I agree with Aiko, again. And there's another thread which has strayed into seed dormancy... Not all seeds will germinate within two months, some certainly will, others definitely will not so I would be careful with such a short cut-off time. If possible I do give most seeds a second season provided...

How important is it to wait for cacti seed to age or isn't it ?, My understanding - and there is plenty of research on the subject - is that seeds do have some dormancy mechanism to prevent immediate germination - and in particular in the seed capsule. Having said that some dormancy is effectively ...

I have bought from a few seed sellers on ebay, including bsquared_1, and haven't had any really bad, nor I might say, extremely good results (except in one case - a good result that was). It is difficult to know exactly why but I suspect it's just because they are simply intermediaries, especially w...

...If anything I would expect them to benefit from being watered in cool wet weather as they would be able to grow during the daytime without the C.A.M. mechanism kicking in.... I'm doubtful about this, do you have any references to C3-CAM switching in adult cactaceae ? For a variety of reasons I d...

the advantage of being light .. Well, it's not exactly low density - it's glass. Usually the material is made from recycled glass but any scrap glass is made into cullet because, I imagine, it's fairly small particles and so is easily handled. Possibly "yellow clay" may refer to burnt cla...

cacti would grow rather well in the small glass cubes which result from the broken safety glass use in car windscreen In fact I have been trying to find out about glass culett, this is the small glass pieces used as a raw material - from recycled glass. It is claimed to be non-sharp and is used in ...

If you'll forgive the flippancy, that does make hydroponics look attractive... But perhaps more appropriately...I'm not sure that I would worry too much about sharp edged grains damaging roots, although it certainly is true that alluvial and wind-blown material will have been somewhat smoothed by th...

But if you want the security then use the plastic gravel trays on top to hold the pots and use capillary matting if you wish (as Rene suggests). However I do prefer to be able to flush out the pots/soil from time to time and so drill out a hole at one end of the tray so that the excess water can flo...

Goodness, metal trays with no drainage holes at all ? If you don't fancy drilling holes then one way would be to put in a layer of larger expanded clay (because it is low density) pebbles and then the pots on those and then the water can drain into that layer but that's only going to mean you'll hav...

I agree with Aiko, those two points are very important. However a couple of others do come to mind from your description. Firstly you do want to ensure that when once you have sown the seeds they don't dry out, and by far the easiest way to keep them moist is to use a larger tray without any drainag...