Enough Lithops?

[Herts Mike]

Seen in a GC this morning and just £5.99!

[Stuart]

I see the Faucaria is also labelled as Lithops. Assuming you didn't buy them, the chance on someone buying them and knowing what to do with them is remote. There's very little correct info on watering Lithops and small 5cm pots to pot them into aren't easy to find. On the other hand, if they're split up and grown correctly they're remarkably good value. These 8.5cm pots of Lithops seen in garden centres are all grown by one nursery, and in huge numbers.

Stuart

[el48tel]

I see the Faucaria is also labelled as Lithops. Assuming you didn't buy them, the chance on someone buying them and knowing what to do with them is remote. There's very little correct info on watering Lithops and small 5cm pots to pot them into aren't easy to find. On the other hand, if they're split up and grown correctly they're remarkably good value. These 8.5cm pots of Lithops seen in garden centres are all grown by one nursery, and in huge numbers.

Stuart

Yes ... the labelling ..... one label for one import consignment equals less cash spent on plant passports .... and since the checks at the ports are on a statistical/"random" basis the risk of being caught is low. And at the retail prices charged to a customer as an impulse purchase its loss is not considerable when the plant dies or fashion/fad changes. As enthusiasts it is only us who might measure the loss differently.
As for 5cm pots .... rare. One of my local GCs sells 5.5cm pots in packs of 40 as replacements for those in seedling propagators.

[Stuart]

There's no 'cash spent on plant passports', there's never been a charge for putting the info on plants other than the initial registration cost. It's normally on a plastic label, printed on the pot or on a label stuck on each tray. There's no charge, it just looks like careless or ignorant labelling by the garden centre. Apart from B&Q and IKEA who have their labels and UK prices and barcodes stuck on in Holland, any other labels are done by the UK retailer. The checks at ports still haven't started, infrastructure still not built, identification and health checks are still at PODs (pre-registered places of destination) and plant imports have to be notified and VAT paid in advance so nobody is trying to 'avoid the risk of being caught'. Nice to hear that 5cm pots are available, garden centres usually don't like to sell something so cheap. I always have more than I can use so I give a few thousand away each year to another succulent nursery.

Stuart

[SimonT]

Homebase had some nice cacti - I recently bought what I assume is M. plumosa, which has grown well and flowered.
But their cacti labelling is on another level - and this seems to come from their supplier.
The plant prices are very low though. My pot had multiple seedlings- ~£1 per plant.
At that price most customers can afford these plants and can afford a replacement if they die. And even placed under poor conditions and
still in the high organic compost it came in (some sort of peat or coir), it'd still survive for quite a while.

[iann]

You can never have enough Lithops