Micromegas

Thanks to Halcyon for adding another $100 for a part of the so called roseii 2 and spooge for giving up a part of it! $400 from the thread is not a bad effort. Merry Christmas

unless this is somehow a trick where something obvious isn't what it appears to be, this is trichocereus (echinopsis) spachianus. only thing that looks close is t. camarguensis but is more, finessed. one spachianus in the garden is essential coz they are actually quite pretty (in my opinion), especially back-lit by the sun, but nearly enough.

^^ yeah!

!! putting it into more humidity will make it worse !! remove the teepee!! imo it has to come out of the ground and go somewhere bone dry, even into a well-heated room. especially if you are heading into winter. sometimes I have tried to make 'free-draining' soil out of various components and ended up making soil that never dries and clumps together. it appears this is what you have done. trichos can grow in all sorts of weather, but the soil must suit the conditions. you can make better soil than that! if you dig it up, spade around it about 10-12 inches from the base and lever out the entire root ball, it will just sort of pop out. see how wet it is, shake out the dirt and trim back half the roots with sharp scissors and let it dry. buy a nice pot, some premium potting mix from the supermarket or nursery, pot it up after a week or two of drying, and have a nice indoor house plant for the winter which you don't water very often! then improve the soil in the summer. long distance advice - i take no responsibility for the outcome!

I met a lady who had two very large tbms. 4-5ft tall and across. she said they flowered every year but the large cuttings she gave me have never flowered or shown signs of flowering, as one would expect with mature cuttings. That was a good trick Change. For me, however, I expect a flowering tbm to exist, out there, in the ether. My excuse for being gullible: first hand anecdotal evidence of tbms flowering in potential.

dude why is the soil green! that plant looks like it's not breathing properly and is just generally unhappy. that soil looks super wet, and like it stays wet all the time, it looks like poor draining sand or something all fused together, it needs some friable material. It also looks like it is growing in a really humid, damp situation. i reckon pull it out of that soil asap and put it somewhere dry, coz it looks like it is still somewhat firm and salvageable, but maybe not for long. Check the roots for bugs and rot. After it dries out you need to improve the soil before you put it back in.

Spooge has it at $250! I'll pm you buddy. Heliamphora because you made a great bid, and i'm in the hills now and then over the next few weeks, if you want the 30cm super pedro pup I knocked off with the mower yesterday, you're welcome to it. PM me if you are interested. zed240 interesting offer. i'm not sure i want to let that one go yet, but i was thinking of removing some pups so it's a maybe. i'm going to think on that one coz i know you have some good plants! Halcyon i think something will work out to chuck a few more $ toward the forum, i'll pm you too.

Sunset tomorrow folks it all has to go! Buy yourself an advanced Christmas present and give a gift to the forum!

^^ that's gorgeous. absolute stunner of a plant. what species? how'd you come to it?

Introducing sausage x bruce. the terminating qualities of sausage with a bit of melting bridgessii weirdness. (note: bruce in my garden does not usually do anything weird) plant is 6yrs old. grew a number but only one came out like this.

Oh yeah ^^ ! Bump! Back in SA now auction is coming to a close. Couple of the cuttings grew pups while I was away. No extra charge! C'mon adelaidians!

