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The Corroboree

Illustro

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Posts posted by Illustro


  1. Haha nice, they are both definitely bridgesii - the variance is just natural. I have about 100 bridgesii seedlings at about 1yo - even as little seedlings the variance can be huge.

    Bunnings are really good for cacti, i have found some pretty sweet specimens there. There is always a few trichs of differing species there every time i visit.

    Heres my bunnings scores, i have had them for a year just about to the day now. They were no taller than 5 inches when i got them, they have been loving the full sun and heat and achieved some amazing growth.

    T. macrogonus, maybe? It looks quite similar to my other macro.

    A definite T. peruvianus. Has interesting translucent pink and caramel spines.

    A define T. scopulicola.

    Good luck :]


  2. Cheers man, they are little gems huh?

    I like my cacti receded in the soil, like in nature. I just have to be careful with watering them, i have extremely well draining soil high in minerals with a low organic content - with a layer of coarse sand on top. And i only bottom water, which usually keeps the top few mm's of soil totally dry. That second pic was actually taken a few mins after a thorough soaking, as you can see the cacti are pretty safe from any damp soil.

    :D


  3. These are the beginnings of my rare Mexican cacti collection, they are so much more interesting than columnar cacti. I think i may eventually get sell/swap my big columnar collection for more of these!

    My two Strombocactus disciformis (one is a rare twin header) - they seem to never stop flowering, totally awesome. :D

    My recently acquired Turbinicarpus valdezianus (left) and Turbinicarpus klinkerianus (right), very cute.


  4. YES. YES it was... people seem to forget this!

    It isn't even from the Americas!!! It is from ASIA!

    Check this out!

    Personally, i do not think you are of any authority to say whether it is psychoactive or not. Simply because it is not native to the americas doesn't mean it isn't psychoactive. I think it is a plant worthy of further study, until someone actually does a serious chemical analysis of it (and further analysis of the chemicals isolated) i will remain neutral.

    But know, it is just as stupid to make skeptical assumptions on uneducated guesses as it is to be fooled by the placebo effect.

    Now the question is, have you ever had a serious attempt at a bioassay with Coleus before dismissing it so completely?


  5. Recently at a hardhouse rave i went into a complete, deep trance. It was the powerful and probably the most significant event of my life.

    Before this rave i was on my way becoming a depraved druggie, i was spending all my money on E, meth and other shit just for raving. I knew it was a bad path but fuck it was too much fun.

    Before you read this just note, i was pretty high - i had never thought about any of this stuff before. It was totally 'out of the blue'.

    Well this night, i took an average dose of mesc a few hours before the rave - as i felt it come on at the rave i dropped my first pill. I felt nothing for ages, i was wondering if i had bought bunk product. Then slowly i felt something stirring, then e kicked in and i was away dancing. But this fucker grunted hard, within about 15 min i was pretty high. As it came on i started dancing strange, i started stomping the ground and waving my arms through the air like the native american eagle dance. The stomping of the ground to me was me connecting to the earth and our collective ancestors energy and my arms soaring like wings was me connecting to the energy of heaven and god, thus me bridging the two worlds and feeding from the energy.

    As the drugs came on stronger i danced harder and with more purpose (i must have looked like a retard lol) then all of a sudden i stopped dancing and i drifted away into a zone i have never been. All of a sudden i was talking directly to god (a strange thing for me as being an atheist at the time). I would ask him a question and he instantly replied, not with words but with 'knowing' - hard to describe. And what i was told made alot of sense, it was all about religion and what being truly religious means. That most people who call themselves religious today do not have a single strain of godliness in them. They only believe in god to justify their lives and actions, to be truly godly is to believe in god for higher reasons than yourself. Basically i was told the complete opposite of what most christians believe.

    Luckily i wrote most of it down into a word doc when i got home, which i still have. If anyone is interested,


  6. My friend got his bachelors in some IT qualification. Decided he hated the work after a year and is now doing a telecommunications engineering apprenticeship. Hes doing the technical side, apparently its pretty much like most trades, got a van and shit - just not much dirty work. But fairly shitty pay.. He seems to really like it, says its pretty diverse work and not really affected by the economy.


  7. Bear grylls is one of the biggest tards i have seen on TV.. He goes on about all his SAS training and shit, he spent 3 years in the SAS reserve - part time. Hes a weekend warrior, not some war hero like he makes out.

    The most annoying thing about this guy, is the fact he makes up bullshit or does simply stupid things just for ratings in obviously staged scenes.


  8. Its broad leaf, which is great . I would love the narrow leaf variety, i have a friend willing to send me cuttings from his mother plant in south america - but i know from importing other plants that it will never make it past customs.

