co-op plants

I received an email from Mile's this morning. He is back in from the show in California and our plants will be shipped out to me tomorrow. Hopefully i'll receive the boxes by the weekend. I'll have my remail boxes all labled and ready to pack. If I get the plants by the weekend,i'll pack them Sunday afternoon so I can send them out to everyone on Monday.

if for some reason I dont get the boxes from him until monday then i'll pack them monday afternoon so I can ship them out on tuesday.

I hope evryone has their pots and soil ready. I've got my soil mixed but no pots to put them in so I guess I need to get out and buy some.(LOL)

Thanks for the heads up!

Oh boy, I'm the same - I have soil, but no pots! Yikes, I better go get them!

Thanks for doing this, I'm really excited about getting everything! :)

Hey hey, I am soooooo looking forward to getting them, and I have neither soil OR pots!! That is what this weekend is all about! Wonder where I am going to put them all!! :)

I received an email from Miles letting me know the boxes were shipped yesterday morning. I should have them by saturday at the latest.

I'll get everything divided saturday evening,boxed Sunday and mailed monday.

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wahoooooooooo!

I find myself practically stalking the poor mailman even though I know it's physically impossible for him to have my box!

I have Potting Soil, Chicken grit, Pelleted Chicken Poo, and tons of dollar store pots!!!
WOO-HOO!!!
I AM PSYCHED!!
Im also a dead man if I dont potem up and mix them into the existing plants before the Lovely woman of my life finds out heh... X^P

I have reserved a special place for them in my 'nursery' (think babies not plant stores). I kinda can't believe they're going all the way across the country and then all the way back again, but, hey, I couldn't pass this up and I'm sure they'll be just fine.

Stella you know I thought about that myself. Your plants are right there at you laready,have to all the way over here to me and then go back. Just pretend that they went on vacation!!!(LOL)


I went out yesterday looking for pots,boy was that like looking for a needle in a haystack? What has happened to all the clay pots that used to be out there for sale?

You used to be able to go anywhere almost and find terrra cotta pots in varied sizes and styles. Not anymore. And you can almost buy a steak for what those pots cost now.

I went to at least half a dozen stores yesterday and had very little luck finding anything at all.

If I use 4" pots, I Like to get the short squaty ones. All I could find was the tall ones,4" but tall. I also needed a few 6inchers because I ordered at least 3 of each plant and I want to plant them in clusteres.

Same woith that size,all tall no short ones. It's ike every time one of these stores gets in a new shipment of pots they're always different form the last shipment.

We had a place around here that sold tons of stuff like that and they had so many sizes and styles of clay poptst thta it's take you the better half of a day to go through them all,but htey went out of business a few years ago.

I tried Michaels yesterday also but they dont have the pots on sale this weeek and the small ones are around .79 a piece. When they go on sale you get 4 for dollar.

I hadnt thought aobut going ot one of those dollar store but we have many in this area so i'll get out at some point today and try and find some.

I began last night doing some renovation in the cactus house. This house is 18ft long and 12ft wide and has shelves that run the length of the back wall and then come back down half the width of the side walls on both sides.

I also had one of those 5ft high assemble yourself plastic shelving units that stood free in the middle. I noticed though that all of the plants on it were fighting for light and were starting to twist in all directions to find it.

So the plastic shelving is coming out and i'm going to build a 60inch square,open middle shelving unit to house all of the plants from the plastic shelves as well as the new ones when they arrive.

I've got a few tall specimen cactus that I plan to sit in the open space of the new shelving,in other words the table will be open in the middle with cactus sitting on the ground coming up through the center of the table.

I also need to get busy building new shelves along the remainder of the walls because I know sooner or later,probably sooner,i'll need the space for more cactus.

dmichael

I am a lucky, lucky girl!! A couple of years ago, my DH was clearing a lot that turned out to be the site of a long gone nursery. When he started finding loads of pots, he called my sister to ask if she wanted to come gather up a bunch for us. She got there just as a dump truck was leaving with a load of plastic pots. It was too late for that one, but she made sure that it was the last dump truck to haul off pots! Tony knew that we would want clay pots, but didn't think that we could possibly need more plastic ones! After all, didn't we have a jillion plastic pots at both our houses? Anyway, I ended up with lots of different plastic nursery pots, and my utility room is still full of small clay pots. Some tall, some short, all of them in the 4" to 5" range, with a handful of 6" pots, too.

