I use a digital camera to spot pest which is another way to give a bit of magnification. I agree that a pesticide containing rapeseed oil pesticide works well for mites but it can mark some plants, so you need to test it first. I've not seen any mites this year yet but I'm just assuming they're just...

I like the combination of spine colour and flower colour.
ADBLPS lists this one as an Aylostera narvaecensis v. nova E._Aguilar_&_R._Lara under Aylostera.
It looks a bit like a cross between Aylostera narvaecensis and A. muscula!

Aylostera hoffmannii at the front and Rebutia minuscula at the back. The R.minuscula plants I grew from seed obtained from three old clumps. The odd thing is that the light pink flower like R. violaciflora turned up in the seedlings but not on the parent plants. The parent plants all had red or red/...

A whole set of these new regulations seem to disadvantage small operators.
Anything that applies a fixed cost to a group of things where the group can be of variable size.
The smaller the group, the higher the overall cost per item within that group. Sorted!

Very nice.
It really does look like a Mammillaria, apart from the flowers anyway.

Things have brightened up a bit now anyway

I'm not usually an optimist- I don't know what came over me.
The flip side of the argument is that if common pests are difficult to control then how are
new pests that are a biosecurity risk going to be controlled? The control measures used are generally the same.

I hope that Plant Passports will become a sign that plants for sale have actually been very carefully checked for all pests and diseases. Even common pests like Mealy bug, RSM and similar can be a real pain to manage, especially given the pesticides we now have available. I'd certainly pay more for ...

I'm also having access problems- very slow and lots of timeouts.

Second sunny day in a row, neither of which were predicted by the 10 day weather forecast....
Still the plants look happier.

Simon