Micromegas

80 years! That's awesome. That's back in the days you could bring cuttings into the country. It's amazing to think cactus was being shipped internationally by boat!! The tends toward the possibility of it being a direct import. In your bottom pic, i do not think either of them are tersheckii despite them being nice plants. Tersheckii are just so fat I can't see how you would get a pure 'skinny' one without it actually not being one, lol. There is nothing even remotely like tersheckii or any of the fat varieties anywhere I went in Peru, in the wild and in garden, coast, highlands, it's all pachanoi/peru, so I also do not think the plant in the witches market is tersheckii either. I wish I had had the foresight back in the day to ask if that particular plant had some particular curative properties that normal pachanoi did not have, since other species of cactus (globular) were sold for purposes of magic, love spells and so on.

what a lady: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_North more plants non cactus: http://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/index.html

echinopsis. i also had a friend who kept a bridgessii in her van for a year. but the echinopis (i.e. oxygona) probably would even flower on the road.

Not that it really matters to anyone but me, but for the sake of transparency (and my own idiosyncrasies!) I removed all of my content from this thread. It has come to light from further research that much of what I wrote, while still being of value (to me at least) in many of its constituents parts, was synthesized in an awkward framework and one that, moreover, had a slightly negative element, which was the result of and then clung to me as a sort of flippant cynicism about 'meaning', which I am now sloughing off. It was important for me to put it down on paper at that point due to what I was working on, but it doesn't adequately represent the overall direction of my line of thinking, and as I am reworking some of the material in a more rigorous and holistic fashion I have chosen to remove it from here. It really buggers up a thread to remove content and it's not something I generally do, so apologies for that, but in this case it is imperative for me that I remove something that appears fixed in my thinking from a process that is in motion.

sorry thunder all this time i have been labouring under false pretenses! if it makes you feel better there's almost nothing british that could survive in my garden. for example i always wanted to grow a yew, Taxus baccata, on account of its ethobotanical significance, but the conditions really aren't right. yeah i have no idea about phlebs Drake. it would surprise me if a phleb wouldn't gather rhizobium on its own but then again it does come from a very particular and restricted habitat. ultimately there's no harm in 'inoculating' but grabbing soil from local acacias as opposed to just letting it do it itself does not overcome the issue if there is a something very specific about phlebs. but a number of acacias have gone wild overseas, so their ability to 'generalise' rhizobium is demonstrated.

in my experience acacia will form rhizobium/nodes in tubestock without any help, from the air i suppose, come out with big nodes and that delightful rhizobium smell. if your plants are having trouble maybe another issue. soil, for example. if you are growing indoors, far from any natural setting (or in germany like thunder), maybe innoculation is the way to go.

it's important to know if these are grafts, degrafts, or grown the whole time on their own roots, makes a big difference to the price. they are grafts, yes? If so what is the rootstock and is it running out of steam? for example pic one has a bit of peres sticking out - is this an arm from a peres stock. in my experience peres will fail as a stock after about 2 years so that plant would need to be degrafted. they are worth a good chunk of money in either case, but i don't buy, sell or grow this type of cactus so can't say for sure. $250-350 each? more on a good day? more if they are on their own roots. I'm just guessing. the second one is a beauty.

gravity defying soil mixture, well done!

