executi0n

Hi, First of all, this is going to be my first attempt at growing plants. I've successfully grown mushrooms before, and found that something really fun to do, watching them progress from the mycelium stage to the fruiting stage. So I hope that this journey will be just as successful. So I recently got some Acacia Maidenii seeds from a member of this forum, and want to try my hand at germinating and then planting the seeds. I apologize in advance if these questions have been asked a thousand times. I have search the forums and read up on a few threads, but would like to throw in a couple more questions, and just make sure I'm on the right track. 1. I put the seeds in near boiling water, and am leaving them over night to (hopefully) swell up. At the moment, there are 5 seeds on the bottom of the cup, and 1 seed that is floating. From what I've read in a couple places, this means that the floating seed is not viable. Is this true? Should I get rid of it? (Put it in the garden). 2. Once the seeds are swollen, the next step for germinating is to place them on some wet towel and put in an air tight container and wait for them to start sprouting, am I right with this step and will tissues or paper towel work okay for this? 2a. How long should the roots(?) be before I pot them? And do I need to replace or re-wet the towel every so often? 3. I have a few pots here that I purchased today. 1 is a 175mm pot, the other is a 250mm pot. Would either of these be okay to start off with? And do I plant the seeds 5mm apart or more so than that? 4. What kind of soil is best? We have some 'Gardener's Choice Terracotta Potting Mix' here, but I'm not sure if it will do. Are there any other specific brands or methods for making a mix that you would recommend? 4a. I'm going to fully wet the soil in the pot before sowing the seeds, is this the right thing to do? 5. How deep should I place the seeds in the soil? I read that the should be sown just under the surface of the soil, about the depth of the seed itself. Can anyone shed any light on this. 6. After sowing the seeds, should I wet (mist with a spray bottle) the soil and leave it from there? And how often should I be watering, and how much? Just enough to keep the soil moist, but not wet? 7. I realise this probably isn't the best season to be starting, but it is more of a test run to know what I am doing, and get everything ready. Do the plants need to have indirect sunlight, or will they be okay sitting on the desk in my room, or would the be better off on the porch at the back door (with possible indirect sunlight + cold temps)? 8. This also brings up the question of humidity. Is it necessary to have something to keep the humidity up, and what kind of range am I looking at? (50-60)? 9. Does it seem like I'm on the right track? Is there anything I'm missing? Sorry for all the questions, I can understand that people may get sick of answering these kinds of questions, and might not want to spoon feed everyone, but sometimes I feel a lot better asking these questions rather than reading page after page, and in the end, missing some kind of important step. Thanks to anyone that made it through my post ;) -executi0n

Okay, so this has been boggling my mind for a few days now. I have see these trees quite a lot, generally down the side of driveways, etc and I can't for the life of me remember the name of them. I don't know why, but it just seems to slip my mind...which is incredibly frustrating Can anyone help out with getting the id haha It would be much appreciated Cheers executi0n

Cypruss. That's it. Well I'm pretty sure it is. Thanks guys, really appreciate it. Now I can rest.

Ah, sorry. I'm in S.A.

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had some hbwr seeds available in bulk? I think last time I purchased some I got 25g (approx. 250 seeds) for $25. If you know anyone who could help out it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

Now that you say that, it does look like a cereus spp. My mind is a little off today. I'm trying to work my way through thousands of pages of powerpoint slides. I didn't realise how much they tried to cram into each week. Thanks for the reply

So my friend just sent me some pictures and wanted to know if I could get them identified for him. I think they look like a Trich, but I don't like to give out wrong information. My mind is a little overflowing with information as well since I have an exam in.... 3 hours :| Anyway, here are the pictures. Pretty nice photos, especially the second one, I actually really like it as a picture. If you need any more information just let me know Back to exam revision for me

Got mine today as well, thanks again! Hope to be able to give back to the community soon.

Yeah, there are a few more around them, but those were a more 'picture perfect' bunch. Haha, that it is! And yeah, that is exactly where they are

Hey, I was just driving home from a mates house and went down a different street than I usually do and came across these. They were kind of hard to miss, they stuck out like a sore thumb. Is anyone able to identify them? The large one seems to have been cut at some point and has dried/rotted out it looks like. Thanks

Hi Evil Genius! Thanks for that. I thought that the smaller ones looked familiar to the Trichocereus family. I must admit, I like the looks of those ones compared to the Marginatocereus cacti, but that could be because those aren't as 'healthy looking'. Cheers

