Have you got Tescos in South Carolina now, Bill? Most clay cat litters are unfired clay, just like the sticky clods you find in the garden, at least in states that aren't made of sand

--ian

Lots of cacti show minor bleaching after a really hot day in the sun. On ribbed species it tends to show as vertical streaking. Plants which are very dry at the roots seem to show it more. I think that Echinocactus grusonii protects itself from strong sunlight by producing denser spines, the skin it...

I always let them dry right out, so maybe I should be less generous when I do water? There's a hundred different ways to skin an egg :roll: One of the defining factors of mesembs is that they grow best on very small but very regular amounts of water. I could write an essay about how best to achieve...

I would suggest that neither is a Tephrocactus. Look at Maihueniopsis (including Puna) and Tunilla. There are also the other primitive Opunitoids like Pterocactus and Cumulopuntia, I can't tell them all apart.

I saw the subject and thought "I know the answer to this!". But then I realised that I've never had a Faucaria rot. I leave them out in the rain, keep them more or less constantly moist right through the summer, even stick them in the rockery, but they don't rot. I suspect that rotting is ...

Cutting corner: http://nartowicz.users.btopenworld.com/cactus/litter3.jpg Bill, this stuff is virtually the same as the Aquatic Soil. Also very similar to other calcined clay products such as Oil Dri, they are all very slightly porous and keep their structure in water. Anybody wanting to try cat lit...

doesn't cat litter cause problems because of the perfumes and such in it

Apparently not, although it does smell nice the first couple of times you water it

Perry, start out with one or two plants in a container filled with mostly gravel. An Opuntia is a good candidate to start with, some Echinocereus also. If they survive the winter, and they should if you do it right, then you can plan for bigger things :) I'm on the west side of England, climate not ...

Christine, if you post a picture someone (not me!) may be able to give you a name. There is a forum for getting names for unknown plants. Most hardy Opuntias tolerate quite a bit of water in winter, one reason people can grow them outside on the east coast and in England, although they don't really ...

Does it look like this?


John might get a kick out of this, the packet it comes in:

1. Is what true? That cacti like calcium and minerals in their water? Some of them do :) Rainwater is generally quite acidic and includes very dilute nutrients dissolved out of the air, but rainwater in some arid areas can be alkaline from limestone dust washed out of the air. Hard water is alkaline...

T. weberi has less papery spines than T. articulatus and is more tubercular. Even more "spine"-like is T. aoracanthus. I'd go with T. weberi.

Maybe too green for C. pillansii?

I use driveway limestone chippings for those cacti that like lots of limestone, Turbinicarpus, many Mammillaria, Ariocarpus, must be more but I can't think of them right now. My tapwater is very soft (acidic) and the gravel can be the only calcium they get a lot of the time.

Seems like a lot of trouble to produce something that could end up being a strong nutrient tea, depending on the peat. Safer just to add a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice to each cup of water if you must have acid water. Or collect clean rainwater which has exactly the right pH. Nothing wrong wi...