IndianDreaming

They look like fantastic tools Got - I think with 12 trays in the shelves I'm gonna spend the $3 and invest. So - a bit reluctantly, I've taken some shots of my dungeon dwelling Frankenstein freaks that suffered though my learning curve... Maybe someone can learn what not to do by seeing these, or maybe if you see yours heading in this direction you'll be able to rectify the problem before they get shunted to the dungeon of disasters... Sunburn Etiolated Lack of nutrients - Left in the container too long - Put in too bright light - These are surprisingly 18 months old! They're still alive and I'm in the process of picking them out and transplanting them... The repair centre - these looked the same as above but are on the mend after re-potting, it'll take awhile but they will spring back. I learned a lot though these failures. The etiolated ones above all fell over like Got mentioned and I didn't know about gravel or pumice or scoria - I did try a few toothpicks as stakes but it was a futile exercise. Get onto any problems you notice early. I could have saved the sunburnt ones because I saw them gently whitening, then 2 hours later they were yellow and red, burnt and wilted. The biggest thing I learned was what Ceres mentioned, light is a killer. I've now found the 4 sweet spots in my yard. Full sun Dappled shade all day Morning Dappled Sun for 2-3 hours Full shade all day with bright ambient light 4. is currently where all these little Frankies are living, 3. is where my latest hardened off cacti are, 2. is where I have the larger seedlings, 1. is for the big boys Hopefully someone will see the signs of one of the above issues and be able to fix the problem before it gets too bad.

Dandelion root, Milk Thistle, Burdock root - doesn't taste too bad either

Got: Probably more like mug sized, 400-500ml - I think you're right, a tablespoon is a bit much, I was thinking of changing it to half a teaspoon in the last batch, but it looked like such a small amount when I put it in that I just plopped some more in. The temperature is the soil temp - The middle top container has a temp/humidity probe in it that goes 3mm into the soil (you can see the wires in the pic above) - So the surface temp of the soil got to 34 - which I think might be uncomfortably high - I've read that 41 deg c is the point where you should panic - but with the lids on, at 34 deg, the humidity was 88% - which may help. I'm wondering if the 41 deg is the temp of desert sand without humidity. It's too close for comfort so I'll be raising them up slightly with some wire mesh and will be able to tell within 20 or so minutes if that's enough. Thanks for the comments, I'd thought of mesh, but not the wood or foam, they're both great options if the mesh doesn't cut it. Ceres: Wow - they're some really nice looking seedlings - especially at the hardening off stage. That's when my last lot went red, and yes, I put them out in sunlight that was too bright and they burned, very quickly. I'll take a photo and post it here so that people can see what the sunburn looks like - if you know what to look for you can probably whip them out of the sun before damage happens. It was about a 2 hour period at midday that burned a whole tray of seedlings I put them into some darkened high humidity shelves for a week and they have started to spring back to l life, although they'll be scarred. Ceres: How do you get the seedlings out when transplanting? I've been using the handle of a fork to dig in beside the seedlings and pry them out... Regarding Pumice: For Victorian members, I contacted Ausperl.com.au and there's a supplier of horticultural pumice in sizes of 1mm-4mm, 1mm-7mm and 4mm-10mm - 'Sure Gro' in Dingley Village. For Sydney folk, you can probably contact Ausperl as their main office is in Sydney. I'll let you know what the prices are etc.. when I contact Sure Gro if anyone is interested. I have the same, 'float to the top' issues with perlite and the scoria I have locally is too big. Edit: Here is the temperature/humidity sensor I'm using, it was $2.50 from ebay - there's also dial type ones for $2.50 too - It's been an extremely useful gadget and works perfectly.

^ Hmm, maybe Stillman is the worlds best photoshop artist... My punky is still in it's pot - Finding time to get it in the ground is proving challenging... So I'll settle for throwing wild photographic manipulation accusations @ stillman for now to try and save face :)

I started with lophs in straight sand in a takeaway container on the windowsill. They didn't germinate well and because it was my first attempt, I think I got the water/light mix wrong. They germinated in about 3 weeks, but after a month or so, looked sickly and eventually 90% died. I managed to save about 4 out of 30 germinated from 100 seeds. I've finally got the shelves I built lit up and they're working a treat. The lights are mounted up in the bottoms of the shelving trays and they heat through the shelf and keep the containers at 29-32deg c - All up the lights put out 100 watts. So that's 27 watts per shelf (2 rows of 1.25m). 5m x LED Strip (3014, 180LEDS/m, Lum 2070, 21.6W/m - Approx 90Lm/w, 5500k) The soil mix I'm using now seems to be going well - I've done 3 lots with this mix and haven't had any problems and have almost 90+% germination and zero deaths - so I scaled up and planted 12 containers of various cacti, and I'm trying my luck with mugwort, silene capensis, calea z and a few other things I've had trouble germinating. I chose this mix because the seed raising mix and coir have a slow release fert in them - my biggest problem is planting out, so this mix seems to be very tolerant of neglect, but may succumb to damping off if too wet. - 2 cups osmocote seed raising mix - 2 cups coarse sand - 1 cup coconut coir - 1 tablespoon dolomitic lime I've had these containers in the shelves for 1 week running for 14 hours on, 10 hours off and they started germinating yesterday - so 6 days and they're off! These are the shelves This is the dirt (I don't flatten it because I find the seeds fall into the grooves nicely) These are the lophs that are a little over a month old in the mix mentioned above Question: What is the max temperature cactus seeds can handle? On a hot day the temp got up to 34deg c