I don't have to buy little pots anymore, but am always on the lookout for bigger azalea and bulb pots. Most of my established adeniums are in the 8" azalea pots. Home Depot has the best price in my area, $1.77 for that size. Lowe's is one block away, and sells the same pot for 2.17! Always watch for sales, Garden Ridge & Old Time Pottery mark pots way down pretty regularly.

I can't wait to see our plants! Do you have a digital camera ready, David?

Sheri, my cactus house began as just a metal frame that a neighbor gave me. It was originally oneo f htose frames tha you would buy from walmart and they come with a tarp to cover it.

The tarp got damaged and the guy had no use for the frame so he gave it to me. It sat out behind my dads welding shop for a few years and one day I said you know I can put that to good use. I'll build a greenhouse with it!!

So I laid out the area where I wanted to construct it,my dad helped me assemble all the tubing and he then welded it all together for me. We then anchored it into the ground using moble home tie downs.

It is covered top to bottom with opaque fiberglass panels thta allow for very bright light but keep the full sunlight off the plants.

I have an attic ventelator fan in one end with an automatic louver on the other end. I also have an air circulation fan going most of the time.

This gh is now 4years old and I did heat it until this past winter. But I also had every plant that I own in it until then also. Once I got the other 2 gh's constructed I removed the heater from the cactus house.

We have mederately wild winters here and it never snows. On a cold day it might get down to the low 30's for a few hours or so. We can and do dip into the 20's and every now and again we will get a night to drop into the mid teens but that doesnt happen very often.

So I had to make a choice when I got the other 2 gh's to heat all 3 or just the 2 that really need it. For the most part all of the cacti that I grow are cold hardy to an extent and with our temps being mild as they are I decided to not heat the cacti house. Besides giving them a cool resting period brings on lots of flowers in the spring..

And with propane costing as much as it does I really cant afford to heat all 3 of them anyway.

The only way my 3 gh's differ in the way I operate them is that the cactus house doesnt get shade cloth and the other 2 do. Other than that I do everything about the same.

I also got one of the boxes from Miles today,very unexpectedly. The shipment is in 3 boxes which consists of 6 of the 12 inch square priority boxes but they are taped together to make 3 big boxes instead of 6 smaller ones.

I expected all of them to be here tomorrow and I guess since one came today the other 2 hopefully will be here tomrrow at the same time.

Miles did tag everything on the outside so that has made it that much easier for me to seperate everything into groups.


Got by new benches finished and loaded with plants,I also have boguht myself a digital camera ( Kodak easy share) so when I get the softaware installed and figure out how to use it i'll get some pics posted of things.

dmichael

Thanks David, that is very helpful and encouraging. I share the same zone you do and I'm not terribly concerned about heating either. I would love to have a place where my cacti could have bright but diffused light to avoid sunburn (my altitude is 3900 feet and I think that isn't helping me?) I think they would bloom better if I didn't bring them all inside into the warm house for winter. Bird protection would be nice too. I'm still figuring things out, and I really appreciate all your info.

If I found a free metal frame I'd be on it like a shot!

Good luck on packing the plants, I wish we could help you with that part. Thanks again for making this possible for all of us!
Sheri

Yippeee!!! Plants!!! Was having withdrawals there for a bit...no new plants...know you all know what I'm referring to!! I've got lots of soil mixed up but ummm, did someone mention pots?! Haven't got those yet...OMG!!! On the "to do" list this weekend!! Just realized I didn't include a label for mine...I am so sorry!!!

suggestions for the best soil mix?

A very fast draining soil, with at least 20% organic matter, like orchid bark, or forest mulch. 50% pumice or perlite, and 30% coarse washed sand. Not beach or sand box stuff. It really depends on where you live, as well as how heavy/ light you water. Every one has their favorite mix. Norma

can vermiculite be used instead of perlite or is perlite better?

