zee_werp

Whats seasol?

Any tips on keeping shit secure? Theres about to be a house getting built over the fence from where my cacti are, I'm parinoid that the building crew might take a fancy to them. I mean obviously I could lock them up but thats not really practical as I don't have a glasshouse or anywhere to put one. Maybe a security light? My current method of protection is having the spikiest ones at the edges!!

Yeah, definitley not a commercial operation, he's just doing it for the love. An old guy keepin' on truckin' at his passion. I can't imagine the total number of hours he must have racked up of 'tinkering in the glasshouse'. Probably several years worth! By the way benzito, fucking great avatar mate. Bill Cosby!!! Smirking!!!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the collection of a local cactus grower. He is 92 years old and has been growing cacti for about 60 years. He built his glasshouse in 1961 and has grown cacti in there ever since. Some of the plants were planted in the ground in it in 1961 as seedlings. He was a legendary dude, said that most of the columnars he had have been cut down to stumps countless times due to them hitting the roof. Though they always grow back a plenty. He doesn't grow tricho's anymore since the 'dope fiends' came and stole them - what a shame. But it was still an amazing collection none the less. And he had a couple of 30+ year old ariocarpus that he grew from seed as well as a bunch of other cool stuff. Came away with 7 neat little cacti for $5, cause the dude still grows seedlings for sale and exports his seeds to other collectors worldwide. The ariocarpi - The fissuratus (top) was about 20cm wide, the other one each head was about 12cm wide. Some more plants: Groovy lithops Some of the selection, 'standard rate' of 75 cents a plant And a very funky Browningia hertlingiana A big old T. terscheckii I noticed around the side of his house on the way out. This is one of the ones he had to chop it was pushing up the edge of his roof. The two stems are branches off a fatter old stem.

I am located in NZ so not sure about the logistics of sending seedlings. As I said the guy is 92 years old and I wouldn't really feel comfortable sharing his details on a forum like this, although I know most of you would want simply cool non-psychoactive cacti. What I would be happy to do though is ask him what seeds he has avaliable at the moment as he mentioned that he sends a few thousand to the UK each year. If there was anything of interest I could pick some up and send them out. He's made a few of his own inter-genus hybrids.

yeah, the lithops were the largest specimens I've ever seen, really healthy too, and a great variety. Here's another group of them since you showed interest in them. he reckoned lithops love growing in shallow trays with a lot of plants in the same tray. Although some of the plants you can see that look like several are actually just really large old single plants.

Pics not showing up for me... I'll try again in a bit

Hmm well recently I had a scop that was flowering with three buds. I pollinated all three, two of them with faslimys Juul's pollen and one with some bridgesii pollen, all of which was collected within 2 months of pollination and kept in the fridge on cotton buds. I rubbed the cotton bud tips all over the 'starfish' shaped female stigmas of the flower, once as soon as it opened, once a few hours later, and once in the morning or mid day of the day after it opened. The first one dropped off about a week later. Then I decided to try an experiment on the next one of cutting off the dead 'flower' part leaving only the base where the fruit forms (giving an extra 2cm or so for safety). My theory behind this was maybe the fertilized fruit could drop off anyway given the weight of the dead flower, particularly if it gets wet. But alas the last two buds fell off yesterday and today as well. Other people I've talked to have also reported low / no success with artificial pollination. So I am wondering, what kind of success rates have others of you experienced? What are the factors involved in a successful pollination, or is it more or less random? How vital is pollen freshness in the whole schebang? I thought 1 month old pollen should be fine but maybe I am wrong. Any tips or advice or experiences would be much appreciated.

Or you could just use a shroom-style incubator minus the addition of humidity. i.e, cheap 40 litre storage container with 10cm-ish of water in the bottom + a fish tank heater, with another cheap storage container of the same size inside that. The warm water heats it from the bottom and sides, adjustable to 1/2 degree C. Tubs can be had for $5 each if you shop around, heaters $20-30. Just be sure to get the fully submersible type of fish tank heater, any wattage will do (higher wattage is on for less time, the electricity usage doesn't vary much between wattages). Also take note that some modification may have to be done to the top tub, underneath them they sometimes have lots of square 'walls' that form air bubbles underneath. Cut the walls or drill holes in them so that the water is touching the actual base of the top container.

Glad to see that this book finally came out. Still waiting till I can afford it. Can anyone tell me what it ended up saying about euphorbia obesa? (the round geometrical cactus in the top right pic). I remember there was some speculation about this back when the cover image was released but long before it was actually published.

