January
The weather at this time of year is not always conducive to spending time in the greenhouse but there are some jobs that can be done. For instance, you can rewrite any labels that are becoming unreadable and you can make sure that you have a stock of clean pots for when the time comes to start repotting. There are even some plants such as Rhipsalis that are in flower and can be watered lightly on sunny days.
Western Flower Thrips have been mentioned in the Newsletter over the last few months and this is the time to do something about them. If they are not controlled they will mark new lithops and conophytum bodies as they appear in spring. Remove the top dressing and the top layer of compost from around the plants and remove any dead material from around the base of the plant. Replace the compost with dry material to which has been added an insecticidal powder such as gamma BHC then replace the top dressing. I have used this method for the last two seasons and there has been a notable reduction in damage to the new heads on lithops but I do not think that the pests can be eradicated completely.
Towards the end of the month you can begin to think about repotting cacti provided that you use dry compost.
