Hello, super new and super dumb here but if I could bother anybody to answer a few very basic questions about growing dragon fruit I would be so very grateful.. I really want to start growing Dragon Fruit (happy to keep it indoors when necessary due to my zone) but particularly a yellow. I found a place that has a yellow variety cutting in stock and in their description they say it is best to grow with 2-3 other varieties for cross pollination. I've looked up how to do the pollinating myself but, probably because this is such a stupid question, I haven't actually heard somebody directly state if a yellow dragon fruit can cross pollinate with a red variety for instance. My impression is you can but if you grow another fruit from the seeds produced it'll be a new variety and that's one reason (in addition to ease/speed) people use cuttings, to maintain favorable variety. I just don't want to buy the only yellow cutting I can find available online at the moment and pair it with something I'm too ignorant to realize isn't compatible. Also how would I cross pollinate with more than one variety if I were to buckle down and dedicate enough house space to three plants..? Do I just gather pollen from all three and swap or is it just best to shuffle it up after a harvest or two so it's not always the same thing..? Another thing that seems important, is there any way to influence two or more plants to flower at the same time? Do they have the internal clock or do I just hope for the best? I know the flowers don't last long and I've heard you can freeze the pollen for up to 30 days if you really need to but even then at the very least I can't pollinate the first flower I see. Not a big deal I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing. Or can I buy a red variety that is self pollinating but also use that to pollinate a yellow variety that isn't..?
I would love to ask ten more questions and really go into this as prepared as possible but I'm also happy to fail until I get it right and really I just want to understand the cross pollination thing so I'll stop there. Thanks so much to anybody who let me take their time and good day to all

Ok, first off, your best bet is to start back a few pages and read up on past discussion. a lot of questions about pollinization, crossbreeding and such can be found there. Second, do NOT grow dragon fruit thinking your main crop is going to be the yellow fruit. The Megalanthus, the yellow that's actually good, is a giant pain in the rear to grow and to get to produce, and even harder to wait for, as it has a ripening time up to 3 TIMES that of common dragon fruit. What you should strive for is to produce a collection of fruit, and if you want to include the yellow into that, that's fine. Try and pick yourself up a good red/magenta variety, like American Beauty, or others, for fruit production, one of the sweeter white ones for presentation, and as I recommend to everyone, try and get at least one S-8 "sugar dragon" for both flavor and pollen production. You can add yellows, or anything else you fancy, to this list. Yellow Megalanthus is not what I would call a 'beginners' variety. I grew it for a while and Ive removed it from my collection. I have limited space and it wasn't worth the resources required to maintain it.
Other than that, welcome to the community. I'm sure we can help you get into the groove of things here.

S8 and Voodoo Child have been DNA tested by the research team in Irvine and they are NOT the same variety. They are extremely similar and might even be from the same 2 parent strains, but its not a 100% match. I don't have access to the link right now but I do know its somewhere on the Yahoo groups for dragon fruit.

Brandon, if you are interested in getting some cuttings I can hook you up with a few. I also live in Ontario, CA, and I have plenty of plant material to pass some on. Private message me if you are interested.
p.s. If anyone else is interested in cuttings of S8 Sugar Dragon, Haley's Comet, Orejona, American Beauty or a few others I'd be happy to pass them along. Has to be in person though, as I had a bad experience sending plants through the mail and I try to avoid that whenever possible now.

Totally depends on the size of the pot. a 15 gallon container should accommodate a plant for its entire life. Smaller pots might restrict growth and end up being root bound. Given the option, I would grow all my plants in pots from now on, as it makes water and nutrient management so much easier to control, plus it protects from most garden pests that bother roots. But, if you are concerned about appearance, you can plant in the soil. Or you can do both, by digging a hole large enough to sink a plastic or ceramic pot into the ground, up to its rim, and then planting that way. Try and add a foot or so of gravel under the pot for drainage and offset your post/trellis so it doesn't penetrate your pot and you can sport healthy plants and hidden containers.

My neighbor has a selection of unidentified cereus shich were left behind when the nursery she bought went out of business.
I'm attaching photos of two of these. in case anyone here can help ID these.

The first appears to me to be Selenicereus Megalanthus, yellow dragon fruit, based on the semi-circular scalloped edges. Do you agree?