"how can someone come to awareness when one doesn't ask or question anything" (where's the quote function) I used to think this way, but i was sleepwalking too (and may still be sleepwalking). now i think there is no exact awareness to come to; talk of awareness is very monotonous. we are all subjects of something, we are all imprisoned. it's what saves us, not what dooms us, to have this capacity to be indoctrinated. where I do agree however, is that we can build better prisons to lock ourselves up in by appreciating the contradictions inherent in our current prison, such as undermining our own resources - but this is not a question of higher or lower 'awareness' per se but of contents of variable awareness-es that express class positions. even the most enlightened are indoctrinated, likewise all earth-sensitive cultures were indoctrinated; the 'awareness' that led into our current capitalist social formation arose indirectly out of those hunter-gatherer ideologies, via a detour through theological absolutism, then directly out of the scientific revolution. it is precisely the notion that awareness could be improved that doomed the earth, and earth-conscious 'everyone-else-is-sleeping' behaviour is, today, paradoxically an immanent quality of the type of awareness that created its need in the first place: colonialism, consumerism and so on produced the notion of some greater awareness available in the modern age: the modern age was ushered in by a belief that others were sleeping, which is to say the 'primitive', and it should come as no surprise that some few of us are attempting to recover as our salvation what it is that we ourselves have destroyed. when i recognized my need for awareness came directly out of my lack of it (which is to say, I didn't fit 'mainstream'), rather than the inherent value in a particular type of awareness for which I should aim and was chasing at the time ('higher' awareness), i found a place of equivocation that reversed my understandings of reality and its purpose - there is nothing to proceed accordingly toward; on whose authority could one be presumptuous enough to choose an outcome, against which inviolable standard? Other people 'coming to awareness' is not the issue: the people who you deem to lack awareness might do very well in their own awareness which you yourself fail to possess and understand; which is to say again, how the problem has come about. What you are really saying is you want your awareness to be valued over the awareness of others because it is presently marginalized and you don't fit in, and you think what you know would be somehow better: this is class struggle exactly, and it is perfectly reasonable to feel this way. But neither your nor their awareness is of any greater or lesser value: even if they have different outcomes in praxis (which is hard to demonstrate). The intent toward justification by dominance is the same: even the ideology that seeks multiplicity is a hegemonic position because it takes a qualitative stand against tyranny; but tyranny and multiplicity work altogether the same in function and both could cure social problems, or create them. If you "feel a new world who is wanting of change and why" it will be because you do not align with the principal ideology of your social formation. But understand that change in no sense undoes the need for indoctrination; what your rebellion will need to do is change the contents of the hegemonic ideological position, but it will not change the fact that revolution follows the set function of our subjection to ideals and our production as subjects of those ideals. When the rebellion comes, suddenly it will be you who will be sleeping, and others who are suddenly awake against you will seek to turnover your seat of power to their own ideas. Therefore the impetus to change is directly related to being caught in an issue of its own kind; marginalisation, an unmet need (such as to project the earth, or reorganise the political system). to believe that only others are trapped is futile: getting trapped in the right kind of net is key, one that suits you above all others. so i am on your side in a way because I think we do need better ideological systems in terms of our social longevity and happiness, and I am myself a fairly marginalised thinker (I even marginalise myself against a minority I generally agree with!). There are some great minds who invent new worlds: these are the true tyrants. If you are one of these, if your ideas appeal, if you can insert them into the ritual practices of the social formation from the inside, people will change almost without their knowledge, since no one, ultimately, comes to awareness independent of a presupposition. That is to say, if you want the world to change, do not concern yourself with the notion that others are sleepwalking and try therefore to awaken them to awareness - realise that it is indeed so, that we are all in a dream, and manipulate your subjects to the manifestation of your ideals while they slumber. Change is not won with freedom but with subjection, and even freedom is itself a form of subjection. If you are not an ideological tyrant and do not have this power, and you continue to fall out-of-line with the prevailing social formation, understand you are in the minority and, if you believe your position is in some sense valid, continue to stand your ground in the contradiction you maintain against the rulers' hegemonic position, and continually seek to develop and engage others in your contradictory position (which is what terrorists do, feminists do, environmentalists do, activists do and so on): but never lose site of the fact that both you and they remain indoctrinated as subjects and qualitative judgements have already been provided to you in advance by an apparatus containing ideals whose ultimate validity can in no way be systematically verified. It is precisely this qualitative tension of ideas against each other that drives the engine of history and it will continue until the position of the subject has been exhausted by the infinitude of time and space.

^^ nice one. that offer is accepted without a cactus offered, the 'hills' is not so far. the current bid is therefore $200.

What an absolute relief to have the old colours back!!! The blue never felt right to me at all... was bothering me the whole time.

Yes you in particular need to give me a plant, a really good plant, whether you pick them up or not!! Haha. But it's a fair point - if someone doesn't have plants or anything (or any good plants), it's fine, i'll still deliver them to you, i'm mostly concerned with getting a good donation for the forum. These plants represent 'nature's own trimmings' while I have been away from the garden, twas a windy wet year.

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what has happened there is the apical meristem (the growing tip) of the original column has terminated. The original column will never grow again from its tip, it will only throw out arms (pups) from areoles (spine clusters). It will always be the size it is now, give or take. This is why it appears the pups are "draining the main body of its fatness", nice expression by the way! This is totally fine and to be expected from this type of monstrose or semi-monstrose bridgessii, you will end up with a clump of distorted columns. In non-monstrose cactus, pups, unless they are extremely numerous, do not (in my experience) noticeably alter the fatness of the main column(s). I do not know if this is 'hulk's dick' but hulk's dick is a named clone of semi-monstrose bridgessii. This looks to be close to what is commonly called 'hulk's dick'.

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I totally don't understand cause i have absolutely no idea who assad even is (but i think i get the point) but that is hilarious!

Kudos to you TI. I've been watching both the American election threads with my peripheral vision. Not because I am interested in the election, but because I am interested in how people believe things. There's been a lot of excellent contributions. The discussions on the forum have been as good as any I saw anywhere else in the media. In any case it put an excellent extra spin on the whole situation and made the election more exciting and the result compelling overall.

photinia robusta or a variety thereof is my guess. common hedging plant that looks similar to khat.

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