I'm not trying to continue the 'parinoid' spin on this thread, but whats up with when it has 'Google.com' in the list of users online at the bottom of the main forum page? Weird stuff.

Nah I don't reckon. Infact I have noticed the opposite - the happier the more ribs. I remember reading a report somewhere of an experiment some guy did of leaving his cacti in ridiculously small pots, it caused them to drop ribs. Cacti weren't too happy about it though.

Do take note though that the majority of the cacti in that list are impractical for useage, and many are also reported to contain some very unpleasant / potentially neurotoxic alkaloids.

A few weeks ago I picked up this cactus from Ye Olde Faithful, aka the 'local department store'. I thought it was kind of novel, it looks a little like a KK242 with hair. I'm not even sure if it's a Trichocereus, but I remember faslimy mentioned to me about a 'hairy trichocereus' called T. poco. The other Olde Faithful, 'google image search', turns up nothing too useful. Here's the plant - anyone have any thoughts on it's ID?

Thanks for the input guys. Its an interesting addition to the collection none the less. Anyone got pics of T. poco?

The more ribs a cactus has, the greater its surface area (for two plants of the same width that is). Since most of the alkaloids are contained near the surface, there is a much greater amount of alkaloid-bearing flesh in a 7 or 8 ribbed cactus than in a 5 ribbed one of the same strain. However I have heard that the 4 ribbed ones are considered the most 'sacred' as they represent the four winds or something like that. Not sure how solid that info is though.

Really nice plant there mate, thanks for sharing your pics!!! Care to elaborate on what soil mix and fertilizer you use for it?

Well what do you know, another few popped up just yesterday. Here is a pic of the biggest one (the others were on the sunny side of the cactus and dried out in pin stage).

Here's a pic I have floating around on my harddrive. Someone posted it at a cactus forum somewhere, sorry I cannot remember who it was but I make it clear this is not my own pic, if anyone knows who'se it was feel free to say. Edit: As stated below, the pic and the plant belong to nate123.

I've also had some species of yellow mushroom that could be mistaken for a gym (but wasn't) growing out of a couple of my cactus pots during rainy spells. Its also the only time I've ever seen this species. Never bothered to properly ID them.

Michael, am I right in interpreting this as a subtle suggestion of 'mis-labelling' on the part of the growers? Cause I honestly cannot bring myself to accept that those are two different species of cactus. Where's a DNA zapper when ya need one?

Yeah bro, got you sorted, I've got a scop opening right at this very moment (hoo-rah! it's this cactus' first flower and its from seed). Dropped you a PM. Pic taken 20 mins ago.

Far out bro, that is one prehistoric looking flower! And cactus for that matter. The mature form of the terscheckii which you have in these pics looks very different to what I believe to be terscheckii in my own collection which is only a meagre 25cm or so tall. Such an absence of spines, so many ribs, such chunky reptilian shaping. And yes other than the stoned ramble, thank you graciously for sharing these pics, certainly some of the best I've seen of terscheckii flowers. As for the werdermannianus, I don't have any real theories on it other than being reminded of the differences within plants of species like Echinopsis multiplex, etc. Whose pups can have quite a different appearance to the mother plant. Also, though this is no more than a mere observation, the pic on the left closely resembles my 'T. taquimbalensis', but the one on the right doesn't so much. It does appear that the one on the right has some floewr buds developing, suggesting that it is a more mature or established section of the plant. Perhaps when the plant is putting energy into flower production, resources are diverted away from spike formation, which could result in those spindly spikes seen in the right hand pic. Who knows? Thanks for the pics~!

Just a couple of questions. Which part of the flower did you rub the pollen onto? The 'starfish' shaped bit that sticks out more, or the many thinner tendrils that are deeper in the flower, or just all over? Also, how long did it take for the fruit to mature and how did you know when to remove it? Just wait till it cracks open? I'm about to try this exact same cross and am hoping for things to go OK, any pollination tips much appreciated.

I recently got a 2.7cm one for NZ $2 from the old guy that runs the local cactus and succulent club. It was kind of funny, he'd suddenly gotten into those coloured grafted cacti, and he thought they were the hot shit, so much so that he decided to sell off all the rest of his stuff except his absolute faves, so that he could buy more grafts. His theory was he was gonna die soon so he might as well just do what the hell he wants.