizarre! Like, the most bizarre plant ever!
Jane Perrone
So where did you get seed from for these?
Martin Ciderspiller
I got the seed from someone in South Africa. They sent me some. ,I had two hundred seeds and this is, kind of - I've got a few more in there - but this is, kind of, the sum of that. The germination rate is really, really bad, but once they get going, there's no stopping them. They grow slowly but yeah, after two or three years they'll look like pretty decent plants. They're about a year old now and I've got pretty obsessed with them. I've just built a new propagator and it's in the living room and I've just ordered a lot of seeds from South Africa, so I'm just gonna start, sort of, mass producing them because I don't think anyone's doing it, really. There's a few people growing them. I think the problem is a lot of people assume that because they live in the desert, that they're, you know, a succulent or an arid plant, but you can't let them dry out. You can't treat them like a succulent because they don't have any water storage facilities. They need to be moist all the time. And apparently, in the desert, they do that by collecting mist. They grow on the coast and it's really misty in the morning. But if you let them dry out, they die. And if you try and repot them, and they have like one tiny little thin root and if you break that while you're repotting them, they die. They just really, kind of, want to die! They don't really want to live!
Jane Perrone
Now that is metal! You've got them in these, compared to everything else in here, these very tall pots. I guess that's to accommodate that long, thin . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
Tap root. Obviously, I think, in habitat, they go very, very deep to try and find water, but they're quite happy in a fairly normal pot; the root just curls around the bottom of the pot. But they seem to grow faster in a deeper pot and they're super cool, super cool plants.
Jane Perrone
I mean, are you thinking that you're going to, sort of, like, will you be going to cactus shows to sell these things, or selling them mail order? How do you envisage . . . because at some point you're going to have to, you can't keep all your seeds! And I'm just looking here thinking, yeah, you've got quite a lot of seedlings here!
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I guess I'll, you know, sell them, or trade them, or whatever, or just give them away. I don't know. I just find the process of growing them quite interesting, but yeah, hopefully, if I can get enough Welwitschia out into collections, that will be quite a cool thing to do because not a lot of people have them.
Jane Perrone
Totally, totally. I mean, it's one of those plants where you just cannot believe . . . If somebody had written a story where they had described this plant, you'd say, "Oh, yeah, you've made that up! It's not real!" but actually, no, they are weirder than anything you could imagine!
Martin Ciderspiller
They evolved before flowers, so they don't have flowers because they existed before flowers did and have remained unchanged since, like, the Jurassic period, or whatever. And, yeah, they just sit there in the desert. And it's the only thing that can live in that bit of Namibia. They just have, like, a huge field full of them.
Jane Perrone
I want to also ask you about - where was it? I'm just trying to see which one it was that I'm . . . Oh yes. Let's talk about the, I call it the lying down cactus, but, I mean, that's not the technical term! You've got a cactus, a columnar cactus but it, obviously, in habitat, grows horizontally and that's how you've got it growing here.
Martin Ciderspiller
It's a stenocereus eruca. They're super-cool. They grow in Baja California, in Mexico, and they, yeah, they grow lying down. They look like a normal sort of columnar cactus, but they grow along the floor. They're called the creeping devil because they do actually move across the desert, whereby the front will grow, the tip will grow, and the back of it, we'll die off. So gradually, over time, they, sort of, creep along through the desert and incredibly spiky, really aggressive spines. They produce, like, massive mats, carpets of them. If you see them in habitat, they're crazy! And then they produce little offsets which detach from the mother and crawl off in another direction.
Jane Perrone
And you've got one just starting to do that there, by the look of it. He's gonna go, you're gonna have to have a sort of a, some kind of right angles set-up here, I don't quite know. You might have to modify a pot!
Martin Ciderspiller
It's quite difficult to grow them because they do grow really, really long. So some people grow them in, like, you know, drain - what are they called? - the drain pipes that go on the side of houses. You start at one side of the greenhouse, and they just work their way across. But yeah, a fascinating plant; creeping devil. That's pretty metal as well!
Jane Perrone
That is, I mean, that's a metal band name right there! I mean, right there! If you wanted to start another band, that's what you'd call it! Any more? Anything else we want to point out? I mean, there's just so many epic plants in here. Anything that you would say - I mean, maybe it's that Sinningia that's really really old - that's, you know, getting into three figures, age-wise?
