... I came across the indoor plants. Since I was in the place of my original Forby, perhaps I had too high an expectation of the cactus/succulent display.
I found Lithops in wet soil, bulging fit to pop, and those were the lucky ones. Some Lithops had great tears in their sides, one so badly split that the top of the cone had fallen off and lay on the soil. I even found one with such a side splitting that two pairs of baby leaves were emerging from the side of the plant!! The fissure remained unsplit.
Poor little Lithops!!! I was tempted to try and rescue some, but they would probably die on me anyway, so I left them, but kept going back to have a look at them. I was fascinated at seeing the little leaves... even though they shouldn't be seen yet.
I wondered to myself, do these places help or hurt the hobby of any kind of plant collecting, be it cacti, azaleas, orchids, ornamental grasses etc.?
I guess not everyone has access to a proper nursery where plants are cared for by those who grow and know them. But... I saw a few Haworthia, a couple of dry aucampiae, at least ten different cacti (excluding the poor unfortunate specimens superglued into gaudy pots).
I think it's not about a shopping habit but more of a mentality - I guess we plant lovers here see a plant as not some inanimate object that exists to fit our purposes, but fascinating little living things that we have a responsibilty towards - to learn about how to keep them, and give them the best chance we can, in return for the magic of watching them grow, flower, and reproduce.
I am not sure that there is any cure for the attitude that a plant is akin to ornaments... disposable. You keep it for as long as you want it, and if it becomes visually less pleasing (no more flowers, too big for it's assigned spot, etc.) then you can throw it in the bin without a second thought, and replace it with another. These attitudes probably develop early in life.
eg. my mother has this attitude, but I'm not making any age-related assumptions... my family are not a representitive sample of the human race! Her father was a great gardener and lover of green things... so I guess upbringing is not the whole story.
One thing that gives me more hope for the future of cactus and all plant loving/collecting as a hobby... children nowadays are taught about environemntal issues and possibly develop a greater respect for live things as a byproduct?
This may be entirely unrelated, and subjective to me
but there are more vegetarians now... are our attitides toward living things changing over time? Or is it just a cultural factor, which means statistically someone born in 1980 is more likely to become veggie than one born in 1950?Herein a deeper question lies. If we grew up a hundred years ago, would we all think that surgery is a terrible thing, an abomination against God? In a hundred years time, will we all discuss how to genetically engineer our Lithops so they grow more funky patterns and colours? Pink Lithops with blue spots, anyone?
But then again, even if the world suddenly developed a love and reverence for all things green, there would still be a majority who did not care to collect them, even though they might feel sad for a burst Lithops.
Still, I don't feel that my attitude toward plants was shaped by visits to garden centres... else I would probably just think, "what a pity nobody knows how to care for Lithops, they will lose some money there."
So... I guess I think they are a good thing. Ornament seekers will go there, but so will plant lovers who can't get to a nursery, and pick out the bulging Lithops and dry em out, quick.
Are the two mutually exclusive?
Plenty to think about on the drive home!
All thoughts and ideas welcome.
one is a nationwide chainstore and tends to have a few cacti labled something like "cacti mixed" one one stand. the other is quite a large local nursery......again just the one stand, sometimes a bit of overflow.......but they do sometimes have named plants......things like "mammillaria sp" and every so often the plants actually have a lable from the supplier with both names 
theres nothing quite so sad as seeing a dead plant covered in paper flowers 
