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What did you do to your cacti today?

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Far out you guys!

My town got up to 34 degrees today and it just about killed me. I certainly couldnt handle australia.

I gave all my plants a much needed drink, and then i cross pollenated a 3 ribbed astrophytum mystri~2hot2spell~grameahhh thingy with a 5 ribbed astrophytum nudum.

Also sowed some A. Asterias hybrids which Blowng sent me.

Ahh, blessed be, it just started to rain :)

 

34 degrees, woo hoo!!! That must be some sort of record for Dunedin, I can imagine how hot you were!!

Must talk to my brother in Dunedin, he would have been crying in his cornflakes today!!!

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Hit 41 in the shade under the awning here today, had to erect some more temporary little shade huts for cacti outdoors and one Copiapoa that's been in full sun for months still got burnt :BANGHEAD2:

What grade shadecloth did you use Getafix? Looks like I'll have to put some up to protect plants even on the benches!

 

I bought the 50% grade shade cloth. It still lets plenty of light through but is giving a nice filtered light. It is also the cheapest one! :lol:

I got caught out too. The cacti that got a toasting yesterday had been in full sun for months.

There must be a very fine tolerance, like 2 degrees in temperature rise where they go from being okay to being burnt. I

Edited by Getafix

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today i repotted over 40 mother "stumps" with a slipped disk, it fucking sucked but I still got it done :) Had to give a good scrub on about 15 due to mealies, what is the current practice of watering with pesticide to kill root mealies???

watered in thoroughly afterwards with 25ml/9L seasol and 25ml/9L charlie carp

due to local shops stocking habits, all I had to produce my own soil recipe was 1 part tiling sand, 2 parts potting mix (wood chunks screened out) and 1 part perlite. do you all think this will be ok? at least for a season of so?

D00d

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today i repotted over 40 mother "stumps" with a slipped disk, it fucking sucked but I still got it done :) Had to give a good scrub on about 15 due to mealies, what is the current practice of watering with pesticide to kill root mealies???

watered in thoroughly afterwards with 25ml/9L seasol and 25ml/9L charlie carp

due to local shops stocking habits, all I had to produce my own soil recipe was 1 part tiling sand, 2 parts potting mix (wood chunks screened out) and 1 part perlite. do you all think this will be ok? at least for a season of so?

D00d

 

Sounds fine, I wouldn't get to concerned about the mix at all. I have grown Trichs in every type of soil from solid clay in NZ to what looks like pure sand here in my garden in SA and they have all grown beautifully. Your mix sounds like it will drain fine, bit of fertiliser and your away.

Getafix

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Yeh it's a beautiful mix IMO compared to te cactus mixes you find! Thanks for the feedback. Are you aware of any recipes to rid the roots of root mealy? After years of growing cactus I only just got em when I moved to the illawarra, so despite a Little bit of experience I'm stumped haha

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@ Dood

A professional grower gave me a bag of these green granules which you just add to your potting mix to poison root mealy bug, its called 'Suscon Green' and is apparently one of the few products that ACTUALLY works.

Not sure if it will be available in Aus, perhaps would have a different brand name if it was, but here in NZ you can only buy it in bulk for $200

May be worth a google search?

@ Getafix

Hell yeah it seemed like a record breaker, its not often that Dunedin gets the top temperature in the country. I always used to think 'bring on global warming then it'l be perfect here'... Didnt expect such change so soon.

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Its funny that you're having your hottest/brightest days now, while we are at the heart of [out relatively mild] winter.

Yestarday it was a fantasstic day here, have been going to the GH these days to do stuff. Going now too!

Have been repotting / potting / rooting etc lots of stuff. Lots of rooted pachanoi crest/monster and TMBs planted the other day

also placed some new comers from the US to root, among them the sought after melted wax, lotusland and psycho0.

I have been thinning out and repotting year old terscheckii & tacaquirensis seedlings. Still got some seedling still to work out

Been repotting some recent grafts, mostly on kk339 pachanoi, which were done in small pots for convinience, now I I am potting up.

Also transplanting some pasacanas which I had planted in larger containers 5 or 7 together, started putting them separately, as were starting to spine each other.

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Mutant : It sounds like you have a bit going on :)

Just finished potting up another 30 pere cuttings. . I am using 50mm square pots now and I am loving them atm I just need to see how they preform growth wise. Three trays full is 90 pere B)

I think it might be time to graft some seedlings and to sow some seed. :)

Cheers

Got

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GOT : It sounds like you have a bit going on too mate! :)

transplanting shit today as well. I did a batch of tricho mix in a flat pan.

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Last night I did my first graft, an areole from a backberg onto pere. Going away for 10 days today, when I return I should have a pretty good idea how I went!

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Went out to take photos of my Adeniums flowering for the first time only to find that they had not opened still, its been like 10 days, slowest flower ever. But found this bloke (G paraguayense-fleischerianum) in full bloom so took some pics

DSCF2003-16_zps6727ef17.jpg

and pollinated the flowers with a G baldianum. Also did a heap of grafts of some Gymno Hybrids and put some trichos in the ground.