Martin Ciderspiller
Old stuff . . . I mean, a lot of these copiapoas, a lot of these mature plants are around sort of 40 / 50 years old. A lot of them, the people that grew them kept quite meticulous notes and they all were numbered, ao you can look at, like, the log of, you know . . . you've got all the information about when they were sown and when they were repotted and, you know, people were really into that sort of thing, keeping these notes. So some of them I know quite a bit of the history about, others, I know nothing about where they come from, but you can kind of compare the age. But yeah, a lot of these bigger ariocarpus are at least forty years old.
Jane Perrone
Does that give you a sort of weight of responsibility, that you're taking on this legacy from other growers, that you've got to keep them looking good?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, definitely. And, you know, these, they're 40, 50, 60 years old, but they're still only babies rarely. They'll live to 200 if they're looked after well, so it is a case of, we just look after them and eventually have to find someone to look after them after us.
Jane Perrone
I guess it's like your tortoise. It's kind of the same thing!
Martin Ciderspiller
A tortoise is pretty cactus-like, in many, many ways, yeah! You know, lives in the desert, is used to dry conditions and can survive anything.
Jane Perrone
And he loves it in here. He gets to roam around and enjoy the heat and the sunshine.
Martin Ciderspiller
He's a little greenhouse dog! Like the Aztekium and the Geohintonia, they're probably the slowest-growing plants on earth, I reckon. I've got some seedlings going and you're talking a millimetre in, like, two years. They grow in a very, very specific place in Mexico on pure gypsum rock faces and some of them out there, you know, they're kind of 20 / 30 centimetres and they must be hundreds of years old. And they're super-cool.
Jane Perrone
Yeah and I love the, some of these pots you've got up here are really lovely. And, obviously, you've got the terracotta pots, but you've also got some other cracked and textured pots which really set off the plant really well.
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah. These, particularly in California, there's a lot of, what do they call them? Potters?
Jane Perrone
I guess ceramicists.
Martin Ciderspiller
Well it's a huge thing, like, in America, at the cactus shows, like, a big part of the mark is presentation, so they present them in these incredible pots, and they stage them with rocks and all sorts of things to make them look amazing, whereas in Britain, that's kind of frowned upon. They're all presented in plastic pots, but I can see the, you know, both sides of the argument. It's about the plant, rather than the presentation. But yeah, so these pots are a huge thing in America and I follow quite a lot of the potters on Instagram, and they've very kindly sent me some cool pots. And also, these ones are from a guy called Paul Rogers in Wales, who's a really cool guy. He makes some lovely pots and he doesn't, I feel like he doesn't really know how good he is, or, you know, that there's a market for his stuff. He struggles to sell them, I think, but he's brilliant. He's at a few of the cactus shows and stuff. He mostly does bonsai. Bonsai pots are his thing. But there's a huge market, particularly in America, for this sort of pottery for cactus. The trouble is, it's so expensive. You know, to have a collection like this all in fancy pots, which a lot of people do, but they've got silly money, I think.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's where the terracotta pot comes in, I guess. I mean, for me, it's very aesthetically pleasing, as well as being right for the plant and its care needs, which is a great combination for me. You've got to take, you've got to be a little bit careful with these pots, they, I mean, I can see one up there and I can, I know exactly that saying I've got exactly that Sankey pot with exactly that same piece of damage just on the side there, but it adds to, to me, like the, you know, the plant that's in there, it kind of adds to the appeal, having a bit of a gnarly pot with a gnarly plant.
Martin Ciderspiller
Definitely.
Jane Perrone
It looks great. I mean, I think one of the things that strikes me about this collection is, I won't say the word all-consuming, but this must take up a lot of your time now? Or is it all, now it's all set up, is it not so demanding?
Martin Ciderspiller
Now it's all set up, they look after themselves. I mean I come in every day to have a little potter, just because it's a lovely, calm, relaxing place to be, especially now we've got a new puppy and it's chaos!
Jane Perrone
And the puppy is called Ario, which I presume is in reference to your plants!?
