Mine lost its vine and then threw out another one about a week later. It has been growing for a couple of weeks now. I have 3 smaller ones that I grew from seed which are showing buds but which are yet to begin growth. I've been giving them a dribble of water to encourage them along. Mine get watere...

I'd like to say thank you to all involved for making this such a lovely day. Well organised, great hospitality and despite the sad circumstances good fun. It was good of Bill Darbon to lead everyone in a moment's silence for Peter. I have come away with some beautiful plants and hope to continue to ...

Craig from William's Cactus Nursery has asked me to post here as he is still waiting for his login details. William's Cactus Nursery will hold its annual open day this coming Sunday 24th July. The address is: 11 Brookside Terrace, South Elmsall, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, WF9 2RS Their web address ...

To echo what Rob has said we had a similar situation at Sheffield branch show this year. We award a trophy for best Haworthia in show and the winning plant (as judged by John Betteley) was one in a group of three Haworthias which had been placed second in their class. The other two plants in the gro...

I used Ecover washing up liquid generously in a spray bottle of water and sprayed my Oreocereus fossulatus until it was well lathered all over. I rinsed well with the hosepipe and used a hair dryer on cool setting to dry it. It looked better afterwards. I even teased out the wool to fluff it up. Sen...

As it isn't a specialist cactus show you will probably do better if you have something in flower. Just choose plants which are healthy, free from disease and pests and which look reasonably mature for the pot size. If you can try to make sure that the pots are clean and that they are well presented ...

Thanks for pointing that out Roger. I had uploaded using Tapatalk on mobile and it looked fine on there. I've edited the post and resized the images on PC to allow me to directly upload them to the forum.

Last Monday I was invited to Peter Cowdell's greenhouse along with Greg B from the forum (and Sheffield branch). Peter was excited to show us his Abbey Brook hybrid Echinopsis 'Sir Joseph Paxton' in flower. He explained that since creating it Brian Fearn had only seen it in flower once and had misse...

I'm happy to see bees in the greenhouse if it means that they're getting much needed food. But I have been getting irritated this past week at Leafcutter bees getting up to no good on my collection. In previous years I've had 1 leafcutter bee in residence which is interesting enough buy this year I'...

Hello all, this weekend is the annual show of Sheffield branch. To be held as usual at the Sheffield Botanic gardens in the classroom in the gardens (portacabin near the Thompson Rd entrance, off Ecclesall Rd). We're keeping our fingers crossed for good weather and should have a good selection of br...