Hey Yeti, interesting about the exhaustion. It is a shame my run in with Russell has been so poor, it is unlikely I will return to any of his writings at this point. That is an interesting question you pose, but not one I think can be reasonably extracted from the quote itself, or definitively answered. It still leaves the problematic of deciding what is 'wrong' and 'right' in society, and misinterpreting the quality of rhetoric and its function. Parable of the Unmissable Missed Encounters In three lines Schopenhauer relates a story that is supposed to illustrate the solitude of an insightful person surrounded by bewitched people: his watch keeps the correct time in a city whose clock towers all have the wrong time; he alone knows "the true time." The point of the story is expressed in the succinct question: "But what good does it do him?" The fate of this solitary person is to be pitied. Not only due to the fault of those who follow the public clocks; and not even due to the fault of those who can and do know that this one person has a watch that keeps the true time. They are no more malicious than those who only look to the towers, since in such cases even a little common sense counsels not concerning oneself about a truth held by a solitary person. Schopenhauer didn't want the story to be read entirely in this manner. The citizens following the double meaning - orienting themselves according to the clocks that don't keep time while also knowing the possessor of the correct time - are suspected of not perceiving an obligation: making sure that the tower clocks are set to the correct time. On the other hand, Schopenhauer doesn't consider the person consciously proud of his watch's correct time. What reason could there be for him to adjust his watch to the time of the majority of clocks? Why should he do this when he has the right time? The only reason for adjusting his watch would be to not destroy the possibilities for interacting with all the other citizens of the city by coming too early or too late to all appointments and occasions. Ultimately, he wouldn't need to go to any events, because the peculiarity of his watch would prevent him from taking advantage of their profits and pleasures. Or he could come to the quiet decision to stick to the correct time on his watch but take into account the difference from the public clocks so that he always arrived on time. Here he runs the risk of becoming comical in his own eyes by insisting on a truth that he would have to constantly falsify for the purpose of its utility. The core of the absurdity does not lie with those in the story. It lies with the storyteller. In favor of its illustrative effect, the storyteller assumes that one person could know the true time, while everyone else doesn't. He forgets that the public is one of the determining elements of the concept of time. There is no secret time, there are no secret timekeepers, no individual times, no private clocks. The earth's rotation or the apparent rotation of the heavens predetermines the length of the day, but neither its beginning and end nor its divisions along the way. These are publicly regulated conventions. Only the radius of life realms and life interactions matters in establishing the range that such a convention must have for it to be "definitive" and render all deviations from it nonsensical. The solitary possessor of the true time in a city with nothing but clock towers with the wrong time is not a wise man but a fool. By disregarding this, the storyteller betrays more about himself than about what he seeks to illustrate: that for those following the wrong time, an appropriate deadline must be set for finally grasping what one person with a clear head saw immediately. The story is supposed to dissuade one from thinking impatiently that all can and must follow the possessor of truth without delay. In fact, it shows the opposite: why they would never follow him. Hans Blumenberg, Care Crosses the River (1987 [Eng trans 2010]), pp.117-8

Hey Yeti I recently had a long argument with my family about Bertrand Russell because of some article my mum sent us, which he wrote about boredom (chapter 4 from the conquest of happiness 1930). She thought it was great but I thought it was terrible, which of course means most of what I am about to say is just opinion, not fact. The quote you posted is like a short version of that article and is plagued by the same problem, being opinionated poorly-thought-through rubbish (in my opinion, lol) that would have benefited from proof-reading. It's unusual a talented logician would produce such an illogical statement and the boredom article was full of them. As such, by logic, the statement wants to be cocksure (it is stated categorically), but if it is not it is by Russell's own definition intelligent and is therefore 'full of doubt'! Ironically of course it is not at all intelligent so I can only assume, by logical deduction of the statement itself, that it is cocksure and produced by someone 'stupid'. By my definition, it's just a bit trite, because Russell was clearly not stupid. I'd only vaguely heard about Russell when my mum sent the article and I did some research on him. He seems important for his work on logic and mathematics and the fella he wrote an important book with (Alfred North Whitehead) I enjoy - if his works aren't a little bit of a head scratcher - but Russell's other philosophy appears to fall flat because of a (self-proclaimed) lack of understanding of aesthetics (a lack of understanding of aesthetics would make a person opinionated and separate the supposed 'stupid' from the supposed 'intelligent') and being very much a product of his British post-war (WW1) historical milieu, which gives it a dreary feel. I must admit I'm not basing my arguments on much more than a few articles and a wikipedia page, which is not a good foundation for criticism! I think you've summed it up well about his doubt and this accords with what else I read ("He could never find an adequate argument to support his moral position that satisfied his high standards, leading him to separate his advocacy and activism from his 'pure' mathematical philosophy"). I appreciate Russell's social ethics and the effort he put toward that task, it is a conspicuous feature of his life. There is much to be admired about his social work but his social/cultural philosophy is poor from what I have seen (I have not read his philosophy on logic and maths, which may be excellent). For me, the distinction between 'stupid' and 'intelligent' is fundamentally untenable and not a good starting point for sorting out the "fundamental cause of trouble" of any epoch of history, including the modern one.

not supposed, definitely a cereus, looks like what I call cereus hexagonus (based on the plant at the adelaide bot gardens). cactus don't really grow extensive root systems, only when they get really large. really nice new growth on the second pic, so it's very healthy.

Thanks mate there's no doubt cactus make good subjects! Unfortunately the holiday ended a week too soon (they always do right) the garden was about to go off.

