Yes, yes, I do keep it in a window! And the three most major marks were on the side of the plant facing the window! So it doesn't look like it's characteristic of any pest? I do know that Echinocactus grusonii is very prone to sun damage, so I hope it's just that. I've been keeping it out of the sun...

I just came back from a week vacation, and I found many deep pits in my cactus! They're small, but not shallow, and in each of them, there's red! Obviously, my first thought is Red Spider Mites, but a similar thing happened to this same cactus a while ago, and it was just sunburn. I've got to cure t...

Sorry to revive this old thread, but I found some African Violet liquid food from Miracle-Gro that's 7-7-7! I think I'll use that when I run out of my other stuff.

Wow, look at that! That's perfect! Thanks a ton for that link!

Yes, I saw that the other day!! I think it's 15-10-10, but I figured it had too much nitrogen, so I passed! Do you guys think that 15-10-10 is balanced enough? Or maybe it was 10-10-15... I don't remember.

These are all really good points, and I value all this fantastic information. I am going to stick with this stuff short-term, even if it is low in Nitrogen. It's not that important to me to have absolutely 100% perfect conditions for my cacti to grow in, but I am glad that I now have some great guid...

I sure did find things helpful! Thanks a lot - I'll look into that other fertilizer.

...What... the... woah. Ok, anyway, the word you're looking for is "areole," the kind of "pad" out of which spines and sometimes fur grow on a cactus. But you've got roots growing out of the areoles... That's got to be the strangest thing I've ever seen! The only possible thing I...

When I first got my cacti, I got suckered into buying some pre-mixed Cacti and Succulent Soil Mix, "specially formulated for cacti and succulents." :evil: Well, that stuff is straight from the pit, as we all know, so as quick as I could, I made a great big mixture of a soil mix reccommende...

Great! Thanks to all.

Alright, thank all of you for all the advice. I'll be careful not to overuse it!

That's really phenomenal information; thank you very much. But even my largest cactus can't even absorb half a cup of water at a time, and this says seven drops per quart. To water my cacti, I fill a measuring cup full of water, and just pour it in, let it drain, and repeat the process several times...

That's extremely interesting! Azureus is a retired synonym for pachycladus now... Just another example of the convoluted, terribly organized taxonomy of the cactus family! How did you know it was Pachy instead of Chrys?

So I know that you're encouraged to fertillize a cactus once a year for maximum growth. But I'm not going to use the standard "pellet" fertilizer, like Osmocote. I added some of that to my original soil mixture, and it's probably done its job already. So, I bought some Schultz Cactus Liqui...

I just bought a fouth cactus from a local nursery, and it's a lovely little Pilosocereus. But the thing is, the nursery had it labled as Pilosocereus chrysacanthus, but the pictures of Pilo. chrys. online look different. Mine has a blue stem and slender, stiff, dark spines, and most of them I've see...