What did you do to your cacti today?

[2Deep2Handle]

centipede can you please do a tek for opuntia grafting....i can only find videos for turburcle grafts, and you are suggesting actually cutting scions in half and putting em on opuntia compressa or similar? i would love to try this with a few buttons and mexican-taps

[solomon]

http://www.cactus-art.biz/technics/Grafting_on_opuntia_compressa_step_by_step.htm

The first method is almost the same as what I did today and in the past. I don't bevel the edges though.

I try and use already rooted pads, just to be on the safe side. Opuntia seems to root quite quickly though.

Oh and I'm not sure of the species I use, one with no glochids spines and one with big spines.

There is a cactus grower over here that only grafts onto Opuntia, the stock doesn't distort the scion as much as Trichocereus/Pereskiopsis they reckon.

[2Deep2Handle]

Thank you centipede

[dazza501]

i took a photo of my pachanoi, both ears 12months old

[Swiper]

Today I have planted some seeds.

L.Williamsii, T.Peruvianus and T.Bridgesii.

[woof woof woof]

here some more opuntia grafting

I myself finally got around to graft some of the many seedlings. 7 grafts only so far. been having allot of trouble with the lizards eating my peresk grafting stock. Hopefully I will have enough peresk in the next month to make more graftstock.

Have not been that successful grafting seedlings on opuntia,...at least on the broader opuntia, might have to try thinner.

Another method I like is to use plastic food wrap to hold the grafts to the graftstock. use a rubberband to hold the plastic wrap.

[woof woof woof]

HERE IS THE PLASTIC WRAP METHOD FOR GRAFTING

 

[mutant]

hey dudes, you can try small echinopsis species for small buttons

[woof woof woof]

Mutant,.. indeed we can use many cacti as graftstock. I think many of the new ones to grafting still only have the idea to graft to the more famous echinopis cousins. I myself not even new to grafting anymore, am also still kind of a victim of that idea. (Juicey goody cactus to grafted to other juicy goody cactus)

In my case there are even plenty of cacti here around on the island that can be just grabbed out of nature (believe me when I tell you guys that the cacti here are not in any danger of becoming extinct soon) as grafting stock.

I'm on the verge of doing some more serious grafting. Tomorrow for sure!!! :-)

[Evil Genius]

Everyone who wants to experiment with grafting should check out Trichocereus Spachianus. Ritter said its actually the most important grafting stock. Also Candicans and everything that even remotely looks like a cereus. Pilosocereus Azureus is a good grafting stock as well.

[mutant]

pereskiopsis on the other hand, are rather over-rated and are best for seedlings

[Stillman]

T spachianus is a beauty for grafting They heal up well and really grow together quickly with the scion especially if it to is a Trich or Echinopsis in my experience.

[woof woof woof]

and that is xactly what I did today......made 7 more peresk grafts of various cacti...... I will have pics soon when my laptop has been fixed.

[CβL]

I got sick of the whining from my grafted Loph, and I decided that it definitely has spider-mite because it's not getting better (I originally thought it had just burst its skin). I decided to see if I could see a spider mite nest, so I twisted a button off. Ironically (maybe?) I found a spider under there. So then I hastily grafted the button to a Selenicereus, I don't expect it to take, but I decided I'd better graft it than throw it away. I just don't think Lophs are for me, with all their whining.

[solomon]

Hey blunt

My big graft suffered badly from spidermite, neem in the evenings seemed to fix the problem.. That or it grew out of it.

A lot of the grafts I took from it stalled due to mites.

Smaller grafts of mine got spidermite as well, when put outside (LW caespitose on Trich) they ballooned in size and grew out of the spider mite quickly, putting on noticable new growth within a few rains. These were badly scarred all over and now look much nicer.

I really, really dislike spidermites.

[Evil Genius]

Fucking Weasel shat in my seedling containers. Turned the greenhouse into one of the rooms filled with mousetraps that you know from all the Tom & Jerry Cartoons. Wont take long till i´ll start a mousetrap avalanche and fall into the cacti somewhere. Sweet.

[CβL]

Thanks for the tip centipede. Do you know any good places to get neem?

