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MikeInOz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 11:24 pm A tragedy!

Indeed. One of the prettiest P. aselliformis that I've ever seen in cultivation, especially considering where you have grown it.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I posted this topic and then disappeared into a ton of work, just catching up now.

Yeah, I meant the limestone top dressing to be purely ornamental. Just a few larger pieces for an aesthetic acknowledgement of the habitat some of the plants come from. If there's room in the pot I've put some larger rocks (1/2-1") on top of the substrate for decorative flair—granite for my Mojave species, sandstone for AZ/UT species, etc.

One of the things I've done a bad job of the last few years is planting my cacti too low in my substrate with too much crowded around the base, which I corrected when I repotted my entire collection this year. I do sometimes use smaller gravel top dressing like Steve mentioned, but have made sure that it's not a thick later with nothing inappropriately clumped up around the base of the pants. Certainly nothing near the green tissue of the body.

keith wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 1:12 am Dolomite where did I get that from ?

I got some Dolomite for non-cactus purposes from this source before. A little pricey, but I didn't need much of it.

https://www.thebulkdepot.com/products/g ... pea-gravel

Hi Zac,

Back in May 2012 I spent a wonderful afternoon photographing the Huntington's desert greenhouse collection, so check out the photos in my Flickr album:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134602763 ... 863777449/

The top dressings on their pots are quite attractive, and they may give you some ideas on what you'd like to do. By the way, there's nothing inappropriate about having top dressing clumped around the base of the plant.