    So im more than happy with what i got, i figure theres no point risking it all for the sake of greed.

    I might go about making a raised garden for it, not too big. Just something to get the main root bed established in case i do get a period of heavy rain. There goes my paranoia again haha.

    Lol, this thread has turned out completely different to what i expected. I would have never even played with the idea of planting it outside before i started this thread.

    Thank you so much for the sound advice! :D

    • Like 1

  9. Well, looks like im gonna plant it out :D

    I did some research, and it looks like i get what is considered the optimal amount of rainfall for khat and i am in within the temperature limits. I just hope i dont get too much frost or heavy rains for a few winters to come while it gets established.

    I have heard of people who grow them outside in my state, im just so paranoid about killing the lil fella :s

    Thanks!!


  10. Wow, thanks for all the info.

    I used to have it in my greenhouse as it gets alot of light there. But i think it may have been too hot for its roots, as you guys have mentioned - it dropped lots of leaves and didnt look too happy(i was very careful with watering).

    So i am considering either burying the pot in my greenhouse or planting it out. I want to plant it out, just i am unsure if that would be wise as i live in the sub-tropics, i get plenty of sun here but we get a few weeks of frosts during winter. It gets down to about -3'C rarely, but -1'C is about average for frosts.

    Will this be a problem?

    Cheers :)


  11. I have heard that full sun for these plants. Also, make sure you either plant in the ground or bury your pots as i have heard they need to have cool roots.

    Sweet, cheers man. I am currently tossing up whether i should leave it inside or put it in my greenhouse. It is extremely hot in there, so i may have to try your cool root technique and dig a hole in the floor.

    Any more advice would be greatly appreciated :D


  12. Hey,

    I noticed that this forum has many seasoned gardeners growing khat, so i was just wondering if you could please help me on a few questions with your wisdom.

    How many hours of direct sunlight do you find you plant prefers?

    What average day time temperature range do you recommend?

    Cheers :)


  13. Sweet, cheers guys!

    Hopefully in a few weeks time it will be looking healthy and happy again.

    Yeah it may have been getting too much water in the few weeks he was away, apparently a big storm came thru and there was a shit load of rain. Plus the wind more than likely claimed some leaves also.


  14. Yep, thats what he has done.

    The reason he moved it around so much was simply trying to keep it alive. He was getting really worried as it is extremely rare in his country, he slowly acclimatized it to each new place by slowly introducing it to more heat and light over a few weeks - he wasnt just plonking it there. But as soon as it started to show signs of stress he didnt want to risk killing it by letting it acclimatize properly to the area so he quickly put it in a shadier position.

    He was hoping to have it as a nice deck feature but he thinks it may be a few years of pampered growth before it can achieve that.

    But yeah, thanks for your input man, i think he did just need to realize that it is young and would probably be growing at the base of other larger plants at this age in the wild - so full sun was probably a bad move. He just simply assumed desert plant = lots of sun.

    Cheers!


  15. Hey all,

    I have been on here lurking for a while, but until now havent had much to say.

    AFOAF in Uruguay got a khat plant a month or so ago and its just been growing really strangely.

    Apparently when he first got it it had very thick, leathery - typical khat leaves. He put it in his greenhouse for a few weeks and it exploded in heaps of big, soft, green leaves (they didnt have red pigment for some reason and never became leathery like the original leaves) so he put it onto his deck (about 12hrs direct sun a day) and let it rip.

    Well within a few days the new leaves started rolling up and looking dehydrated. So he put it in a shadier place and it seemed to stabilize and its leaves started looking healthier but all growth seemed to cease. He put it back out and it dropped about half its leaves in 2 days. And much of the new growth looked like it was literally boiling, which resulted in crescent shaped leaves that never developed properly.

    He had to leave for a few weeks so i put it back into the shadier place (about 8hrs direct sun a day) when he returned it had dropped every single leaf it had before he left and just had a heap of small, extremely fragile, green growth.

    The soil is about 1/3 potting mix 2/3 coarse sand - plus some scattered sheep nuggets. He watered it about once a week with about 2 liters and fertilized it twice with a specially mixed fertilizer (calcium nitrate/urea/potash + trace elements) in low concentrations. It definitely wasnt too much water, as it hadnt rained in months and it was scorching hot.

    He has his suspicions it was simply too hot and windy and he keeps putting it in different environments.

    The first 3 pics are from when he got it to just before it started dropping leaves. Then finally the sad state it was in when he got back..

    Some input and any other advice from fellow growers for him would be very much appreciated.

    Cheers! :D

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