Also yesterday I checked my seed-grown baby Trichos from early spring last year, and they're doing really well. I left 3 of them outside during the recent storms, and despite getting pummeled, they grew really well and are about 2 inches tall now and extremely healthy. The rest of my seedlings will probably stay in their small pots over-winter as it will be easier to dry the soil so that they don't freeze.

[woof woof woof]

I just looked at them!!!

[ErraneousHerbalist]

Made cuttings of my pereskis', tried out tulsi tea, put some tunes on and read. Must say, tulsi is bloody delicious.

[RyanVolle]

i watered my cacti today but i got no luck on making it plump T.T either there was too much sand, too much heat, or too much of both... maybe too little water??? they look kinda wilted but at least one of them grew some new babies x3

and i got a rooted cactus cutting (now in a pot) stolen from my neighbor about a month ago (but i asked permission a month later i got the cutting and i can take more x3)

[RyanVolle]

I moved a short cut that ive been trying to root for months inside. Hoping that drying out the soil will help.

The silly thing has a massive pup on it and NOT ONE ROOT

Those babys in above pic look familiar

 

i tried rooting cacti (like ive mentioned in the previous post) i just put it in a shady spot outside with builder's sand (the gray one) and a little compost with a little sawdust (basically it got screwed up) and just put my cutting there left there for 4 weeks or less and lo and behold theres a new plant in my garden (from worth $0 to $7)

P.S. Im not a thief X.X i took the cutting ;cuz i saw the electricity bill and no one was home

Edited April 5, 2012 by Volle

[Sallubrious]

Today I finally got a chance to re-pot a few pale looking pach's and a bridge I got from Col Hawk a while back.

I say pach's because I don't know for sure what they are - pachanoi, pachanot and some obscure fucking thing with KK in it's name that is a bit of an enigma. Did someone get around to tying that Knize cunt up and shoving a KK up his arse.

Anyway I knew what was wrong with them, whenever a plant in a pot shows signs of distress around here I just know it will have been colonised by ants. The ants move in and somehow they make the soil repellent (They must secrete a protective oily film ?) to the point where no amount of watering will wet the soil and the plant then starves for water and nutrients, for some plants a 3 day soak with a wetting agent or detergent will wet it but that's not really appropriate for cactus.

So I bare rooted 2 pach's and washed all the ants off by repetitively dunking in buckets of water until they were ant free and potted them up.

Then I had enough of the soil mix I'd made up to do another one so I thought I'd re-pot a bridge that I thought could do with a perk up. I picked up the pot and carried it to where I intended to work on it and a fucking mouse jumped out of the pot and ran away, I thought I was seeing things but I'm 99% sure it came from the pot. Then I knocked the pot off and more than half of the soil was gone and it had been filled up with grass and sticks and shit, so the bastard had been building a nest in there.

[GoOnThen]

I bottom watered all of my pots in the shed (grafts,lophs). I try and bottom water every couple of weeks to make sure the get a good drink.

Put down some more seeds (approx 300)

loph weisse blute, loph elamparo x kohreshi f2, loph williamsii mixed, loph mixed and ario fissuratus

I also put down 30 odd loph seeds for my plants which I am so wrapped about. I bought two four year old plants of a member here and it was the best thing I have done.

I received the two plants at the beginning of January and they have flowered numerous times and I have collected approximately 80 seeds so far and they are still flowering.

I normally don't mention the names of the people that I buy or trade from but this time I am going to break my own rule.

tipz you are a top bloke for making the effort to acquire some of the more rare loph seeds and make them available to us at more than fair cost.

whisperz are one of a kind you grow beautiful plants and offer them to us at exceptionally good prices.

Cheers

Got

[vual]

i looked at mine and though.....

"Dam i really should repot you guys in big clay pots using a good quality cactus potting mix...... and not just these shitty plastic pots the dog chewed using dirt full of clay i dug up from the back yard" .....

Made some cutting of pere also and ended up spending the rest of the day pulling there tiny little anoying spikes out of my hands with tweezers untill i decided to use a electric hair remover 100's of little tweezers on wheel.... worked a treat.

Edited April 9, 2012 by vual

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

i cant even see mine for weeds!

so continued doing nothing LOL