bit

Thanks guys. This is 1.95m tall in the middle, plenty of room to walk around inside, which was a problem in the last one I had. I am concerned about the plastic, I know how brittle it will get before long! The last one I had that collapsed had a much much better reinforced cover but even that perished inside of 18 months or so. Stillman - how did you use the ropes/pegs? I've put pegs through the holes in the frame on the ground (assume this is why the base pieces had holes). There were no instructions on what to do with the ropes. Nowhere external to tie them to, so I assume I need to somehow rig them internally so they're out of the way but still holding it down.

And, here is the greenhouse installed. It's really crap quality lol, but what do you expect for $100. At least it should last a year or so till I can decide what I'm going to do with regard to a proper one. That geo-dome looks awesome!! I don't have room for something like that either tho

One more pic of how it is right now. I do already have a greenhouse, I got this one: for $100. That 3x2 one is just too big for what I need right now, plus it has no shelving. When I buy shelving it will be to fit a proper greenhouse http://www.trademe.c...px?id=481850938 I need to find a way of compacting the gravel a bit. Raking it around is fun, kinda like those miniature zen gardens you can get for your desk. But on a bigger scale. I might fill my garden trolley up and wheel that around. Either that or just jump around on it lots. hmmm

My cat is awesome :D

First of all.... $20?? MAD SCORE!!! Second of all, I agree with bluntmuffin. I don't think you need to worry about any of that damage - it looks like scarring to me. If you can get your fingernail into the crack between the ribs and scrape that small stuff off, it MAY be scale, but if you can't scrape it off easily it isn't scale. A few years back I bought this off trademe ($15 back when you could actually get an easy cactus bargain). I never worried about the scarring, I am pretty sure that scops like massive pots or being in the ground, the scarring is a result of poor nitrition and/or small pots. The best thing you could do is get it into the ground imo, with some good mix around it. This pic was taken just after I got it home. I transported it in my station wagon, it stretched from right against the front window passengers side, all the way to the opposite corner at the back lol. Thank god they have no spines!

Today, I thanked my cacti for all the times they have spiked me, because no matter how bad they have been, it pales in comparison to this bloody fibreglass rash I have from crawling around in the ceiling!

Nice plants mutant, the first I'm especially intrigued by. Are you sure the second is a tricho? BTW, a much easier way to transport is with a hand truck and some shopping bags ;)

I uprighted my (previously) in ground plants which have been laying down since moving day 2 weeks ago. Put them in flexible 42litre black tubs and topped up with good mix. Also bought a strigosus crest while picking up the mix

Thanks so much for taking the time to share these Mutant. Surely you must spend all your waking hours maintaining so many plants!!

Hi all Many of you will have seen my fairly extensive Tricho collection - well, the time has come to get it in the ground. We have purchased a good size property, of which a BIG corner will form my cacti and succulent oasis. I'm looking for ideas - layouts, materials, colours etc. I'm sure there are a lot of nicely landscaped cacti gardens around the world, and I'd like to see pics. Despite my assurity google seems to be letting me down. The gardens must be out there, but where are the photos??? Inspiration so far: . To give you an idea, I have about 15-20m along the longest edge, and the area is flat. I will be building it up approx 2 foot with free draining soil. I also want a pathway to run through it. Anyways, if you've got any fantastic examples of landscaping I'd love to see them! I don't care whether they're natural or man-made looking. With regard to weed control, I have been advised to use weedmat, and keep the holes for the cactus rather large

That's awesome!! but no, I will not be planting them in a line like they are lined up now :D There's not THAT many plants to fill a really large area - it looks smaller in the photo than it actually is.

So this is basically what I have planned, lines are a bit crooked but you get the idea I hope. The yellow is the garden outline, the red is the path through the garden. The pink is where the tall cacti will be, the blue is where the shorter plants will go

I like the scattered rocks in those pics. I do have an idea that I'll create a couple of hidey spots for lophs to emulate their natural environment. I do have some nice hebes to plant too which will break it up a bit, as well as some nice echeverias. A couple more pics of the removal of the ground plants. These I managed to dig out all by myself with next to no damage, quite happy with that. Got a mate to help me lift them into the back of a trailer wrapped in old blankets. They're currently on the lawn at the new place looking like bodies lined up We also managed to dig up and transport our 7+ year old polyphylla. It's at least 1m across and heavy and awkward as hell to move!! There were about 5 more trips / trailerloads of garden stuff including cacti. I'm completely shattered tonight. It's been one hell of along week being backward and forward. I think next time we move I"m only going to take 10-15 cuttings of my favourite plants, and that's it. Oh, and I also had to walk around the yard in the dark and say goodbye and good luck to some smaller trichs I had to leave behind in the garden. I wished them luck and told them I'd come back for them if they're not wanted by the next renter. Was a bit sad :/

Holy shit. How did I miss this thread!! Thanks for sharing dude!

