CactiGuide.com

DaveW wrote: M. saboae

I wish we got those here and seeds are rare. I truely envy you.
Do you have cactus specific nurseries in England?

Those importers and growers are not stupid Stefan they produce plants that are easy and cheap to raise and will sell to the general public in their hundreds, who will probably kill them within a year anyway. They are not raising for collectors, which is usually a less profitable market for nurserymen. Nurserymen are in business to make money, as any firm is. If it does not pay don't do it or your business will go bankrupt. If collectors want a greater range of plants they need to grow them from seed themselves.

Yes M. saboae is cryptocarpic the seeds being retained within the plant therefore not often available, but being freely offsetting it is usually vegetatively propagated. We have quite a few cactus nurseries in the UK, but not as many as we used to have since it is now more profitable to use the heating and space to grow normal quicker growing plants for the general public. Southfields is probably the biggest cactus nursery in the UK, but some on the Continent and USA are no doubt larger:-

http://www.mycacti.info/pics_southfield ... July09.htm

http://www.teessidecacti.org/BCSS/GALLE ... es_004.htm

Cactus Mall is a good source of both online nurseries and seedsmen. Unfortunately due to CITES only seed can be imported into most countries these days. There are a few dead links in Cactus Mall's lists though:-

http://www.cactus-mall.com/seeds.html

http://www.cactus-mall.com/nursery.html

M. saboae seeds can be hard to obtain, but some do list them when available, the best way is to email the seller and ask if any will be available in the near future.

http://www.hajek-kaktusy.cz/en/semena/m ... rrency=EUR

Uhlig in Germany is one of the few CITES approved nurseries that can export and lists M. saboae forms. However the CITES paperwork may cost more than the plant.

https://www.uhlig-kakteen.de/en/plants/ ... page6.html

Those importers and growers are not stupid Stefan they produce plants that are easy and cheap to raise and will sell to the general public in their hundreds, who will probably kill them within a year anyway

If only their schemes worked 65% of the time.... but even that business practices has it frequent failings. So if it brought them money, id concede. But most of them dont even get sold for up to a year.
I studied business back in high school a bit, and basically, the investments needs to make enough profit before the product begins declining in price and quality for the transaction to be "good for business". And in this case, sellers lower the price or lose a few of their plants.

And i have to look for those- and intend to do so. About the rest, after pleading and begging the growers for better plants..... i realized that the person choosing the import of plants has the mindset of a magpie.

These plants are grown at different technology so I prefer to get plants from friends or other collectors if I want to enrich my collection. Also among several hundreds species of Mammillaria everyone could choose 5 - 10 spec. more unusual and not boring to enjoy closer. You kind of are ignoring this group.

You do realize growing from seeds IS my last resort?

Due to CITES Stefan not allowing plants to legally cross most borders anymore, growing from seed is often the only way to obtain such plants. Particularly if you live in a country that has few or no cactus nurserymen to grow them for you, or no cactus society where you can exchange plants between members. Remember cactus societies did not start up of their own accord, some enthusiast always had to start them, usually by placing an advert in the local press or any free advertising magazines to see if there were any enthusiasts nearby who wanted to meet up and swap plants or seedlings.

Ever thought of a trip to Italy to some of the cactus nurseries there or to see cactus shows? They seem to be your nearest if you can manage to bring the plants back home with you. Even belonging to the Italian Cactus Societies. Many on the Continent and UK go to ELK in Belgium for the plant sales.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2om7yY2UkM

We had a chap travel from Malta to the UK to see our National Show one year. As he would not fly he travelled all the way there and back by ferry and train! Don't know if they do cheap air flights to Italy from Macedonia, but we can get cheap flights from the UK to Spain and many of us eventually travel to habitat to see our plants, although it took me 14 hours on a plane each way to Chile.

I may be missing a point here, but flying from UK to Malta or Spain or Belgium is still EU. Stefan doesn't have that luck. Bringing plants from Italy might still be ilegal to do.

Agree Maja, but his Customs may not be as bureaucratic as UK and Western ones are for plants from other countries, few are since ours like to "gold plate regulations". Looking on the list of CITES members I cannot see Macedonia, but they may have now joined? If all EU Customs were like the UK ones there would never be any the newly found plants at ELK coming in through the E European borders.

Also many UK travellers bring plants as souvenirs back to the UK in their luggage from outside the EU in complete ignorance of CITES regulations and that probably occurs in other Continental countries too. Nobody is really advocating breaking the law, but we would not have the newly discovered plants we now do in collections if somebody had not, since Mexico banned all exports of cactus plants and seed since it joined CITES and I am sure some still cross the US border.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=435

They are- cheeked a bunch of bureaucratic and law files on the government website. and we have accession to cites
as "the FYROM"
And a trip to italy is way way above what i could afford. Even that disastrous order from giromagi seems cheaper .
The real issues is customs- they will charge me a lot of money for everything above 45 Euro. And phytosanitary certificates too.
Unless i have "connections" like everybody with money in this country, no way thats going to work.

//Curent poll winners are Pachycereus pringlei(winner of previous before reset-3votes)
-Echinocereus rigidisimus.
unless any further votes are made, plant for march 2018 will be chosen at random.

Plants given to choose from were common ones I would say. Asking me, we better discuss some of so called "monotypic" plants like Cumarinia odorata, Denmoza, Digitostigma, Espostoopsis dybowskyi, Geohintonia mexicana, Kroenleinia grusonii (ex Echinocactus grusonii), Leuchtenbergia principis, Miqueliopuntia miquelii, Ortegocactus macdougallii, Obregonia denegrii, Samaipaticereus corroanus, Yavia cryptocarpa. Anyway, the year is long and we will go there too.
Happy New Year!

Echinocactus grusonii - id skip that one... too common. Especially its painted holiday varieties.
As for the rest -create another voting pool for april and beyond.
As for my motivation, wanted to include plants the were popular among some members of the forum, and were available.
Rarities on the other hand... i wanna grow em(leuctenbergia, denmoza..)
But bear in mind, some of those plants have already received that tittle. //Also, since myrtillocactus geomatriazans and parodia leninghausii already received their tittle, all votes for
them are null and void from this point on.)

7george wrote:Plants given to choose from were common ones I would say. Asking me, we better discuss some of so called "monotypic" plants

My original idea was to do not so typical plants like the ones you listed.

stefan m. wrote:wanted to include plants the were popular among some members of the forum, and were available.

Here's what we are gonna do. We are gonna make these threads biweekly or weekly like "Succulent of week".
You'll do 1 or 2 times per month pupolar and common plants like the ones you suggest and the other times someome else will do other plants. So the schedule will be per month: stefan thread/other member thread or stefan/member/stefan/member

This way we will be a more active forum. I will check with daiv to modify the name from "cactus of the month".

No problem here. Just as long as I dont have to write them all.
That and no repeats. I failed in that deparment.