This is a Loph on an SS02 x Bridge - the first shot is my phone, taking a photo of the macro shots below There's a slight gap under the edge of the scion, but it looks like it has healed on ok - time will tell I guess.

I think these are Coprinus comatus - growing on a lawn as I walked by These were in the bushes next to the aforementioned lawn

They look awesome Stillman - next time you're out with your camera, could you get a shot of one from the side? I'm yet to acquire a Gymnocalycium, so I live vicariously through others

^ Yes, that's what I thought... I haven't found a local supplier yet. The big Bun.. doesn't stock it here. I did find a importer of pumice from your neck of the woods: http://www.australianperlite.com/pumice/horticulture/ I'll see if I can find a local outlet. It's funny you mention dreaming about your plants, after I'd re-potted 60+ cacti I dreamt about them all night, it was the tops of them and the spines were unfolding with new growth - fun, but spikey! Carry on with the Ario's - mighty fine specimens you've procured there! They look a lot like the one you borrowed to draw - the Ario faeries are with you

Ceres: How fine is the pumice? I've looked around for it, but the stuff I see for sale is as fine as talc powder - is yours grainy or powdery?

Santalum species are worth a bit - but that's a long term plan (15+ years), and its a regulated market too I think.

If gardening teaches anything, its patience! I've lost a lot of plants poking around or over loving them I planted my first Acacia 2 years ago - out of 40 seeds only 2 survived, and they're the 2 that I forgot about and didn't pamper

Hi Cubism! I saw the first seedling poke its head out after about 12 days. Most seem to be 2-3-4+ weeks for me. Some are only just poking out now after 6 weeks or so. Be patient, when I first grew some plants from seed, I dug around to see if they were germinating and - well... they were, up until the point I broke their roots with my boofy finger! Here's a pic of one that I pulled out to replant - its a struggling one that's about 5 weeks old and was planted in a clump of about 8 seedlings, you can see the root going through a piece of bark! - when they're planted so close, they seem to form a tap root and don't branch out much - but I've noticed when they're planted singly, the roots branch a lot more - they're friendly to their neighbour it seems. This is one that has been growing about 5cm away from any other seedling.

Looks a bit like oreocereus celsianus - but I'm not the person to ask - maybe EG?

Hi Woodwoman! Do you have pics on a site that doesn't require signup? Or feel free to copy and post them here - everyone loves a good pic

Wow - that one on the left is gorgeous!

Sweet! Cereus it is The Loph seeds are from a member here - I'll have to do a bit of detective work to work out which batch they are from and hence which member. I've grown about 100 of these before and they were all the same - it'll be damn interesting to see what comes of it Hang on - I just checked my messages - I think they're from you Jox! Just checked again - Myco - the seeds I've grown that have the funky forked one are from you. Your personal cacti may be gone, but their offspring live on! And, they're top quality too because I purchased them in late October last year... and there's about 80-90% germination still after 12 months...

My first freak... anyone care to name it? And... Mutant loph?? Hiding there amongst the round bobbly ones is a little forked one!

She made a wise move - upgrade girlfriend 1.0 to wife 1.0, you may get less sex, but you'll be able to claim half the phone as yours and play games instead

I have an Android phone with SNESoid emulator - I play SNES games on my phone all the time, MarioKart works a treat :-) All these 'high quality graphics', 'low quality game play' phone games are crap compared to SNES on a phone. I prefer Mario over flinging chickens... Nice tunes ballz If you have a smart phone (and by that I mean not one that's named after a fruit) then you can get awesome game emulators...

Tarenna & Doublebono: If you pm me your address, I'll split the peru x pach with you both, I'm really only interested in the Macro so I'm happy to pass on the others. Thanks Jack!

Thanks Jack!

Hello! Macro's eh - don't have any of those...

^ The bells!!! The bells!!!

No worries - I've drank it a bit, I usually have St Mary's Thistle and Dandelion Root with it though to help counteract the liver issues.