Martin Ciderspiller
Ariocarpus! Yeah, Miss Carpus! That was the compromise of getting a puppy. I'm more of a cat person but my partner Trixie really wanted a puppy, so I said fine, so long as I can name it!
Jane Perrone
Fair enough! Yes, we I think I probably had the same conversation with my husband about my dog, which is why he's called Wolfie after the character in Citizen Smith, so . . .
Martin Ciderspiller
It doesn't take up a lot of time, really, it's a day every couple of weeks to water everything and then just popping in to look at what new flowers you've got today. The only thing that takes the time is Instagram.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, I was gonna say, dealing with people sending you messages on Instagram must be quite consuming.
Martin Ciderspiller
Well, you can put in as much or as little as you want into it. I quite enjoy it, I've got quite a few, I'd say I've made some pretty good friends on there. Although, you know, you get a lot of followers but there's still only a very small few people that you're constantly in touch with. And it's nice, it's a little community. So I just post stupid stories on there. I don't really post that much content, I'd post stories every, pretty much every day, and yeah, it's kind of amusing! It's not really a job. It's fun.
Jane Perrone
And that is a great way, I guess, to connect with other people like you, who are on social media but also have collections of these plants and, you know, that's where you get seeds and connections and swaps going and all that fun stuff. Have you found that people want to come and visit you? Are you thinking of having any open days?
Martin Ciderspiller
I don't know.
Jane Perrone
Other than me, obviously, who just barges in!
Martin Ciderspiller
The vast majority of people on Instagram are from California, Southern California, for some strange reaso. I think out there, it's really hip and cool for young people to grow these plants. Whereas in this country in particular, it does tend to be fusty, old men, on the whole, not to offend anybody!
Jane Perrone
What can we do about that? I know, totally, I agree with you! The demographic is dominated by older males. Well, what do we do about that, though? Do we need to do anything about it? And if so, what can we do?
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, I agree with you. And, you know, once you do, the great thing is that those, the older men of the hobby, it's not like they're not . . . the vast majority are incredibly happy to engage with you, whoever you are, and give you information and, you know, send you seeds and swap plants with you, and things.
Martin Ciderspiller
We definitely do, but what, I don't know. I think, I don't know, making, I mean I feel like my Instagram is kind of some effort to do that but still, only people who are already into plants are going to look for a plant-based Instagram account, so how you reach out beyond that, I don't know. I really don't know. I think, you know when we were talking about the pots at shows, only being presented in plastic pots and them being quite fusty affairs, maybe livening that up a little bit might be a good thing, to move things forward? The BCSS is fantastic and it is really trying hard to get new people involved, but it does need to do it a lot faster.
Martin Ciderspiller
Yeah, nothing against them. They're, I mean, lovely people and, like you say, more than happy to share information. It's just, I don't know how, it just seems to be that not many new, young people are getting into it. I mean, I'm not young myself, you know.
Jane Perrone
It's tricky, isn't it? And if there was one, I mean, people often say, oh, you know, cacti, succulents, they're easy, you just sort of leave them and let them get on with it. I kind of worry about that because it's so easy to go buy something from a supermarket that's planted in the wrong substrate and for it to keel over and turn to mush. If you were sort of giving some advice for people who stumble across this podcast and think, "Wow, this looks really cool, but I don't know where to start", what would your advice be to sort of get yourself going in this hobby? What plant and how do you get started?
Martin Ciderspiller
Look up the BCSS, for a start. They're absolutely brilliant, a wealth of knowledge and experience and it's super-cheap to join as well.
Jane Perrone
It is! Why is it so cheap? How?
Martin Ciderspiller
Because it's still the '60s!?
Jane Perrone
It's crazy that you get that beautiful journal, whatever, is it four times a year? And it only costs £15! I don't understand the sums, but yeah, it is really cheap!
Martin Ciderspiller
I have no idea how many members they've got, but they can't . . . I don't know, they seem to do it, it all works! But yeah, join the BCSS. Just get some plants and go to these . . . like, if you look on eBay for plants, the prices of them are insane. If you go to one of these little local BCSS shows, whether it's collectors that are giving them away practically, they're so cheap and it's so sweet that they don't actually want any money, they just want to pass on these plants, or they want to make space for more plants. I don't know. Yeah, go to a local meeting and pick up some plants there rather than in the supermarket. Supermarket plants are pretty cool too, so long as you repot them in some really gritty soil, that's the main thing. You want the water to just fly through and them to dry out quite quick. The ones that you get from supermarkets tend to be potted in stuff, because they've come from, like, incredible temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled greenhouses, they're alright to grow in that stuff, but at home, they don't do well.