The second has straight edges different from any cereus I've seen. Any idea what this is?
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The first photo is a variety of red fruit, not sure exactly the species because there were a lot of experimentals floating around, especially in California, but its a crossbreed of Costaricensis. It's 100% not Megalanthus, because the yellow variety has single, woody thorns, like a rose. I have a couple plants with the inverted scalloping in my garden, including one yellow that refuses to die (gave up on yellow a while ago), and theres a clear difference. I had one variety that either a pure heirloom Costa or a seriously demented crossbreed; wicked thorns and almost pointed scalloping, but it produced some of the best tasting fruit Ive had. Not too sweet, but very flavorful, and VERY solid fruit. It didn't mush when you were eating it, had more of a melon texture. I had pictures, but my PC has crashed a few times since then, so if I'm lucky, I might be able to dig something up for comparison.
BTW, the second photo does look like the plant I have that I was originally told was Orejona, but I think I matched it to Cebra. Red fruit, baseball sized, very scaly when mature. So red, in fact, that if you eat more than one at a time, some of the pigment can actually pass into your urine. Gave me a hell of a fright the first time it happened, before I figured out what was going on. I mention this to species to my cooking friends, as it makes for an excellent organic red food coloring when 'juiced'.

S8, Megalanthus and American Beauty?

Summer growth is rapid. Some people claim to have seen an inch a day growth on plants. Ideally, for 3 seasons out of the year (spring, summer and fall) you should be watering enough to keep the soil other than completely dry. Once a week is usually enough. Don't fertilize that often, though (every 2 weeks at most)

Welcome to the fold 
First off, you should try and keep the plant potted, not in ground, if your landscape allows. This gives you more control over watering and soil conditions, and protects you from things like gophers. A 15 gallon pot is more than enough for a dragon fruits entire life span. Secondly, how you grow it is going to depend on where you plan on putting it, and what sort of area that is. Up against a fence? Middle of the yard? Stuff like that. The traditional route is to grow these up a post of some sort, up and through an elevated ring or support, which takes the load of the plants eventual weight, and grow them in an umbrella-like canopy. 1-3 main stems are trained up the post, using gardeners tape or burlap rope, with the remaining side growth trimmed away, and as the stems get to the required height, they are topped, or cut, to prevent further growth on those stems. This forces the plant to start producing side branches again, but at the top of the plant (hopefully). These are trained up though and over the support on top, and then allowed to hang back down. Hanging branches produce more fruit, with it having something to do with the necessary hormones being pushed further down the branches and collecting there.
There are dozens of good ideas on how to support your fruit, and a quick google or YouTube search (growing dragon fruit) should hopefully yield something you can use in your particular situation. At the end of the day, though, the main idea is to end up with long hanging branches.
As a side note, though, I would suggest that, if you have the space, you consider starting a second plant. Without knowing what variety you have there, you would be best off having a second, clearly different species, for both pollination and general fruit production. Some will produce fruit without a second plant, but unless you know for sure what type you bought, I wouldn't risk it. Waiting a year or two to find out can be a disappointment.
Oh, and as for the roots, these plants tend to grow roots on the surface, not deep, so the best way to go about transplanting would be, if you can, use a box cutter type knife to slit the old pot enough to wedge it open a little, then try and take the entire root ball + soil out in one piece. Make sure the soil is nice and dry, to prevent it from crumbling. Not watering the cactus wont hurt it for even weeks at a time, so you don't have to worry about that. Just make sure when you transplant, wherever it goes, try to keep the top of the old soil even with the new location. Don't try and bury it deep; these plants aren't fond of that.

Anyone know if that variety is self fertile btw? If not, anyone in the area that can help her out with some pollen? I don't think mailing some would survive the trip

Since we're getting into that time of year when our thought turn to dragon fruit and the lovely, yet finicky, flowers they come from, I thought I would take the time to pass along a few tips on how I go about doing my pollinating and the tools I use to do it. Here are a few pictures to help with the more visual types among us:









