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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCS2zDFjO1I

checked the home build propogator found some random mycology checked germinatia and 1 pelecyphora aselliformis sprouted, also my first ever varigated seedling: a white macrogonus!!! colossus arrived this morning too but that wasn't all, my wishes to the cactus fairy paid off big time , and the spells cast for it to arrive safely :3 also arriving at the very same time ... beautiful validus seeds.. . so i fkn sowed 2 pots of 10 each along with a pot of 10 BBBbridgesiiXvalidus that also arrived at exactly the same time and I moved the acacia confusa out of the home build propogator to make room for the colossus So I snapped some pics and some pics of my italian terscheckii while i fantasised over it really being a validus and the valle fertil san huan terscheckii - the crap on it is DE from ages ago when I thought it worked against spidermite the first time I encountered them after getting horny over the tips, I started to eye up all the other sexy tips juuls scop colossus and the rootate I got my invoice from the cool german scopulicolus shop and again , a pleasure to deal with , I wish uk shops were this cool as standard like it's rapidly becoming apparent that the nurseries in germany are possibly; all lovely to do business with ! and they actually get back to you even if your'e not a sale and it's just to say no sorry we dont have these seeds, usually within a day and rarely longer... So the kids should soon have one scop each to add to their windowsill collections of hylocereus costaricensis+undatus, pachanoi, and succulents and that will leave me with 4 to play with flowering eventually I sprayed the cacti with rain mist so as to keep any straggler spider mites upset and set back while I wait for this mighty wash to come and opened the windows because it was hitting 35C before midday, and shut down all the heated propogators and covered the rainforest box one and the latest cacti seed pot propogator with the mimosa ophthalmocentra in with old baby blankets so the sun wouldnt scorch anything in there and opened up the vents at some point before all of this I potted up the colossus in perlite as the main priority. I trimmd the shite leaves from my mum's aloe and watered it with double strength feed... took down all the bubble wrap from the windows .... and sat back and had a cuppa and a toakl and took this pic and went and bought a book because I don't have any cacti books

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4S3QD8oakw

making up for the days I was down : ]

I just got some labelled as werdies with that curved spinage Trichocereus werdermannianus WS259 Chaipiuco, Potosi, Bolivia (2937m) was their tag ...from hungary

I pretty much learned about sterile technique from mycology but its so much easier with plants, no need for autoclave here I get little pots and 3 quater fill them with john innes seed soil, and get another pot to tamp down the soil so theres at least 1cm from the top of the soil to the rim of the pot ..its gritty/sandy/loamy but I gather anything with little to no nutrients can be a good sowing medium I tried all sorts of mixes , the most successful in efficiency being a layer of perlite and an equal thickness layer of john innes seed soil on top - I think this aids with air flow... but really we're thinking longevity and I only use this when I'm going to transfer seedlings early, or for a viability test... which isn't often... and these seeds could be in this pot covered for 6 months before poking a tiny hole in the saran wrap , then another the next day and so on... limestones didn't seem to help so I left them out in the end - I read somewhere once that cacti like high-ish ph (ph8) but rain and aquarium water are the way and rain is ph4..., my aquarium is ph6.8... then I microwave them for 4x 3 minute blasts with 2 minutes between each if its the flimsy anderson die pots, - its a 1000w microwave- or 10 minutes if its a sturdy high quality plastic pot , I would rehydrate with freshly boiled water from the kettle until water runs freely out of the pots from underneath, probably on a clean dinner plate over a sink I use tap water boiled, not rain, germinating is the only time I use tap water for indoor plant use, from acacias to cacti and the water here is quite hard, enough to scale a kettle in a few days. obviously watch that the hot water spills in the sink and not down your front. ( http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29996&p=458149, I've added pics of the pots and the ones I cut plastic caps to make with casings and you can see the perlite/john innes layer and air flow space) ...after a few hours of getting on with other things; like writing labels and records ...to give the microwaved bizz to cool down,... I'll sterilise my hands with IPA or hand wash gel (same thing pretty much) and sprinkle seeds on the surface without pushing them in and without adding any soil on top of them then cover with cling film/shrink//saran wrap and often an elastic band if needed, and a label (writing the labels before you stick em on is easiest :] ) stick em in the propogator and turn it off when the room they're in is over 20C (daytime) and turn it on after letting it drop to 12-16C, usually 16C, if it does.(night time) , this could be done with a timer switch but I'm with them 24/7 The fluctuating temps seem to be the key to germinating cacti I find so far, and 100% germination has been achieved countless times with this way so I stuck with it, ....also I shuffle the order they're in , just in case the propogators have hot/cool spots. hope this helps oh yeah , I get a 5ml baby medicine syringe barrel for 50p from the chemist and use that to add tap water if they look dry at a later date, this just resulted in my eagerly awaited juulsXvalidus sprouting overnight last night by adding 3ml to each and then another 5 today, no more water for now though.

