Marina Welham's Archive
Notocactus uebelmannianus flowers at an early age. In fact it flowered the first year and quickly outgrew the small two inch pot it came in. I grow most of my cacti in a mixture of John Innes compost mixed with coarse grit and perlite in the ratio of one part grit, one part Perlite to three parts John Innes.
We hope you enjoy these photos of plants provided by members of THE AMATEURS’ DIGEST. These photos have either been published in our past issues or will appear in future issues with more detailed information including advice on how to grow them.
Those who often dismiss opuntias as nothing but prickly, uninteresting plants, might be overlooking some very interesting species not the least of which is Opuntia pachypus. This cactus was first described by Karl Schumann in 1904.
There are many hybrids of the Christmas Cactus. And it is, by the way, really a cactus. Plants and flowers can vary in shape and color. Flowers may be white or almost any shade of pink or red.
50 pages of articles with photos PLUS 1750 color photographs of cacti, other succulents, caudiciforms & collectibles. 215+ genera, 1100+ species, subspecific taxa & hybrids. BIG selection of Caudiciforms & Other Collectibles: 75+ genera, 300+ species and around 250 photos of 25 genera of cold hardy species, hybrids and varieties including many plants never before published.
Nearly everybody’s grandma grew Hen and Chicks in her garden. She could enjoy these reliable succulents with minimum time spent on their care. Each year the central, fleshy rosette would surround itself with little duplicate plants, hence Hen and Chicks.
Featured image above: An AI text-to-image impression of Parodia werneri, previouslyknown as Notocactus uebelmannianus. Our featured image on this post is Parodia werneri, from The Amateur’s Digest. Parodia werneri was previously known as Notocactus uebelmannianus. Plant & Photo: Bev and Kermit Bender – USA The Special Edition of 1993 is bound in a white plastic
Name that cactus …. Since the Holidays are coming up for 2019-2020, I have chosen to scan one of Marina’s own Holiday issues for you to enjoy. The plants on the cover (excuse me, I don’t know what they are) look like Christmas candles. Merry Cactusmas! This is Volume 6, Issue 5, January 1995. Happy Holidays! everyone. I’m Kathleen, Marina Welham’s daughter,
Featured image above: Cactus fireworks. Marina launches the very first issuethat will become The Amateurs’ Digest. Now, here’s a real collector’s item: Marina’s first-ever print edition of The Amateurs’ Digest under its original name, Cacti & Other Succulents. This was a toughie to scan. It took me as long to scan this 8-page first issue as it has taken me
Today, to celebrate Marina’s “1994 Special Edition” coming online, let me treat Marina’s new and old readers to an excerpt from the 1994 Special Edition (paper issue), an article entitled: “How Do Succulent Seeds Sprout?” complete with diagram.
Featured image above; An AI text-to-image impression of Mesembryanthemum cordifolium. The Amateurs’ Digest 1994 Special Edition is now online. It arrived from Terrace Horticultural Books on Tuesday, this week, the 17th of September 2019 along with 19 other issues. So my scanning homework is mounting! A “Special Edition” is the extra issue published annually after each
Twenty back issues arrived today in near-mint condition from from Terrace Horticultural Books, “Used and rare books, seed and plant catalogs, ephemera and periodicals bought and sold”. Thank you, Terrace!
Featured image above; BB the talking parrot loves to open the mail in Marina’s home office. I’ve been shopping! And this is the first of two big packages ordered last week, the one from Biblio.com that came in today, and the other from Terrace Horticultural Books, “Used and rare books, seed and plant catalogs, ephemera and periodicals bought and sold,” which I am still expecting. The
The Amateurs’ Digest, Issue No. 6 of Volume 5 (March 1994) is now online and marks the start of year six for Marina’s print journals. That same year, Marina published her first Caudex Booklets.
Marina launched her specialty Caudex booklets in year six of her print publication, The Amateurs’ Digest. The Caudex booklets are addressed to collectors of mostly Caudex plants. Unlike TAD, that was made from printers’ plates, the Caudex booklets are photocopies of Caudex articles collected from issues of The Amateurs’ Digest to that date, then folded and saddle-stitched.
I’ve discovered that Marina’s article, “How Dangerous are Euphorbias?”, is quoted and linked around the Internet. Including at Wikipedia. I had already put it back online here at The Amateurs’ Digest Archive, but I’ve just added the question and answer exchange at the end, along with pictures. Hope you enjoy it. Update 19 June 2023. Marina’s article, “How
Hello, everyone. I’m back, and I’ve managed to rescue two nice articles with pics from The Wayback Machine for the “Articles Revived” page on the top menu: 1. Dream Garden Comes True by Steve Miles of Colorado, and 2. Adam’s Very Hardy Needle by Doug Rowland, UK And, totally cool, I have discovered that we can have round thumbnails in WordPress galleries! They work like regular thumbnails,
Click on the cover to read the issue! There’s a cartoon at page 9 of this issue with the article, “Dual Speakers: A Dual Solution” by Calvin J. Eichler. The two people shaking hands are the spitting image of Roy and Marina. God knows where they found this cartoon, but it’s a real hoot, if you knew them. If you never met them, now you know. By the way, if you
Too bad I didn’t find it sooner. But, I’m using it now, and for some of the cactus and succulent photos, a 200% enlargement really increases the detail and color. So, if you have old, little photos, this is the tool for you. It’s at https://www.photoenlarger.com/ and it’s by Zygomatic. It’s free, and it takes about 5-10 seconds to convert a small photo into a big one. Four quality versions are
Triumphantly, I have just rescued quite a lot of photos from The Amateur’s Digest that are scattered in the Wayback Machine. Marina’s original web pages are a standard menu to which articles and pictures of plants were added over time. When the Wayback Machine takes a snapshot of a web site, it usually doesn’t copy the whole thing. So, in order to find missing photos in The Amateurs’ Digest site,
I just had a wonderful gift by email from someone who knew Marina in the year or so before she died. Marina didn’t like having her picture taken, but she allowed this one so long as her face was not in the viewfinder.