In order of appearance are the following:
1. A digital scale. Mostly for use at the end of the process, weighing fruit, so you can show off the results of your mighty fruit creation skills. We all need something to brag about, and what's not to love about sharing.
2. A refractometer. Again, this is another 'after the fact' tool. Its used to measure the amount of dissolved solids in a liquid, namely how much sugar is in fruit juice, MORE namely how much sugar is in your dragon fruit. These come in both digital (shown) and optical varieties. The optical looks like a cross between a flute and a spyglass, and it very easy to use if you decide you have enough interest in the hobby to have dedicated testing tools like this.
3. Pollen Dehydrator. This is a custom item I built myself, and I use it to remove moisture from the collected pollen before I store it in the freezer. It works like a common food dehydrator, except its a mostly sealed environment (with the door closed) and I do not add heat (pollen is sensitive). Running a small fan in the box circulated the air through an area of Silica Gel (those "DO NOT EAT" packets you find in packaging) and that draws out the extra water and makes the pollen less likely to be damaged by extended stays in the freezer.
4. My worktrays. To avoid excess contamination, I tend to lean towards ceramic for work surfaces and these sized trays do the job nicely. They clean easily, are almost completely non-stick and the high white finish allows me to pick out foreign objects (plant parts, bugs, thorns, etc.) both before and after drying.
5. Pollination brush. Most of the time I directly manipulate the flowers to apply pollen, but sometimes can prove difficult to get at, tucked in between pointy branches, so I use the brush to extend my reach. Any soft bristle brush will do, as long as its clean and free from contaminants (aka, don't use your significant other's makeup brush). Also, the stick end helps with moving and poking at various things, like bugs and flower petals.
6. Funnel and pollen tubes. The plastic sample tubes I use are small 20cc plastic sample tubes, with attached lids. Easy to find in bulk and cheap on places like Ebay. With the matching tray, they are perfect for upright storage in the freezer and don't take up too much space. The funnel is pretty self explanatory, and is used for putting pollen in tubes.
7. The pollen collecting scoops. Now, here's a biggy. I use these to collect my pollen from the flowers, usually in the early morning before I go to work. The shape of the tools is very important. The larger of the two, and the one I use most often, is just a simple Ice Scoop that I reshaped using metal cutting snips. The more pointed end and wide back matches the shape of the flower very well and allows me to maximize pollen yields. Also, I filed down the cut edges so they are nice and smooth, so as to not damage the internal parts of the flower. The actual tool you use is less important than the shape. I've had other people Ive talked to use 1 and 2 liter plastic bottles, cut on a slant, to do the same job, and it seems just as effective.
8. Pollen sorting tools. I use these to both clear the collected pollen of foreign objects and to scoop pollen into the funnel. You should do your best to avoid touching the pollen with your hands, as the oils on your fingers can do bad things to living things that small.
Ok, now that's were through that, here are what I hope are a few helpful tips to get you more fruit.
First off, if you have multiple fruit varieties, the order in which you pollinate is very important. I always try to collect the pollen from one plant variety first, then move on to the next, first pollinating the second plant's flowers with pollen from the first, then going back and collecting the seconds pollen for use on the next plant. You're always going to get better results if you cross pollinate, even if some on the varieties you're working with are self fertile. Its worth the extra time to make that last trip back to the beginning of the loop to make sure you're mixing, not matching.
Next, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty, or in this case pollen-y. If the flowers are easy to get at, and at a good height, Ill just reach into the flower and grab it by the lady parts (the long thick Pistil that extends from the center of the flower and ends in a starfish-like shape) and dip the end of it directly into my pollen catcher. Gentle but firm. You're not going to harm the flower by doing this if you're at all careful and its a good way to pollinate quickly if you have a lot of flowers in one area.
On a related note, collecting the actual pollen is just as simple. Just insert your pollen catcher into the flower, in the space between the white petals and the yellow stamen that surround the pistil (lady parts), and give the entire flower a good shake or tap. The pollen will come right off and into your collector. Flick out any large foreign objects but leave the removal of the smaller stuff until later, when you can get at it with clean tools.
Before you're done for the day, though, (hopefully) you'll have left over pollen. However you decide to do it, just make sure it has a chance to dry in a warm, dry place for at least 8 hours ( I usually do 24 without the dehydrator) to allow for proper storage condition. You can use coffee filters as your drying medium if you don't want to do anything fancy, but just make sure the pollen is undisturbed and free from added contaminants like dust or animal hair. To be safe, you can even add a second coffee filter on top of the first, once the pollen is added, to act as a protective layer.
Ive had successful pollination months after storage, so if you ever find yourself with extra pollen, its never a bad idea to put some aside for later, because with the various conditions (wind, bees, etc) you never know when some leftovers will come in handy.
I hope this helps out a few people, and here's to hoping for a successful season to everyone.

Ok, I can see the S-8 branches tucked in there now. Had to zoom in a bit . Congrats on the flowers.

If you have the room you should use the 15 gallon pot option. It will give you enough room for the expected lifespan of the plant. Just remember, whatever soil mixture you decide to use, make sure you don't fill the pot over 75% on the initial planting. This will give you room to both add solid soil type fertilizer in the future and to add water (and water based fertilizers) without waste, so you can just dump water ion by the gallon without having to slowly pour it in while trying to prevent overflow and spillage. If you bury your pot, again, leave about 25% above the surface for convenience and, if possible, throw in a couple inches of gravel under the pot to help with drainage in wet times. You can also have (traditionally) up to 3 cuttings in a 15 gallon pot, so if you want to have some variety or need cross pollination, you should have at least two varieties per pot. It helps to take some of the workload off the bees and other pollinators having mixed flowers so close together.