Chicken Grit or Turkey grit is best in my zone
Crushed granite holds no moisture
I use about 50% grit and a 20 to 30% ratio of Potting soil and Pelleted Chicken Poo
MMMmmm Chicken Poo ... LOL!!! 8^D

Oh Michael...that is so nasty!!! Dare I ask where one finds pelleted Chicken Poo? *gag*

Boxes #2 and 3 showed up yesterday. So all of the co-op plants are in.

I began unpacking them as soon as I got in from work yesterday. Boy was iin for a surprise though.

I had asked Miles early on if he wouldnt mind putting the label on the outsides of each plant so I could identify them without having ot open each one. He usually puts the tags inside the paper with the plant itself.

He told me that would be to much work but he would bundle each variety together to make it easier.

Okay I assumed that each variety though they would be bundled together,that each plant would be wrapped and labled indivdualy inside that bundle..

BIG SURPRISE when I started to open them, the plants were not individually wrapped and labled. they were just as he said bundled together by variety with one lable per bundle.


I spent the better part of 8 hours after getting home from work yesterday,sorting,hand writing lables,rewrapping and boxing cactus plants. Almost 300 of them!!! I think every oneof my fingers has at least one thorn in it but the job is done!!

All boxes are packed and will be mailed out in the morning. I have to work but I plan on taking the boxes with me and going to the post office by 9am so everyone should get theirs by at least wednesday no later that thursday.

It really want as bad as it osunds having to do all this work. I unpacked the original boxes. sorted everything by variety,laid them out by variety on a 5 tier shelving unit and pulled the orders from there.

One problem though!! After getting everyones boxes packed and sealed shut,I ended up with 2 leftover ferocactus pilosus plants. I took inventory on the plants before seperating them into individual orders and everything was accurate.

So I obviously made a booboo someplace.We either have 2 people each missing 1 plant or one person missing 2 plants.

Whenever everyone gets their boxes please check them to see if you are the one missing your ferocactus. Let me know who you are and i'll send the plant on to you at my expense.

As long as it took me to get all that stuff organized,I just wasnt going back and open every one of those boxes to see which one was missing a plant.

dmichael

Wow, busy guy! Now you know how daunting hosting a co-op is, huh? Sounds like you went above and beyond and I, for one, totally appreciate all your efforts. Thanks so much dmichael. Can't wait to see the babies.

David,
I am so sorry you had to go through all of that...if I'd still been down there, I'd have been more then happy to have helped you with this. PLEASE know how much ALL of your work is appreciated...I certainly never dreamed you'd have to go to that much trouble!! Thank you so much!!
Chantell

Omigosh David, I'm sorry too, I never thought about you having to label each plant for us. After everyone checks their orders, if the two ferocactus pilosus turn out to be extras that Miles included by mistake, that will not be a very large bonus to compensate you for all your work. (Two extra giant saguaros would be more like it.)

Thank you again, I'm getting things ready here and I'm so excited. It will be like Christmas at a lot of houses soon, thanks to all your hard work.
Sheri

I just want you THANK YOU SO MUCH for all that extra work, I am so looking forward to getting them this week. I have pots ready, just no soil, so tomorrow I am heading to Lowes! :)
This has been a great two weeks for plants, 23 new Hoyas and SOON 39 or so Cactus, yeppers I am officially OUT of room!
How large are they, I picked up 40 3" pots from Michael's, should I get some bigger ones?

Bec,3'ppots should be fine I think.

The job really wasnt as bad as I made it sound and I didnt mind doing it at all. I guess therre was just a bit of misunderstanding on my part between Miles and I.

He did exactly what he said he wa going to do and I mistook it for meaning something else.

Once I got everything organized it was a piece of cake but when you first open a bunch of boxes and see that many plants staring back at you it you kind of have to ask yourself what did I get myself into!!!(LOL)

I'd host another co-op someday but i'd definately be a bit more organized than I was this time. It did run pretty smooth though for me to have just trown it all together in one day.