It's so tidy and neat! Very nice a lot of work has gone into that, should be very interesting in 5-10 years.

I know i should be inspired (and I am), but if I am honest I find those videos of cactus country to be intimidating! they make me want to do either of two things: (1) give up growing cactus or; (2) quit my job to grow cactus full time. neither of which i can do, or would probably be happy with entirely. in this most unexpected way cactus force themselves philosophically into the trajectory of my practical life. in reverse it testifies to the magnificent quality of 'having a cactus garden', which unfolds over time in quite the opposite way that life feels short of having it. i don't think it's the same with vegetables: so the ancients were sustained by tomatoes at the same time cactus was teaching them the content of eternity; and what it amounted to 'in reality' was unimportant: the cactus survived. all that you would really lack at that point is the ability to be cloned!

and these

but still was there in time for this.

left the garden one day too early.

nice one.

^^ is that a cocksure statement, or an intelligent one?

grows out just fine, squish the blu-tak in real good, with a blunt (butter) knife if you need. if you look at the attached pic you will see on the base of the centre column a narrowed, scarred looking bit. this is where earwigs were attacking and threatening to eat the apical meristem, which they had already managed to do to some same-aged seedlings while I was not around. you can see the left over blu-tak, it says in place quite well. in the second growing season, not so many earwigs, you can see some scarring but the plant grew though ok. I had about 100 seedlings I 'blu-takked', most of them keep the main tip intact. i don't know if it works for bugs other than earwigs, but i reckon it's worth a try. you might still get damage below the tip, but earwigs only eat the very newest growth. good luck! no: it only remains on the tip for as long as it takes for the tip to grow out about one centimetre, but in my case with earwigs, this has been long enough, since the earwigs come at the start of the season when the growth is slowest. but also, companion planting. give the bugs a sacrificial victim i doubt cactus is any bug's first choice for dinner.

mate i had this problem early on in my garden but with earwigs. I used blu-tak. You get a lump of blue-tak and squash it right into the tip of the cactus, so no critter can eat that bit. this protects the tip long enough for it to grow out safely. in my garden, earwigs come out early spring for about a month, so the blu-tak works long enough. this has been a great success for me for smaller plants. if the grasshoppers are around all season you may need to repeat. one year, i planted broadbeans out in winter among the cactus, that spring the earwigs ate the broad bean leaves, not the cactus. since that spring, i have not had the same problem with earwigs, but for the first 2-5yrs of my garden it was a major drag, i used to go out every night with a torch and squash the buggers with a butter knife. but the blu-tak solved the need to do that. once the plants are 1m +, they rarely suffer from major damage ime. good luck.

good on ya niggles, nice blog. that thing in the tree that you reckon is either a bird nest or termite mound is actually both. arboreal termites make the mound in the tree like that, but the hole is made by a bird that lives inside, in the tropics where i live this is predominately small kingfisher species, so keep an eye out. the bird and termites generally live harmoniously, the termites harden around where the bird moves in and continue to live ok in the rest of the mound, and the bird does not generally feed on the termites. that being said, only a fraction of termite mounds we see are actually in use by termites.

^^ a disembodied arm is probably easier to get into the country than cactus. worth doing if it comes with a mutant green thumb.

Hi folks, two part auction here... Up for auction is approximately 1.5m of sausage, 2.5m of Yowie, 1m of PC, a 70cm cut of seed-grown (probably) bruce x PC (2009), a small piece of validus (that will likely only recover if you cut the top off), and the best of the lot a 70cm mid-cut of what was labelled as Rosei No.2 by an old skool grower from the mid-north of SA that recently blew over in the wind. In total around 7m of cactus of considerable girth I might add. The auction is open to anyone but for obvious reasons the plants cannot be posted. Therefore, the auction is limited to pick up or delivery. If you live in Adelaide or within about a 60km radius of there the cactus will be delivered to you, with delivery the preference. The auction is open until sunset on the solstice, delivery between Christmas and new year. The deal is that, rather than pay me, you donate the money to the server costs and take a screen shot of the donation and post it in the thread. At that time the cactus will be delivered (or collected). The second part of the auction is, since I will need to deliver the plants, that you trade with me a cactus cutting that you post a photo of here. The cutting needs to be suitable for planting directly into the ground. I will select the best cutting + price package on the solstice. The auction starts at $80. I'll bump the thread from time to time.