in that case i wont throw away my validus from wsf... or the kotschoubeyanus and cuzcoensis for that matter. nice thread! I find a heated propogator helps but im in uk and usually use winter for cacti gardening until now In winter I would leave it on all the time, it raises temps by about 10C above the ambient room temp that it's in, so at night it will be cooler anyway This spring I started to switch it off in the day about midday and I don't switch it back on again until its cold about midnight or thereabouts. I find the temp fluctuating between 16C and 28-30C the fastest way to germinate any cacti seeds so far for me, but I've only been germinating cacti for 2 winters and got really hooked this last winter and am still doing it into spring, incidentally this is how I germinated different aya species also. I will find out if the pelecyphora aselliformis likes this treatment soon i hope, valdeziana and all the trichocerea and lophs i find certainly do. Also , I found this which looks interesting http://www.lophophora-williamsii.de/shop/page/8?shop_param=

lol , definitely a good cactus day when ya neighbour comes round with a cactus that was delivered while you were out : 3 one lovely scop from germany Just bought a Trichocereus Sp. C083 Pan-am KM325 and a spachianus in uk and I figured I'd water the Porticularia afra and post a pic even though it's not a cactus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QWv6R6k_g

Trichocereus taquimbalensis WS259 Chaipiuco, Potosi, Bolivia (2937m) are the "werdies"... ooh funky font :]

thank you kindly, I was erring on the side of caution regarding water and hadn't watered them yet, I'll just let them draw from the soil in the huge scop pot they're sat in and only water that ...or give them 25% of what the others get, and possibly half as frequently - edit - and end up putting them in the arrid tank do you think it's worth upping the feed strength for the "half as frequently watered and at lower volume" cacti? , this seems to dehydrate a few plants I've grown outdoors in the past quite nicely when needed ... especially after the very heavy rains we have here; and gives them quite a boost I don't know how fast knuthianus grows, and would've still been assuming it a peruvianusXjuuls (after seeing an identical one as a parent plant in a sale of (peruvXjuuls)Xcristata seeds on ebay. or a colossus lol definitely one day when its pupping I would love to share it with you, it is only a foot high at the moment though and I want it to flower as soon as possible so I can't be cutting it unless it makes a branch pup or suffers in the future somehow, plus I haven't a clue about them yet , how fast they grow, even where theyre from, if self sterile etc I will definitely be hunting them more now because I need another one for gene pool and more flower opportunity and in case it's self sterile If I end up finding more than one more,...or some seeds, I will buy an extra one or two plants/seed packs for you and mail it/them to you for what it cost + the postage if you like? or send you the link if its a web shop in a pm? I already made this "cutting" mistake with my fat scop (i'm pretty sure it's a scop) when i had no clue what it was and was panicking that I'd never find another, it's tempting to graft the tip back on though since it still hasn't rooted since august but I've never grafted cacti before and until last month, that was my only scop and nobody sells them in uk knowingly ...but I got 10 pereskiopsis to learn grafting with the other day.

oh shit, you guys also got a colossus? that was my second wish to the cactus fairy and funnily enough I did't win it either but I did come second place lol Also yayaaa finally the validusXjuuls and juulsXvalidus sprouted so I thought fk it n added another 5ml of water

