came home to bit of a nightmare

[daniel82]

I get home from work, go to check on my plants and find one of my growhouses has fallen over. Not sure why, possibly wind but it's never been a problem before. From tonight it now has extra weight on the base just to be safe.

It had tipped over four trays of young plants (1 - 2 year olds). 1st tray was cacti that were so well rooted in that despite being upside down, none came out. 2nd tray was mixed cacti that went everywhere as was 3rd tray, except these were individually potted. 4th tray was lithops that ended up in a heap.

Well after an hour and a half of pricked fingers and some choice mutterings I finally did it. Everything back where it should be and labelled. Well I'm 99% sure on the labels, there are 2 small fraileas and 2 small gymnos that may be muddled. Made a note of it and will keep checking them as they grow. The lithops fortunately were 4 types but each very distinct, otzeniana, dorotherae, ruschorium and karasmontana tischeri, so not too much problem there.

Feeling very relieved now, until the plants and labels were reunited I wasn't even sure I'd found them all in the grass!

[juster]

Bad luck Daniel and definitely a nightmare! Well done for sorting them out and (hopefully) reuniting the plants with the correct labels, time will tell for sure.

[Mike]

Well done for your patience and diligence!
Mike

[Mandy]

i would have been well gutted glad to hear you got them sorted.

[ralphrmartin]

Reminds me of when a couple of yards of my benching collapsed, and I came home to find a bit of a compost heap... Still, with time, I managed to rescue all but about 10 plants of the couple of hundred involved - so don't despair.

[Aiko]

I think we all have an experience like this. I once dropped an entire tray with seedlings. I know how hard it can be to try to fit the right plants, labels and pots together...

[Chris L]

It is the worst sinking feeling ever to find plants out of pots on the floor. I always manage to drop/knock over or other wise disturb something when moving things about.

I once dropped THREE quarter trays of different Frailea seedlings - all in a heap on the floor under the window sill.

[Liz M]

It sounds the stuff of nightmares. It is the normal consequence of too many plants and inadequate means and space for caring for them. Clearly, something we have all experienced here. I have a greenhouse that I have to edge in carefully and the prospect of more plants arriving tonight.

[daniel82]

Actually I think it was too FEW plants on the racks meant the wind could move it. Also combined with this relentless damp and soaking soil the front feet had sunk (I had put boards under to spread the load but it's so wet outside that that had sunk a bit). I've repositioned it and put a safety wire to the wall behind, just in case

My other growhouse is more sturdy and is rock solid fortunately, good job as it contains even more flats of young plants. All in all I think I was really lucky it wasn't worse. The thought of a mix up of all my fraileas was the one that made my heart sink, but as it happened the majority of those didn't fall out of their tray.

Plants are looking none the worse for the tumble and the only real casualty seems to be a tray of sarracenia seeds that was also in there to start germinating. They landed on the plastic and I got just about all the soil back in the tray, hopefully with the seeds too but who knows.