Highs, Lows, mistakes etc this year (so far)

[Mal H]

What have been your successes, failures, c*ck ups or chin-stroking moments of the year? I know there is plenty of time left for more, but I thought I would share mine with you:


Highs - Built my greenhouse, filled it full of new plants and managed to crack seed germination brilliantly (for me) using the forum advertised baggy method.

Lows - Scorched plants when my neighbour cut trees down beside my conservatory . My Melocactus mantanzanus lost its roots, still looking peaky .

Mistakes - Bought clumping cat litter instead of Tesco Red premium one batch of cactus seedlings were very unhappy, but other succulents (Lapidaria margaretae and Adromischus cooperi absolutely loved germinating and growing in it.

Mal.

[Robert K]

hmmm

highs - only killed one plant so far and got some seeds to germinate

lows - upset of lack of space as would love to develop collection and worried i overwatered my plants couple days ago fearing they will die:frown2:

[Phil_SK]

The highlight was probably just the daily trip to the greenhouse to see tiny changes, new things and old things flowering and just spending time with my plants. The low point was this http://www.bcss.org.uk/forum/read.php?1,82228

[Devrim]

Mal H Wrote:

> Mistakes - Bought clumping cat litter instead of
> Tesco Red premium, Lapidaria margaretae and Adromischus cooperi
> absolutely loved germinating and growing in it.
> Mal.

that's one very important piece of info Mal, thanks for that, mistakes sometimes lead to unexpectedly good results.

[Victoria]

High: definitely my first National Show

Low: finding two fairly expensive caudiforms were crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle

Mistakes: not managing to get round to seed sowing this year (still in the fridge from last year's offer )

[BrianMc]

Highs - every one of the little plants I brought into the world this year and watching them develop.

Lows - boiling my schmoos and half of my titanopsis plants and some lithops youngsters, because I had literally nowhere to put them!

[sandi]

Highs - erected my greenhouse, successfully grafted 6-7 Ariocarpus seedlings onto Periskiopsis .
Lows - The hail that destroyed about 30 plants and scarred the other survivors.
Mistakes - none come to memory at this point.

[Chris43]

Difficult choices...but probably:

High Spot - many of them - each time a plant flowered for the first time!!

Low Spot - realising that my greenhouse is too small and I probably will have to shrink some parts of the collection, that is if I want to repot - and I have to!

Mistakes - taking my bubble glaze down just before a very sunny spell, resulting in scorch to some Echinopsis and Copiapoas - Grrr.

[Julie]

Poor white seedlings! :(:(

High:

Cono flowers - pellucidum had 7 flowers on 7 heads.
Getting my own home and own windowsills!
New workmates admiring all my "weird" plants.
Mama the obesa with root rot, getting new roots and getting fatter - presumably she has good roots now. I wish they would invent transparent soil so I could see.

Low:

The baby Mamm's I'd sown from a pink chilli liberated from a garden centre plant - it fell off into the pot I was buying, honest! ...they sort of got dried up, after making it for over a year... they decided to cark it in the September sun.

No Lithops and P. nelii flowers
No Gymno amerhauseri flowers

Mistakes:

Getting a BT landline installed when I could have had that Virgin thingy instead. I only want internet, I never use the phone!
Having anything to do with BT.... may they fall into a patch of Opuntia.

[Mike P]

Highs - getting the O. emgelmanni to flower after years (many) of trying, having the Cereus ? flower unexpectedly, first visits to Havering, The National and the MSG meeting. Booking a trip to see cacti in the wild.(Yet to happen) Joining the RHS and getting access to the Library.
Lows - Having two Opuntias go down with the soft black rot, having a snail chew the surface off a couple of plants placed outside for the summer. Wrecking the Adro with white powdery coating to the leaves whilst repotting it.(VERY CAREFULLY) Still nice potfull of new plants on the way.
Mistakes - discovering that I could fill a second 8x6 in less than a year without really trying (repotting half my plants didn't help) and not having the heart to compost the old battle scarred plants that get dissed at branch meetings.(What use is the 15 year old ferocactus with the brown scarring to the bottom third? Other than to take up almost one square foot of space.....)