Well, it appears that it's this time of year that the acacia's come out to play. Over about the last week or so, I have seen so many acacia's flowering that, it looks like they've just sprung up over night. It really is amazing and, at the same time, beautiful. A few years ago I wouldn't have taken much notice, let alone known what 'acacia' even was, but today, I keep my eyes open a lot more when out and about. It's amazing to think that so many people would go about their lives without taking a second glance at some of these plants. The acacia's in particular bring so much color to the area. Even parts where it's mostly dirt and salt bush, a few acacias somehow manage to 'brighten' up the place. Anyway, so I was driving today, and literally just around the corner from my house I notice about 3 big acacias which I've never seen before (I've seen them, but they weren't flowering so I didn't know what they were nor take notice). I took some photos with my phone which will hopefully be clear enough to get an idea of what they may be, but I can always get more with a camera later on if needed. On to the pictures. Here is a (horrible) picture of what they look like, highwise, etc. Here is a picture of what I think *might* (very big might) be an acacia. I actually really like this one because of the shape of the leaves, the dark green color that sort of transitions into a browny,purply kind of color. Here's one that has thicker phyllodes, not as much as the ones above, but more so than the others I've usually come across. It looks like it could be related to the one above: And lastly, we have the lightweight. This one had the thinnest phyllodes of them all, extremely thin (and long) (Acacia retinodes? Acacia melanoxylon?) Oh, actually I found these on my computer which I took a few months back of a plant I saw when driving around, that at first I thought might have been Klip Dagga(?), but upon closer inspection I don't think it is at all. It was just the quick glimpse of red when driving past that made me think Klip: All of these are in South Australia by the way, around the 'outskirts' of the town itself. By outskirts I mean on one side of the road is houses, on the other its salt bush and dirt. Hopefully I've given enough information to help.

Ah, thanks. Yeah, I was thinking that before when you first replied, it's such a pretty plant to be a weed. I might have to go back and check on them again in a little while to see how they're doing. The ones I posted here are only around the corner so I definitely don't have to worry about not being able to access them heh.

So it's a pest/weed one? Do you have the actual name of it? Thanks!

Just wanted to jump in and say that I received a seedling from tipz this morning, and I was extremely pleased, not only with the amount of care gone into the packing, but also with the seedling itself! Not to mention, I couldn't find a more helpful/friendly person if I tried hah Cheers again,

Hi, So I was driving around today, went for a walk through the park and a few other places and took some pictures. The first one, is just about every on the footpaths. There's actually one point where you can't go a meter without seeing one. To me it looks like it belongs to the Mimosa genus, but I'm happy to be proven wrong ;) Unfortunately, I didn't find the camera until I got home, so these two are taken with my phone, hopefully you'll get the general idea. The next one is what I'm going to say is maybe an Acacia. The leaves look familiar to an Acacia (if I'm remembering the post correctly), but once again, feel free to correct me! These are taken with my camera, so they are a lot better looking. The last one, maybe an acacia, or some kind of yellow fluff ball tree :D Apart from that, the rest of the town is pretty much bushes, eucalyptus trees, or peppercorn trees (from quick glances). If you need more information, just let me know! Happy to provide.

I have never really seen the fascination with cacti, but wow, these are just...amazing. I would love to have something like these around my house. The spines on the Cuzco look beautiful. All of them are just perfect.

Haha, if only! Although, with the amount of money I would end up spending, there would definitely have to be profit in it for them :D

That's the exact plant I was looking at getting too. The last time I checked they mentioned something about a new variation coming soon, or something like that, but forgot until this year, and unfortunately they were closed. There have been a few posts of various different Psy. plants on the forums here, might be best to create a separate thread to get a bit more exposure

Yeah, there's a few things I've had in mind from SAB, just need to wait for some other things to (hopefully) come in stock again. SAB will always be the first place to buy from, it's the least I can do to help support them!

Yeah, I don't find much use in facebook anymore. It's mostly just a way to save on credit when talking with friends/girlfriend/etc. Thankyou free facebook on telstra haha. Agreed Can't wait to see what deals he has planned! Been looking to get my collection started again after giving my seeds/plants to a friend.

I think with the myspace thing, it was more because it was easier to get acknowledged by new fans because many bands would be friends with other bands and 'advertise' each other, thus sharing fans. That was how I found many of the bands I listen to today. It was a lot easier to find new bands through myspace/facebook than to randomly search google in hopes that one of the websites would have the music I'm looking for. But nowadays I just use last.fm for finding new bands. The reason businesses use Facebook is because it's free advertising. No cost to sign up and create a page or group, and you can advertise products, merch, etc to the fans/friends of the page, and it's all free. It's maximum exposure at no cost, and when one person becomes a fan, their friends see it, become a fan, and so on and so on. Virtual word of mouth. A friend and I offered computer services to the people in our area, and the first place we went was Facebook. About an hour later we had 100+ people reading our information and contact info. It has a great potential for those looking to reach the vast user base. And sorry for going off topic. But this was something that I was also wondering as they had a lot of items I am interested in purchasing. Hopefully it won't be long before they are up again (which is estimated at "Two to four weeks"), not to mention.. Can't wait to see what's instore for us.. (pun intended?)

I remember seeing Piper methysticum on ARH about a year ago. Seems they have an all new site now, but it appears they still have it, although not in stock at the moment: http://www.allrareherbs.com.au/products/Kava.html Not sure if you'd be willing to pay the price they are asking, but just thought I would let you know about it

That's interesting. Wikipedia states that they've "...been shown to reduce indoor air pollution." Sound's like a pretty interesting plant

I went back to the tree I posted yesterday and grabbed a couple more shots of it, whole, bark, etc. which you can see below. I also found another one while driving around. I'm guessing it is still a Pycnantha, but I'm wondering why the leaves don't have the green/glossy look to them? Would this just be due to insufficient water, nutrients, etc? Or is it a whole different type of acacia? I also noticed these nearby the first tree, which I'm guessing is P. arundinacea. Well, the stripes are what lead me to believe it is this genus, but as always, feel free to steer me in the right direction (This was just one of the 'groups' of plants)