Stillman

I grow all Gymnos under shade cloth after doing some reading the bulk of the more common to cultivar species grow in grass lands through filtered light, and in my experience can handle frightening amounts of water during summer. The first G mihanovichii was found a metre under water during flooding. It was taken back to Europe and survived.

good luck with that looks like it has taken nicely, once you get a feel for peres the options seem endless.

I read they fix nitrogen by drawing it through the air? they use them to hold sand dunes together and apparently quite salt hardy. I'm keen to grow a heap out and see what happens.

Interesting to know they have male and female plants, I started 50 seeds so fingers crossed I get a few of each, I'm starting mine under lights controlled temp etc good time of year so fingers crossed I get a good strike.

I have a few seeds which I have just planted. interesting plant/ shrub, I am still doing some research, apparently takes 6 years to fruit. Anyone know much about propagating / uses? from Wiki http://en.wikipedia....phae_rhamnoides and the oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_buckthorn_oil

I think they are self fertile, I read you can force them by pollinating with another species of cacti but alas No pollen at all at present from any of my cacti, so might knock it in the fridge for next time one of my other Astros flowers? Sorry I meant self sterile.

Well its stopped raining and the sun came out and this Astrophytum flower finally opened. Have recently become obsessed by Astros after seeing old mature species.

awesome sites looking forward to reading the gymno e cheers

Was Matucana once Parodia? Just curious as I just came a across few similar cacti labelled Parodia.

Not sure on ID but my god your grafting tech is spot on, so neat man, and the root stock is certainly a nice big healthy beast. That thing is going to Pump, especially when it gets in a bit more dirt.

good advice mate. I will slowly hybridise the light fit out. My neighbour is a sparky and I am hoping to hook the set up onto a battery solar set up down the track and expand it by a couple shelves not sure what something like that will cost me but I am hoping to get into plant propagation in a pretty "serious Hobby way", in the next 18 months. Even though the lights are going to sting me maybe $60 a month there out put is impressive, keeps the area at 30 degrees currently and the seedlings are not getting leggy I'm seeing some nice growth.

yeah sorry wrong state Brisbane.

some of the big Trichos have some evil spines big T spach are real nasty to handle from my own experience, but there are probably more vicious. prickly pear has a love that keep giving.

I dunno mate I'm sure there would be some association or club near you. I'm not in the Queensland cacti association yet But I'm going to join, there are just too many good contacts not to be a part of it.

Lights including bulbs and screws cost me $62 each bulb is a 20 watt cfl so 10 in total. 200watts of electricity, as long as I have a shit load of seeds and cuttings under them its justifiable. Only really just set it up so will have to see how the lights perform, I'm thinkings its a bit of overkill for seedlings but so be it.

what sort of light are you guys using? I have some peres grafts under 20 watt cfls they seem to crank but I would have thought nowing how many lumens it is.. that it wasn't enough?

Picture of the front garden my best graft that I have done to date,a Cereus monstrose the original plant is 3 years old the cutting about 2 months maybe less. the cutting was the smallest arm its about 3 times its original size the root stock is a little barrel echinopsis I got from bunnings the ones that pup and pup and pup. Really vigorous growth Its fantastic. Bits and peices of my Gymno and Astrophytum collection mostly Gymnos lol My seedling /grafting shelves so far so good. a pic of some of the big pieces of Trich spach I got of Tipz and few bits and peices I grafted a Trich Tersch on top of one of the peices seems to have taken

Yeah he wasn't keen on getting in the photo but I needed something or someone for scale thats some sort of big pachycereus on the left and the yellow thing was just a monster it was about 5 metres tall just one big column. I was thinking next time I will take my video camera and see if he will let me take some images because there was some really amazing things out there. He had a Lophoroph shottii monstrose that had formed like a hedge, was selling big thick rooted 30cm pieces for 30 dollars. For some reason I didn't jump on it. But I think I was really overwhelmed because everywhere there was something amazing. My biggest problem when going out to places lkike that is I don't automatically see something and recognise what it is. Obviously certain things jump out at me but he no doubt had some stuff that was rare as hens teeth that I just looked straight through. Anyway all of them will be at the June/ july cacti meeting at the botanical gardens I am going this year for sure.

Hi am setting up a good sized grow room to start of a shit ton of cacti am looking to purchase fresh cacti seeds. Most species I would be interested in but chasing. Astrophytum Interesting flowering lobivia or echinopsis Trichocereus Gymnocalycium Any good cacti for grafting Any and all lol Please PM me if you have any I might be interested in, Cheers.

the photos don't do it justice he has a massive collection. A bit of everything.

Well had the chance to visit an excellent private cacti garden today, some of the collection was a good 30 years old, the owner has had a recent leg injury so in his own words had neglected his collection but GOD I just thought it was a beautiful place. I got a stack of bits and pieces and learnt a fair bit from having a good chat about propagating from seed and graft. I will hopefully get back out there at the start of spring.

google it there are whole web sites dedicated to LW some really interesting articles and also tips on flowering etc.

no not from bunnings that I have seen but on here alot of peeps grow it.

JUst guessing could be E backbergi (spelling?) or perhaps a gymnocalycium possibly baldianum cross. How big are they? from the image they look really small? pretty cool looking would be interesting to see what they grow into.

could be have one very similar sold as Terscheckii from hamiltons