Jane Perrone
Indeed. Well, that's great advice and you're right, join the BCSS and get along to some of those cactus sales. So it's a generous world. And once you get into it, as you demonstrate very well, it just explodes a little bit, doesn't it? But in a great way!
Martin Ciderspiller
I think the best thing to do is, you know, growing them in a greenhouse is fantastic thing to do. They grow, in this country in particular, they grow so well in a greenhouse. There's not much to it. But I think the trick is get one greenhouse and when it gets full, that's it. Get rid of some plants! Don't just keep getting more and more and more greenhouses, unless you want to. That's cool too! But you don't have to have millions.
Jane Perrone
No. I'll remind you of that next time I come and see you!
Martin Ciderspiller
That's my advice and I'm not necessarily taking it myself!
Jane Perrone
Well that's the best kind of advice, I always think. Well, it's been lovely to meet you, Martin. Thank you so much for giving me this tour of your wonderful collection and continue rocking our world with your wonderful Instagram content because I always look at it because I know I'm not gonna get, it's just I'm so bored of that, like, Instagram music, like the one, the tracks that you always hear on everything and whenever I get onto one of your stories, or something, I know I'm gonna get something that's gonna wake me up and make me smile, so thank you very much and a delight to meet you!
Jane Perrone
Find Martin at Big Cactus Rescue on Instagram and he has a website, bigcactusrescue.org It's a total delight! Please do go and check it out. That's all for this week's show. I will be back next Friday. I will see you then. We will have a good week. Let's keep this positivity going, goddammit! The music you heard in this episode was 'Roll Jordan, Roll', by The Joy Drops; 'An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day Gokarna', by Samuel Corwin and 'Whistle' by Benjamin Banger. All Tracks are licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
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I visit Martin Ciderspiller’s epic cactus collection, Big Cactus Rescue, to find out why heavy metal music and spiny plants make such good company.
This week’s guest
Martin is a live sound engineer by trade, but during the Covid pandemic he discovered a passion for cacti. He set up Big Cactus Rescue - the name was a hat tip to the popular pandemic Netflix hit, Tiger King, and Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue - and quickly grew his collection, specialising in particularly ‘brutal’ cacti such as Ariocarpus. He lives with his partner Trixie, their new puppy Ario (after Ariocarpus), and his tortoise Sherman, who lives in his greenhouse.
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Check out the show notes below as you listen…
Martin’s favourite cacti are Ariocarpus and Copiapoa - in his opinion the most brutal of all the succulents!
Copiapoa are from the Atacama desert in Chile and are extremely slow growing. They capture moisture from mists rather than rainfall.
Ariocarpus come from Mexico and grow in rocky limestone landscapes, and are also very slow growing.
Martin pots most of his collection in old terracotta pots.
His cacti are planted in cat litter made from pink molar clay, which drains really fast, with a small amount of sieved John Innes substrate.
He collects mulches for his cacti from gravel he finds on his travels.
The huge caudiciform Gesneriad I remark upon is Sinningia leucotricha - more on this species in episode 225. Scroll down for a picture.
Martin uses two fan heaters to keep his greenhouse at a minimum of 5C in winter. He lets cacti dry out in October and only starts watering again once nighttime temperatures are above 10C.
Welwitschia mirabilis grows in the Namib desert in Namibia is one of longest living plants on earth. It’s a gymnosperm - like the cycads and conifers - producing cones rather than flowers. They are usually found near the coast as they get water from catching moisture from fog.
Stenocereus eruca aka the creeping devil is native to northwestern Mexico . It grows horizontally, migrating around the desert.
Martin’s slowest growing plants are probably Aztekium and Geohintonia, growing perhaps 1mm in two years.
The Welsh ceramicist Martin mentions is Paul Rogers.
Scroll down for more images from Martin’s collection. Click on an image to enlarge it. All images are copyright Jane Perrone.
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day, Gokarna by Samuel Corwin and Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com).