Today, I checked germinatia..... 5 pachanoixjuuls sprouted :D and a pachanoiXhuanucoensis rawrz! so very happy about that I found a new spineless terscheckii to grow, so ordered the seeds. Rinsed the whole world again with more requests for validus , but as luck has it , some are on the way from a very kind soul and a definite cactaceal hero Also two very cute werdermannianus arrived from my favourite cactus buff in Hungary. and Pelecyphora valdeziana germinated, as did the koeh macrogonus sowed 4 days ago the misp seeds are the most exciting,.... germinated so far:- macrogonusXjuuls, more PCpachanoiXjuuls, PCpachXhuanucoensis, PCXbridgesii'helen', ..still very much itching for the validusXjuuls and the juulsXvalidus to sprout so added 3ml of water to each 2"seed pot just in case. ...seriously this has to be the most joy I've had from a cactus seed seller, not just in varieties but in reliability - which is perfect and even better. - cactus hero 2014! The new cacti from my favourite uk nursery burst into spidermites with such quickness so I broke out into cactical ops mode and donned my mite busters spray pack , checked the NPK meter which read fine so I used up the last of the mighty wash after firing the webs so those little shites can fk right off..., after that I sat back really enjoyed the feel of relief from the plants.. ...as the sun perfectly timed it's hiding behind the neighbours house so the mighty wash wouldn't cause our little beauties to scorchio ... and figured I'd write here after ordering more mighty wash, and begin working on plans for a quarantine area in case that nursery come up with a species I or the kids want in the future ...and made a mental note to add all round nematodes to their next waterings with rain (sometimes I use old aquarium water instead) ...and they haven't written back to me about the superglued areole or other species I asked for.... so thanks for helping with that. ....so they probably just found mites too and maybe are too busy trying to slay em. :D .... most places I've told about mites on the cacti I receive from them get really uppity/mardy/cuntish about it for ages until they realise I don't want to send them back or be reimbursed, and am just trying tell them about mighty wash being really good on my cacti and acacias, and am trying to help them, not to complain lol I finally traced the mites back to the Trichocereus huasca and figured out that they were probably kept outdoors at the nursery so I drenched it in mighty wash and put it outside with the large opuntias. I ordered more seeds from Europe , Australia and N'America and asked at Kada's about validus, got a reply very fast, sadly no but they do have some other cool things so I sent them my full wants list , but it has been quite some time now since i asked them how to pay for shipibo and luna leaf cuts , maybe theyre otherwise occupied and perhaps i can conclude that that means they dont send them here? like SAB?, at least SAB get back to you about it... I will work on hunting more in Asia and S'America next. probably Peruu, Brazil and Ecuador Also I ordered some scopulicolus (scopulicola) "pflanzen" from a cool looking German kakteen shop i found last night who doesn't have validus either, with any luck I will get an invoice from them soon. Relishing the hunt in Germany for cacti I picked up the search input lingo required: Trichocereen, kakteen and pflanzen/ samen/ graines, to aid me in my EU searching for cacti that Brits cant seem to muster, and I am finding most EU prices pretty much pee all over ours here from a very great height indeed! even with shipping added, with the exception of headshops lol and they're far more polite by orders of magnitudes and more pleasant to deal with. and with regards to their kakteen, wooo! especially on size and quality, - with the exception of the fave uk place, but for about a week I reckon that'll be spidermite sanctuary. and another uk place (the biggest one in uk where i got validusXechinopsis from - who rock for hygeine and health but not for tricho selection) I managed to find a validus vendor in france but currently out of stock ... also began more location planning for the third greenhouse, after sealing the main greenhouse foundations with expanding foam , I should really get the bubble wrap insulation up before the food crops are big enough to go out, just waiting for my back to heal from the last big cacti shuffle.... then I can work on what cacti I'm going to grow in the soil in the greenhouse beds that are vacant, and make a space in advance for the validus that I have made a wish to the cactus fairy for,... ;) so far I made cactus fairy wishes twice, once was for a pure juuls plant, and then found someone and got one within a few days of asking. the second wish I can add as an edit was a colossus. 2 new 8watt electric propogators arrived so I moved all the cacti germination pots into them so I could clean the older propogators. I did a 2"pot count to make sure I have more than enough to cover the next lot of sowings still waiting for BEF in manchester to ship me some pots, but it is a first order. I had managed to ship in some anderson die 2" nursery pots from portland oregon in the mean time and found some second hand BEF on ebay , sadly 4 were smashed plus they were fahkin so filthy I was tempted to send them back but once scrubbed - 2 hours, and disinfected overnight, ....the best pots I ever bought. here's some comparison pics BEF ventilation BEF plastic thickness and sturdy structure Anderson die ventilation Anderson die plastic thickness and structure better than the flimsy thin plastic of anderson die ones, which were way better than nothing and saved having to convert medicine measurement caps to aircirculated seed pots, ... but wont take an elastic band wrapped round them too tight like a BEF will. My own hand made pots happened to be far superior than all of them and most home made ways often are...these had cases that fit perfectly saving all the shrinkwrap/cling film/rubber bands...but a ball ache to do en masse and who has that many medicine caps?, maybe I can bulk buy them and use a drill and saw for efficiency? Home made pot ventilation Home made pot plastic thickness and structure Home made pot's casing, I started with better looking smaller casings but the extra air made the diff head to head in speed in one experiment also I started saving the measuring caps from easy carbo and profito (aquarium liquid carbon and ferts), they're a little bigger and seeing as it took all day to make this post having been busy with parenting too, here's the first sunset sillhouette shot of the year

no its a mature one about an inch and a half down from the top. and yeah they're fascinating , just lately I've had a fascination for the heavily armoured tricho's, maybe it's the dreams about tacaquirensis, taquimbalensis andwerdermannianus since sowing.

