If you go into the edit function on the first post you can change the title there.

Many thanks for the help :D I'm happy with one definitive ID, even if I did have the genus wrong :lol: I expect the flowers to abort as they nearly always do when I buy cacti :( With regards to #4, I can only find one Ferocactus with straight, red, spines which is pilosus (stainesii); are there othe...

All cacti then had a soak with water-in acetamiprid (a systemic neonicotinoid pesticide). I also use spray acetamiprid on incoming cacti, Again sorry to hijack steve's post, but i'm currently suffering from a budding root mealies infestation that suddenly appeared after winter rest. An agricultural...

Good to see you're back, Steve. I enjoy your detailed observations. As for more interesting Gymno flower colors, have you considered G. andreae? Should be relatively easy to come by, but admittedly not the most distinguished plant body or spination (looks very cookie-cutter Gymnocalycium). I think ...

After the death of my long suffering Ferocactus wislizenii I was going to go to a cactus nursery to get a replacement, but decided to be lazy instead and pick up some un-labelled cacti locally! I actually managed to get four nice Ferocacti for less than the cost of the petrol that would have got me ...

My issue is that digital cameras seem to struggle to define reds, red-oranges and oranges, tending to flatten them more than other colours, which is a particular problem with Aylostera as most of them have red-to-orange flowers which are very beautiful in real life but often look lifeless in photos ...

As long as it's not rotting after 6 months, things look good as it means that any potential disease has not passed to the Astro. I have no experience with re-rooting grafts, but apparently it can be a problem if the base is well lignified/woody. Another thing to perhaps consider is that plants grow ...

Good choice! Of all of his cacti my Dad's albiflora made the biggest impression on me when I was growing up. My Aylostera/Rebutia hoffmannii is currently on it's second set of flowers this year. Whether hoffmannii is a valid species of not seems to be questioned, although I noticed that Lode's new c...

They're not terrible quality photos, so I'm wondering how every single grooved tubercle can be hidden from view. You can see a couple, there's one almost central in the first photo. I guess that the light saturation is too high, or the angle of the light was off, or the camera's sensor freaked out ...

keith wrote: ↑Sun Apr 01, 2018 4:04 am how about Escobaria missouriensis

Seems much more likely, especially being native to the area! Nice plant, I've not come across it before.

It does look a lot like Mammillaria longimamma, also known as Dolichothele longimamma, although it's not meant to be native to Texas. D.longimamma has large(ish) yellow flowers quite different to "normal" Mammillarias, and a big taproot. It's not meant to be too common in cultivation anymo...

I think anyone should start with common Echinopsis with big night flowers maybe but I don't have one right now. Sometimes I looked to buy one but those I spotted were way more expensive that is my estimate for such a plant. And it's still bulky for the space I can arrange for one of those. $39.99 i...

Many thanks

For some reason the video DaveW linked to didn't come up in a Google search, I probably should have tried Youtube itself!

As DaveW says, most modern ceramic pots are non-porous/waterproof/frost-proof. Even if the ceramic itself isn't, glaze always is (as long as its consistently applied). Porosity depends on firing temperature, the type of clay itself, any ingredients added to the clay to help firing etc, and how much ...

Do I win?