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just aquired a really nice, old notocactus magnificus and bought a nice pot for it. any way to roughly determine the age of such a pant? would have to be a bit larger than my head with several pubs the size of a fist. also potted my first TBM segment i received from a generous member here recently, was in the post for a little extra (Christmas period, not the senders fault) and had the beginnings of some type of rot at the cut point, so i sulfured it and let heal for a bit, should be solid now :)

also gave a bit of a water and seasol treatment, a few plants needed it after yesterdays heat :)

on a bad note, though, a random globular echinopsis i have looks to be on the wait out, gaping hole in the top of it full of rot and a big patch of sunburn now on that side also, short of grafting an areole i'm not sure how to save the genetics... at least it wasn't a loph, right?

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So I didn't "do" it yet, but my parents want their Macadamia trees gone (I was livid when I heard this), but in exchange, they said I can use the area for a cacti rock garden - quickly, I changed tune, and have already sawed down a Macadamia tree.

:D

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Ooh, any knotty bits of wood?

I would love to try carving some, most fruit and nut trees are meant to be quite suitable.

I fail to see why anyone would want rid of macadaemia trees, but go cactus garden!

Will be cool to see what you do with it :)

edit: here are my aforementioned astros

post-8023-0-29462200-1357512775_thumb.jp

post-8023-0-10602000-1357512791_thumb.jp

they should make some attractive babies together

These mini-grafts are SS01 x TPM from nitrogen

and here is my most mutated of the batch

IMG_2331.JPG

IMG_2332.JPG

IMG_2331.JPG

IMG_2332.JPG

Edited by bogfrog
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The 4 Macadamia trees in question had already been chopped down by the previous home owners about 5 years ago, and they had sprouted something like 10-20 times each from the old stumps. Probably the thickest trunks is around the size of the old NZ 50c coin - but I don't know if it's very good wood for carving. It seems quite flakey and breaks easily (I just pulled some of the branches down and they snapped off easily), it seemed much softer than radiata pine when sawing too. I'll take a photo for you bog if you haven't been put off yet haha. :)

Edit: I haven't dug the stumps out yet, but I think I could possibly get a few choice bits of the old stumps.

It wasn't my choice to chop them down, and I did protest heavily (initially), but I was biased once I heard I got the whole area (and they will pay for soil and rocks! :o ) for cacti. It's probably about 3m x 3m square, but I think I can "expand" that some more. I also have found that the soil there is really good compared to everywhere else on the property - a dark loam that goes fairly deep (still haven't hit the clay). I feel really guilty now though, as there are about 30 small birds who come to those trees to roost at night (because the macadamia trees have really spiky leaves, so nothing can climb up and get them), and there were all flying around, swooping into where the trees would have been - upset and confused that their trees were gone. :unsure: Luckily there are about 50 tall trees 5 metres away, as well as 5 macadamias that are still left further back.

Edited by CβL
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Minta. If the stumps aren't rotten they will probably be really nice and swirly. If theres anything useable and its not too much hassle could i perhaps flick you some coin and get a couple wee peices posted to me?

Aww, well they might turn out to be magical super-resiliant guardian birds who nest in your new garden. A cactus could be a very safe home for a bird family :)

Change is good, i'm sure you will do the land justice

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dionysus>>>

lets SEE the photo of this biggy N.magnificus, sounds awesome! I got a mid- biggy one. Maybe we could estimate age. But have in mind there are two more species of notocactus related to magnificus and each having their own growth speed.

Edited by mutant
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This little cutie looks like she is trying to produce a small pink fruit.... maybe even some seed

2013-01-07153359_zpsd70a2d71.jpg

mmmm pink bits :wub:

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Hi Dio, if you post a pic of the notocactus i might be able to estimate its age. Have a few with dates on the labels.

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ill try get a photo up tomorrow :) while i'm at it i may snap photos of a few of my other collection; no one be too hard on me though lol, my collection isn't quite that of micromegas or yourself Eg :P

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Its not about how big a collection is. Its how good it is and how much love you put into it. You know, i know huuge collections that look like a pile of trash because most plants are not in a very good condition. Definately prefer small collections that go into a certain direction.

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P1090168.jpg

image upload

a nice way to tell the giants apart from young age

down left: teschecki , right, EG had found the ID for me, not a trichocereus, but I could find the thread!

between them, a chilensis, and all the rest are pasacanas, some newly repotted.

P1090177.jpg

upload photos

Cereus peruvianus monster from seed. Note the root differences. they were all in the pot above

Edited by mutant
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More shade for the cacti, not as organised or pretty as Getafix's sollution but it should take the bite out of the afternoon sun. Insect screen gives about 30% block.

DSC00186.jpg

Still worried what the soil temp will do to the roots, recorded 64C when it was clear blue skies the other day. With today's patchy clouds it's a tad less on the surface.

IMG_0287.jpg

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The soil temp will be a lot lower down at there roots. The main area to worry about would be plants near the edges of the bed but they still should be fine just make sure you give them enough water through the really hot days

I would be more worried about plants in pots on hot days as they can really heat up but saying that I have never had a problem with any of mine in pots and in full sun

Cheers

Got

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