# Cactus anyone?



## chase thorn (May 31, 2012)

So I know many of you grow cacti for your little torts. But how many of you took it to a new level of collecting cacti as a hobby? I feel into the cacti collecting hobby recently this year. Anyone have pics of their cacti??


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## Jacob (May 31, 2012)

I Do not do this, but i had an aunt growing up she collect alot of cactus's 
she lived in palm springs ca so it made it all the better to collect


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## chase thorn (May 31, 2012)

Once I make the move to TX... My collection will go crazy!


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## Tom (May 31, 2012)

I actually filled the bed of my pick up with opuntia today. It's gotta be several hundred pounds. Picked up two new varieties to add to the eight varieties that I already have.


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## dmarcus (May 31, 2012)

I have a few different varietes I have bought, collected and recieved from a few TFO members. My favorite as of now is the variegated opuntia. No pictures though...


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## chase thorn (May 31, 2012)

Very nice


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## Turtulas-Len (May 31, 2012)

I have many, here is one that opened today, it's small but has a nice bloom.


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## Jacqui (May 31, 2012)

Len said:


> I have many, here is one that opened today, it's small but has a nice bloom.



Hey, it's not yellow!  Seemed like all the other ones you have been showing us laely have been yellow blooms.


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## chase thorn (May 31, 2012)

Here's one I got that opened the same day I received it I have two more that are days from budding!


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## Turtulas-Len (May 31, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> Len said:
> 
> 
> > I have many, here is one that opened today, it's small but has a nice bloom.
> ...


How right you are, I do have a few that are pink,white,and some more that haven't bloomed for yet that are supposed to be lavender,funny thing, in the thread about everything coming out yellow no one noticed that the last pic is not cactus


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 3, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> So I know many of you grow cacti for your little torts. But how many of you took it to a new level of collecting cacti as a hobby? I feel into the cacti collecting hobby recently this year. Anyone have pics of their cacti??



Not sure if it REALLY qualifies as "collecting" cactus, but I've been accumulating as many varieties of spineless Opuntia as I've been able to lay my hands on, and propegating those, strictly for feeding my pets at this point, but possibly I'll eventually have enough to sell to fellow tortoise fanciers.


chase thorn said:


> Once I make the move to TX... My collection will go crazy!



Where in The Republic are you thinking of emigrating to?


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## chase thorn (Jun 3, 2012)

Wimberley, TX


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## jaizei (Jun 3, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> Wimberley, TX



I'm sorry.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 3, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> Wimberley, TX



About 260 miles/4-1/2 hours north of there. 

Lived in Colorado Springs as a very youngster, and my sister was born there...

So, if I'm not being too nosy, why would you leave Colorado only to end up where General Sam Houston was once heard to remark "If I owned both Hell and Texas, I believe I'd rather live in Hell and rent out Texas"...


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## chase thorn (Jun 3, 2012)

I am moving with my lady into a nice little house! I love Colorado but I want a change in my life. I already have a job waiting for me as I get down there. I will be down there this July.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 3, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> I am moving with my lady into a nice little house! I love Colorado but I want a change in my life. I already have a job waiting for me as I get down there. I will be down there this July.



Cool...

My wife and I are planning on moving to N. Carolina in the next couple years...after living in The Republic off-and-on for 43 of my 55 years, I'm about tired of the heat...would've moved by now, but I promised my (now) 95 yo Grandmother, who has lived w/ us for the last 8 years, that I'd not take her away from Texas.


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## Jacqui (Jun 4, 2012)

one of ya going and one of ya planning on leaving, guess it all equals out.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 4, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> one of ya going and one of ya planning on leaving, guess it all equals out.



Kharma, not dharma. 

Besides, it may well raise the IQ in every state involved! 

And which state do YOU live in, Ma'am?


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## Jacqui (Jun 4, 2012)

Why the very best state there is! Nebraska


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## jaizei (Jun 4, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> I am moving with my lady into a nice little house! I love Colorado but I want a change in my life. I already have a job waiting for me as I get down there. I will be down there this July.



What type of job?


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## Yvonne G (Jun 4, 2012)

I have quite an extensive collection of cacti and succulents. I've posted lots of pictures on the forum of them blooming. I have a lot of pictures in my camera, but it will be a couple more weeks before I can have the computer fixed to accept the pictures.

Before I got into turtles and tortoises my hobby was cacti and succulents. I used to know all the latin names of my collection, but then I got into turtles and if you don't say those names frequently, even if its just in your mind, you lose the memory (don't forget, I'm older than dirt).