Sheri,those 2 feros belong to someone. I took an acccurate enventory and compared it to the number of plants that i should have had to cover everyones order and the numbers matche. Somehow or another I just mucked up and managed not to place them where they belonged.

I'll get them to their owners though just as soon as I know who they are.

Bec,I hope you've got those hoyas planted already. If not you're gonna be one busy girl by mid week.

I love my hoyas. I've had both varieties of chlorantha for about a year now and I think I may have had the in too large of pots and they grew a lot but kept getting yellow leaves. I tugged on them yesterday and they lifted right out of the pots.

No rot but not a very largge new root system either so I put them into 6" baskets as opposed to the 10" pots I had them in. Hopefully they'll perk up a bit as both are very large plants.


Well it's time for me to go to work. The boxes are in my truck and wil go out at 9n this morning if all goes according to plan!! You know how when you plan things something always happens and you end up not being able to do what youn had to do. But i'll try my best to get them off before 9.

Thanks to everyone who participated and made it possible for us to get these nice plants at such a great price,I hope they all make their journey safely and I hope everyone enjoys them once you get them.

dmichael

Can't wait, David...big thanks again!!! What hoyas do you have or don't have...which ever list is smaller...LOL Be happy to root you a couple as a "thank you"

David, did we put enough in to cover the shipping from Miles to you? I just went back and looked on the co-op thread, here's a count of who was getting the ferocactus:

Chantell 1
DMichael 2
Mary Ev 2
Oldmudhouse 1
Davidmk 2
Malestrom 1
Bec_No_Va 1
Total # 10

So, now that they are all mailed off, tell us how they looked!! Are those of us who showed a little restraint going to be kicking ourselves? Are those of us who didn't hold back going to be patting ourselves on the back? I'm sorry that you ended up having to write out so many labels, but now that you have burped them, diapered them, and shown them on their way, tell us everything!

Ronna, I just rechecked my enventory sheet that mIles sent. Ther were 10 ferocactus on it so someone is not going ot have theirs in the box when it arrives. I'llm ail them to those people once i find out who they are.

As for the plants,as always they were nice,Miles sends out quality plants. I've ordered from him now at least 7-8 times and am working on another order for myself to go to him soon!!

I got all of the boxes mailed before 8:30 this morning so they should start arriving at their destinations by wednesday.

I have confirmation numbers for each box and will dmail them to each individual person

you are da-man

No worries, David...again we all appreciate everything you've done - not to mention getting them out so quickly after receving them!!! You've done an exceptional job, thank you!

Hey David,

Incredible job! Thanks so much for all that you have done.

David

Have fun with your new plants everyone!
It's nice to have something to keep you busy for awhile and something new to stare at.
Please share pics of your new babies when you have time.

Ive been away since Sunday.
Ill be home thursday to greet more flooding rain
and my boxes!!
WOOT!!
Nice job David!!
Thanks so much!!

Wondering where you've been...welcome back, Michael!! Yes....EVERYthing including the Plumies is occupying my kitchen at this time....looks like the tropics and the desert...all rolled into one!! LOL

Wow, you have been very busy. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to coordinate, pack and send!!
:) Donna

Look what's heeeeeeerrrrrre! :)

I took a couple of minutes off of my potting and repotting to get a spine out of my thumb and to post this. They are beautiful - big and healthy! Everything I could have hoped.

David, you did such a great job of packing and shipping. Kudo's and a big Thank You to you for all your hard work! I'm thrilled.

Just for reference, most of the pots are 4.3".

Mary,great to see that they are starting to arrive safe and sound. Glad you are pleased with them. I told you Miles sends nice plants that's why I keep ordereing from him. I havent been disappointed yet!!

Great pic also they look nice all potted up. I've been out today putting pea pebbles in all of my pots and still have around 100 or so to go before i'm done but a few of the plants need to go into larger pots so i've got to go out and see if I can find some wide 4"pots instead of the tall narrow ones.

david

WOW those are GREAT looking plants. I can't wait to see mine!

I also noticed that you got your ferocactus pilosus so the 2 leftover plants still dont have an owner!!! {:(