AWESOME! I've been after knuthianus for ages just to know what one looks like ! thanks :D I might already have a better camera that isnt as nice to use somewhere down the bottom of the garden (if it survived winter : / ) -later edit - it turned out to be a pachanoi monstruose but still has the knuthianus type ridging which is exquisite

: ) thanks, glad you like them too thanks for the explanation also , that makes sense.... maybe it will fall off again eventually and get glued back on again : ]

today I got a lovely pachanoi from france and a huge box of trichocereus species from the very best cactus nursery in all of the uk that I can find so far and re-potted most of them Trichocereus sp' Andacollo Chile Trichocereus skottsbergii JN379 Penalta Perilla Trichocereus sp' La Paloma Chile Trichocereus sp' Las Coimas Chile sadly the trichocereus sp' Las Coimas arrived with a broken off areole so I super glued it back on before I could think of what else to do about it has anyone had any experience with super glueing areoles back on and them re-growing like a graft? Trichocereus candicans Trichocereus pasacana Trichocereus huasca v' pecheretianus Stetsonia coryne Coryphantha macromeris Banon zac Mammillaria gracilis f' AZ snowcap kid's new caespitosas The large loph began fruiting got a partial refund for one of the kid's new loph species from the tosser nursery with the lophs/ariocarpus/pelecyph/turbie of £8 I potted up some pereskiopsis I got a bunch of the other day Checked the seeds in germinatia mid feb sowings: - I'm pretty sure I hadn't sown earlier with the exception of wss macrogonus big mac(edit) 3 own grown loph seedlings 10 each of plaza - terbo 100%+ ( ! ) germination with mysterious early deaths Loph huizache - 4 remain Loph cuatrocienegas - 11 remain! ? Loph paila - 3 remain taquimbalensis - 9 feb 14 sowings 10 of each bot-arch cuzcoensis - zero germ ariocarpus agavoides - 1 germ only ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus - zero germ ariocarpus bravoanus - 6 germ 10 - west s f validus - zero germ 07.03.14 sowings 10 of each misp juulsXvalidus validusXjuuls PCX(sso1Xsso2) - 7 so far validusXlumberjackus - 5 so far 10 of each plaza taquimbalensis tacaquirensis 09.03.14 10 each of misp macrogonusXjuuls huanucoensis scopulicola PCXhuanucoensis PCXmacrogonus PCXhuanucoensis PCXbidgesii 'helen' PCXperuvianus - 4 so far in just 3 days! PCXjuuls 11.03.14 10 of each koeh boliviensis fulvilanus macrogonus tacaquirensis taquimbalensis werdermannianus Pelecyphora aselliformis Pelecyphora valdeziana I checked the bridgesii mid-cut from spain but still no roots so it went in perlite heres the "pachanoi" I got yesterday from germany but was I badly and couldn't post I guessed it could be peruvXjuuls , -edit- later was told knuthianus (next post down) and I also pondered 'altman monstruose' pach Also I potted up some large cacti into atami/wilma type pots which are like a large BEF , hmm I should look more into what smaller sizes they make I ordered some BEF pots from the cactus society again and wrote to a cool wild Trichocereus guy they referred me to; to see if he had any species I was after, called Graham Charles.. who also wrote a book about Gymnocalcium, I asked him if he'd written a book on Tricho's too in the email , fingers crossed that he has... but I have a gut feeling he won't reply, just something fishy feeling about the uk cactus fuddy duddys at the bcss forum and how they spoke to me once they knew i liked trichos ..makes me suspect some sort of internal politics is abound as per usual here and regular uk-tarring with brushes in this case to newcomer tricho folk, maybe like me; before theyve even owned a cactus for 2 years .. -05/06/14 edit- still hasnt written back to me ... -20/02/17 edit- still hasn't written back to me but fuck him, I have EG's book now !!! I also got my first Lobivia - grandiflora , an Trichocereus tarijensis, and one of the cactus shop's hybrid trichoechinopsis and a rebutia 'ascott sunset' Also I checked the EU for heavy duty square plastic nursery pots Bought another German pach and a German scop and some hungarian werdermannianus Bought a German terscheckii from Uhlig kakteen who really are awesome! And continued the hunt for validus seeds - sorry for any of the wobbly unclear pics, I've been in agony all day

anything that is advertised as larger than it arrives is over priced

world seed supply sold me my banisteriopsis muricata and alicia anisopetala seeds I have a friend in brazil who is looking for diplopterys carbrerana cuttings for me after getting me some mimosa ophthalmocentra seeds tropilab in florida say they have virola trees and sell the seeds every year about mid spring but i'm guessing they will be mainly surinamensis , theres a colossal list of virola species , have a look on wikipedia I'm sure I've seen virtually every tabernaemontana species seeds on ebay in just the last year http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/search?q=virola

I grow it and use it as incense and add it to mint tea (in very small quantities) didn't do a thing against spidermite or sciariad fly , the most effective things turned out to be fire, a very light misting of wd-40 , nematodes for the flies and mighty wash for the mites its an ok smoke but no matter what you smoke next , and for at least the next few hours, everything tastes like it

http://www.cactusshop.co.uk/index.html ;) heres the nicest cactus shop i can locate in uk that will mail and actually care about what they send you