I have an aloe with a flower spike that's around 20' tall. I have several current pictures of that in my camera too.

A couple links to my old threads:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-cactus-flower?highlight=cactus#axzz1wsPQF3Hm

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-My-cactus-garden-as-of-5-5-12?highlight=cactus#axzz1wsPQF3Hm


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## chase thorn (Jun 4, 2012)

I have a cactus now with 13 buds about to bloom! also three others that are in bloom now! I have 35 species now. I love them all! I also am starting to sow some seeds and grow my own cacti.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 4, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> Why the very best state there is! Nebraska



Nebraska? I, too, love Nebraska!

Granted, from the vantage point of the arrow straight and table flat 455-mile stretch of Interstate 80, it might be a little bit difficult for one to imagine that Nebraska is more than one big cornfield and one really bad Bruce Springstein album title...Nebraska, it's not in the middle of nowhere. 

It's in the middle of everything. 

Here is two of the GREATEST tourist attractions Nebraska can rightfully boast of:





Marijuana grows wild in many parts of Nebraska but one would have to smoke an acre of "ditchweed" to conjure up what Jim Reinders thought would make a great memorial to his father. To the stressed out city slicker, Carhenge may be the ultimate example of what happens when one has way too much free time. 

Located a stone's throw from Alliance this full scale replica of Stonehenge is made from junked automobiles -- 38 examples of classic American iron to be exact. When Carhenge was completed back in 1987, more than a few local feathers were ruffled. Residents tried to get the eyesore removed until they realized they could make money by hawking Carhenge souvenirs to all the modern day druids and looky-loos that flock from far and wide to visit Carhenge.




From 35,000 feet, a cornfield may look like a happy green square in the farmland quilt. However, down below children are suffering enough to make Sally Struthers think kids in Africa have it easy. For the vast majority of Nebraskans, childhood ends at age 12 unless you're lucky enough to be less than five feet tall. 

Detasseling corn is a bit like summer camp -- every day you're out enjoying nature with your peers. Except your day begins at 4 a.m. with your heartless mother dropping you off at a waiting school bus so you can be schlepped out to a cornfield far enough away where nobody will hear you scream for help, as you spend your day walking through a maze of maize pulling the male parts of the "female" corn, which is as tall as Yao Ming. Ensuring proper cross-pollination is the goal of detasseling. 

The Bataan Death March is a Sunday stroll compared to spending your day trudging through a cornfield. Razor sharp leaves force you to wear jeans and a flannel shirt on a 100-degree day unless you enjoy being a bloody mess and full of corn rash. But since the corn was irrigated during the night, you're slogging through shin deep mud a mile up, a mile back. 

Occasionally, following you is a "checker," a veteran detasseler who makes sure you aren't missing any tassels. He's a nice, supportive gent who will not only handout a beat down for missing a vital tassel. He'll also extort your lunch from you in exchange for not telling the crew chief, the most senior detasseler back from college who's learned a trick or two from his fraternity that he can apply to his "Lord of the Flies" management model. He gets to spend his day smoking ditchweed and making sure nobody steals the bus. Thankfully the detasseling season is relatively short; there are only a few weeks of 12-hour workdays for minimum wage plus a small bonus if you have perfect attendance. 

Detassling corn is a rite of passage and a quick lesson in the Nebraska work ethic which boils down to this: Nebraskans are such hard workers because they live in fear of losing that cush job and ending up back in the fields. 

And Todd Munson should run for Presaident!


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## Jacqui (Jun 4, 2012)

Sorry Terry but to set a few facts straight, first very very few Nebraska kids ever get out in a cornfield, let alone detassle it. I did once as a kid help during the summer my friends weed their bean field (soybeans).

I have never saw nor even knew we had a carhenge. Have driven by the one near Amarillo, *TX*.  

As for the ditchweed, yep I have lots of it growing around my place.   Seems no matter how many I cut down, another five appear. 

Now about I80 being "flat". Really it's not.  It is fairly flat, unlike most of the rest of the roads in Nebraska. Atleast you can drive across Nebraska rather quickly, unlike another flat barren state where it seems you drive forever and still never leave the same state.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 5, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> Sorry Terry but to set a few facts straight, first very very few Nebraska kids ever get out in a cornfield, let alone detassle it. I did once as a kid help during the summer my friends weed their bean field (soybeans).
> 
> *No Nebraska work ethic? Slacker-gurl!*
> 
> ...



Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, Jacqui, but I certainly respect your good taste in fervently wishing that you, too, were lucky enough to live in The Republic...even if it's hard for you to articulate how much you envy us (and soon Brother Chase!)... 

