Can someone please explain the point of catching and killing harmless insects? Mealy bugs maybe so, but all others - no. We should be helping them thrive, not killing them. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/may/uks-flying-insects-have-declined-60-in-20-years.html The male mealie bug flies…. ...

I share your concern over this behaviour. It is clearly wrong. I also suspect the Facebook page is the something that causes a lot of angst in the committees of BCSS. There is lots of behaviour on there that risks bringing the society into disrepute. There was recently a very public discussion about...

Hi Tegglet. I have a full set of Schicks, and many other hybrids, and sometimes sell on eBay. Germany was my primary source, pre Brexit so I have quite a lot of Wessner and Rheingold hybrids. Now, opportunities are few and far between other than eBay. Many of the hybrids offset rarely unless you beh...

Some of mine, three weeks after sowing. The platyacantha have come up really quickly. Note the three lobed aoracanthus.
These have had no pretreatment at all. I’ve got a few other pots with no germination in.

Cider, why do you need a phyto certificate for inert materials? You’d need to ask Boris that, but it counts as a soil and soils need to be shown to be phyto sanitary I presume. This caused cricket clubs in Ireland, north and south, real problems in the years immediately after Brexit. The cricket sq...

Thanks Mat, I watched this end to end on a cold and wet winter afternoon. The presentation was very interesting but, I feel, selective. I’m sure the type of collector he talks about exists, but I share little in common with them. Maybe I am the odd man out? I’ve never felt the urge to own ‘real’ pla...

I keep the lid on until early summer, but I do remove some of the more humidity sensitive species, sometimes. I’ve got two Pterocactus hickenii seedlings on my office windowsill right now…I find these super sensitive to too much warmth and humidity.

Since Brexit I’ve been running down my supplies of pumice, which I used to buy from naturstein-garten in Germany. Continental prices are a fraction of UK prices (I found an Italian supplier at €0.3 per litre) but the issues of phyto certificates make import a non-starter for individuals. Has anyone ...

I made a search of my seed records which show that I've sown over 200 packs of Mammillaria seed since 2017. Mamm densispina has been sown only once, Mamm Soc seed in 2018, supplied with the field number "Rog 763". Result - zero germination.
Sorry, I'm no help to you.

I received my BCSS seeds today, alongside deliveries from Jan Novak and Ian Young (a Lithops seed seller on eBay). Jan labels his seed packs with the catalogue number. Ian has a mix of styles, ranging from a paper slip insert to handwriting on the pack. All of their packs matched the description of ...