Ilovecacti

After what looked to be another complete failure I looked into the dome yesterday and was very surprised to see this little guy It's a Trich. Bridgesii Seeing as this is the only cactus seed I've been successful in sprouting myself so far it's going to be cared for like a child, I'm still at a loss as to why no others have germinated though, maybe after the suggestions from the thread I went to the other extreme and didn't provide enough moisture this time...

Hey guys decided to take some new photos, they're all re-potted now and starting to look really healthy, and some are starting to flower Big thanks to shoes for sending me these lovely trich. cuttings, they're a very healthy shade of blue/green and I can just sit there staring at them for ages, almost hypnotic.

Ok guys I'm going to write off what I've planted, I didn't use all of the seeds I bought but there's not many left so I'll try again with the remainder. This time I'm going to try a mix of propagating sand and peat moss only, no rocks or perlite, and I'll keep the moisture levels down and run it a little cooler, if there's any results I'll post them here, thanks for all the replies.

Thanks hutch. The pebbles serve both, what blowng said and also I'm pretty sure cacti don't like too much organic material touching their upper bit. They're polished aquarium pebbles I got a 25kg bag of those little ones you can see and also a 25kg bag of larger ones for when they grow bigger, $40 per bag which I thought was cheap as. I've looked at what Bunnings has a couple times and I didn't see anything but I'll keep my eyes open, and I'll look into any farms not too far away, the pots are just plain terracotta I think, they're definitely not plastic I knocked one over yesterday and it broke like terracotta. The colour looks slightly odd I think because of the camera settings I had for close up shots. I had enough trouble with that potting these guys, especially the ones with spines like hair took me ages to clean them up but you feel a good sense of accomplishment afterward. Thanks Sally I'm going to be putting them all in the terracotta's soon as I buy some more.

Thanks guys, another question, the fleshy bit at the bottom of the Big W one, is that supposed to be covered or can it be left a little elevated like it is?

Ok I completely dried the domes of any water and put them back over with the vents open, we'll see what the moisture levels are like tomorrow

Ok I labeled the ones I was fairly sure about, but there's a couple I need some help with (plus I like mucking around taking photos) so here they are: Fairly sure it's a Mammillaria spp. but any specific name would be good. Maybe Notocactus? Maybe Notocactus as well? This little guy was cool, I found him in Big W in the plant section, he was the only one worth buying, the rest were very poor quality, but I have no idea what type it is. And for EG, the Aloe Vera's were from a friend, they started as two pups about 20cm big (the two in the big pots) and almost as soon as I put them in there they started growing their own pups so I separated them too, and as you can see they're ready to be separated again!

Here are some pictures of what's in the other dome and the positioning of the thermometer, also I opened the side vents on the domes, does the moisture levels inside look a bit better now?

Thanks to everyone who replied. There's other types in the other dome too, I wouldn't have thought that they all would be too old, does SAB often sell old seed? I just sowed them on the surface, poking them in very slightly with a bamboo skewer. The gravel is only on that one punnet and it's a thin layer. The temperature inside the dome is about 27 degrees, I have a thermometer in there, my pad is set to maximum (40) but it doesn't ever go any higher than 27 inside the dome. It's been 25 days now from sowing and still not one has germinated. Thanks for that I didn't realize those massive agaves that grow around the place were americana genus I'll find an out of control growth and give it a haircut

I'm in SA and haven't seen anything like this growing as a weed around my area before, but I'll note the flower colour when spring comes around to check your theory, if it turns out to be a weed that will be disappointing.

It's funny because I just got Peganum Harmala seeds from SAB in the mail two days ago, and I was out watering my vegie patch when i saw the little guy, and seeing as I've been researching Rue pretty heavily for a week or so and read about how much trouble people have growing it, I was reluctant to get my hopes up that it could be so easy. Whatever it turns out to be I'm going to try and save it, I like it's determination.

Thanks for the responses, I took your advice Amazonian and crushed a small bit but it didn't have any overpowering smell, actually kind of just smelled like cut grass, I've never grown fennel before so not sure if it has a distinctive smell but it definitely didn't smell like anise.