Thnaks for your tips - This winter has been really dry, but it can vary of course. I'm going to have a go, and let people know on the forum how it goes, it mght be useful for others in the same zone. I'll be extra careful with the rain, you are right, they are more likely to suffer from it than anyt...

Hello, I live in France, zone 6. I have had a number of cacti in an unheated south-facing veranda for years. They seem a bit cramped in their pots, and I would like to plant them outdoors. The plot of land is next to the veranda, fast-draining, pebbly, and generally Mediterranean plants are happy th...

Thanks a lot, my question has been thoroughly answered! so I'll leave it as it is - except I'm going to re-pot it as advised above - and look for the flowers and berries! Best regards to all of you! many thanks

hello to everyone I bought this small plant from a supermarket. It seems happy as it has been growing long shoots. From the forum, I gathered it might be a variety of Rhipsalis. Now the problem is : it was very compact when I bought it, with stems branching out very close to the soil. Now, the new s...

Hello, thanks a lot for your feedback - didn't want to offend anyone, of course, cacti must be judged on themselves, not on their containers! The idea of having a standard pot at shows is certainly for me the rigth way to go about it - but I must admit - as you must have seen in the pictures - my li...

Hello, I was wondering whether any of you had used interesting containers, vessels, pots, to display and show off their cacti/succulent collection. I have started re-using mugs and cups for small specimens. The problem is there is no evacuation hole, but I am extra careful at watering very little an...

Thank you very much, thanks to you, I have been able to find more photos on the web, and you are certainly right. Will watch it grow, see how big it gets! Very grateful!

Hello, I'm back after quite a long time with another query for identification. This very small succulent appeared in a pot next to another plant, totally different, which I had bought earlier. It is still very small (slightly bigger than the tip of my finger), but seems to be growing regularly. It i...

Thanks a lot, I'm going to follow your advice and leave it as it is, possibly move it to a more shaded place - though Burgundy is not California or Arizona as far as sunlight is concerned - And I cant' wait to see the flowers, if it ever blooms! They look spectacular!

Thank you very much for the ID, and also the advice. It is now in a south-facing conservatory, and so should get a lot more light than in my mother's kitchen! I'll wait a bit to see how it gets over the repotting, and perhaps I'll do what was suggested and bury the graft later. If it ever flowers, I...

I am at a loss to identify this cactus my mother gave me at the week-end. It seems it has been tampered with a lot, to make it look like a starfish (???). It has very soft spines, it's surprising, you can touch it, and it doesn't stick any thorns into your finger. It looks like five "tentacles&...

Incredible versatile world of cacti! thank you for all the food for thought in your answers!

Hello again, thank you so much, I have read the article from the cactus explorer with great interest! as far as spines are concerned, the ones I have seem to have spines when they are small, and the spines seem to disappear when they get bigger. The flowers came from the spineless ones, but it may h...

Thank you so much! As I am a non-specialist, I am already grateful for the "first" name, and I'll try and remember echinopsis!

Hello to you, I haven't posted anything for a while, all being quiet on the cactus front. But in the past week, I have been really thrilled, by this apparently harmless cactus. A gift from a friend's mother, a couple of years ago, who said she had had this cactus in a pot for 40-odd years, and that ...