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IClycWleF-0[/video]


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## Jacqui (Jun 5, 2012)

Okay before I leave this TX VS NE debate and go back on topic to cactus, even tho some of you like TX it is the one state I never enjoyed visiting or driving in. I give those in CA, mainly David a hard time about their state, but I would I do have some spots there that I would love to spend more time at or could even live there. The exception would be, I would like to spend sometime visiting Doc's place. 

I do enjoy my state and taking drives in it. If you ever drove on I80, I was no doubt that semi going down the road at 58 you cussed at for driving so slow, as you sped past.  Old cars really don't do much for me, I much prefer to be enjoying the deer with their spotted fawns grazing in adjacent fields, watching the great groups of migratory birds taking to wing or delicately settling down into the water, the majestic bald eagle as he surveys his kingdom, the gentle ripple and wave of the wheat fields making them appear to dance with the wind and turn into a golden sea of grain, or enjoying the antics of the calves running and kicking up their hooves in play while their mothers graze upon the green sweet grass. Now these are just a few of the things you can enjoy along your trip down I80 that I enjoy looking at. The rest of the state offers these same things and more. 

When I commented on driving quickly across Nebraska, I was talking about I80 and carhenge is not on I80.  From the pictures I can see, ours is a much better version overall. 

To using the ditchweed, well just last night I used some of it... to spray repellent spray upon. 

I love my state and really have no serious thoughts of ever moving away from it, I enjoy seeing and visiting other states, but my body always seems to know when I cross the line into Nebraska and it comes to life and everything just seems so much greener and better here. I hope each of you and especially Ter feel the same about where you live.

Okay, now back to cactus of which Nebraska does have a couple of wild varieties.


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## chase thorn (Jun 5, 2012)

Heres a small updated photo...





Also this is what happened this week


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## Jacqui (Jun 5, 2012)

Look at those blooms! I just for some reason have a hard time thinking cactus should bloom.


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## chase thorn (Jun 5, 2012)

I agree  its weird to witness


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 6, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> Heres a small updated photo...
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Nice collection!


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## dmmj (Jun 6, 2012)

Why am I being brought up? Let's not get into the great state debate, for all of it's faults CA beats every state. Plus we grow some great cacti.


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## Jacqui (Jun 6, 2012)

dmmj said:


> Why am I being brought up? Let's not get into the great state debate, for all of it's faults CA beats every state. Plus we grow some great cacti.



David, your delusions are showing again.


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 6, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> dmmj said:
> 
> 
> > Why am I being brought up? Let's not get into the great state debate, for all of it's faults CA beats every state. Plus we grow some great cacti.
> ...


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## Zamric (Jun 6, 2012)

Terry, your days in the corn fields sound an awful lot like my days in the tobacco fields of Kentucky and Tennesse. Well accually A day in the Corn field sounds like a nicer place than Cutting and hanging tobacco to dry in a 60' barns build by the settlers in the 1800's.


As for Cactus (Staying on subject!  ) I used to grow it but only because it was the only plant I could cultivate because I never remember to water! Now however, all I do is drown them! (so sad!  )


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## Jacqui (Jun 6, 2012)

Zamric said:


> As for Cactus (Staying on subject!  ) I used to grow it but only because it was the only plant I could cultivate because I never remember to water! Now however, all I do is drown them! (so sad!  )



So why or how did you change from a nonwater remembering gardener to one who seems to remember too well?


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## Zamric (Jun 6, 2012)

Jacqui said:


> Zamric said:
> 
> 
> > As for Cactus (Staying on subject!  ) I used to grow it but only because it was the only plant I could cultivate because I never remember to water! Now however, all I do is drown them! (so sad!  )
> ...



Ummmm "Old Age"? I think it was something that happened over time.... I see it... it must need water!


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## chase thorn (Jun 6, 2012)

I water mine once a week  every sunday!


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 7, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> I water mine once a week  every sunday!



Water mine (mostly) when it rains.


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## chase thorn (Jun 7, 2012)

I would have killed mine if I did that this week... It has rained everyday!


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## Terry Allan Hall (Jun 7, 2012)

chase thorn said:


> I would have killed mine if I did that this week... It has rained everyday!



Lot of rain yesterday and today...good thing all my cactus has excellent drainage (in the pots, there is 2" of pebbles, those planted in the actual ground take care of themselves).


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## chase thorn (Jun 7, 2012)

Yes my cacti are just a little older than seedlings. The 14 I have in small pots. They all have my special soil mix. awesome drainage


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