Well, yesterday was MOVING DAY!! I don't have too many pictures of the moving process. We started the day at 7.30am, and didn't finish till after 10pm. We used a 3-tonne truck. Up until about 1pm we were moving furniture etc. After moving a 4 bedroom house full of stuff, we were already pretty tired, but then it was onto the cactus! Three of us moved the bulk of the collection, continuing well into the dark. ( I can't thank my good friends enough). We all suffered spines in hands and arms, but nothing serious. Most of the "injuries" came as fatigue set in and we became complacent/careless with the handling. We used a combination of trolley and hand-trucks to move the plants. A hand truck with plastic shopping bags (see pic) between the truck and stem, and another bags to steady from the the other side, made it fairly straightforward to handle even the biggest of the plants. Once in the truck, they were secured against the walls of the truck using cushions, pillows, and bags. Bear in mind that I was only transporting less than 10 minutes down the road, and could happily drive the whole way at 40km/h. The pic shows after we had started to remove the cushions, hence the slack in the strop. I think we did four loads in the truck, and a load of the small/short ones in a trailer. All of the bridgesii were laid down due to their lack of girth/fragility. At no point did we have any standing plants not along the walls of the truck where they could be secure, except once where I left a taquim unsecured, thinking it was too short at 2 foot to fall over. It subsequently fell over and skewered some of the bridge laying down In terms of plant casualties:. Unfortunately the taquim referred to above is now a 3-header instead of 4 as I ripped an arm off (I was pretty tired by this point) while trying to stand it up (it was stuck pretty well to the bridge beneath hah). One of my 1m tall bridges was snapped almost totally in half, but I'm hopeful it can graft itself together again. Good thing I have lots of them anyway. And the other major casualty was my 2m+ tall fat bridgesii. I accidentally stood on it and broke the foot long pup off while unloading the second to last trip (pictured) (it got me back - a spine went through my shoe into the underside of my foot!) - again, I was really tired by this point and simply forgot it was behind me when unloading a plant on the right side of the truck. Not too concerned about it however, as I needed to propagate it as it was too tall to stand on it's own and was leaning against a wall for the last few years. I think that's about it really. I was pretty lucky given the amount of plants, inexperienced helpers, and moving a lot in the dark! I'll get some pics of their current home hopefully some time this week (unfortunately it's usually dark by the time I get home).

law?

More than one tree being cut down ;) Don't worry though they're not native, and will serve us well in the form of firewood Cutting the trees down also helps us as they were never pruned or trimmed, and have grown out of control thus dropping leaves and needles on the roof of the house which leads to the degradation of the tiles and ultimately holes in the roof! Thanks for the pictures and links so far! I will definitely be updating this thread, but as above it will be a slow process. The first thing will be the actual move in the next couple of weeks, during which I plan to just rest the pots on the top of the garden. After that I will need to do some careful planning and saving of pennies to afford the extra soil and edging and paving etc

Here's the plan view sketchup (not to scale)

So, we took possession of the new place on Friday Hopefully you can click on the images for larger versions. As promised, here are some pics of the garden where the cacti are going. You can see in this first pic the edge of the deck. There will be pavers extended from the deck by about 2-3 metres. The garden will be extended to the edge of the pavers. Enjoy the following pics as the inlaws and wifey got stuck into bringing the trees down to ensure the cactus garden gets a bunch of sunshine! There's no pic of the entire garden and side of the house, but the garden will be extended to run down the entire side of the house, as per the plan view I sketched up above. A view from a bit further back - the tree in the foreground is approximately how far the paving will come out, the rest up to the fence will be CACTUS GARDEN!!!: One of the bigger trees, a leyland cypress about to come down :D Tiiiiimmmmbbbbeeeerrrrr!!! Still a few more to go, but they ran out of daylight. Bring back summer!! haha. Progress will be slow through winter as we'll be busy snowboarding every other weekend, and during the week we leave and get home from work in darkness. Hopefully we will have a good chunk of the work done by spring so that the plants can take advantage of the growing season

Bought one of these, and started assembling. It smells chinese, and the workmanship is definitely chinese. Here's hoping it holds together for the house move!

It was very late afternoon. I dusted the whole plant includng roots (they were previously unpotted and washed) with sulphur. Then potted in fresh cactus mix with new stones on top, and sprayed with meths They absorbed (or it evaporated) pretty quickly. All ok for now. When should I repeat the spray?

Sprayed em with meths

I have just brought a few of these guys indoors for the winter, and noticed this damage. Hopefully I'm not to late to knock it on the head. This is the worst infection. Is it spider mites? I unpotted it and hosed it down but I didn't see any vermin at all. How do I stop it spreading further??

Thanks. I think I'll dust with sulphur tomorrow before I repot, then use the spray on only the part above soil level.

So, my unpotted plants have dried out now. I'm going to get some meths tomorrow and repot and spray them up! As we're coming into winter when the plants will be dried off and temps a lot cooler I don't expect much mite activity. I guess I'll know the results next season