When life takes your lime-aide

[Wakinyan]

Today was not a good day. As you can see, many of my brand new grafts were destroyed as well as some grafting stock. Damage was found both in the green house and outside of the green house. Most upsetting wasn't the fact that many crests, variegates, etc. are now unlabeled and unknowns now... but in fact almost all of my grafts have had labels removed or tossed. It is not a good day for me to say the least. I found one small seedling that had been de-grafted while trying to fix everything up and suffice it to say I did re-graft the unknown seedling now and after that I pretty much lost the heart to do much else in the green house. Sadly, many of the crested and variegates I had were slated to be given out as gifts once they matured a bit more. Deep breathe in and relax. Now, I have to wait and see how many grafts will still pull through after having just been grafted in the last 3-4 days. This is going to be one heck of a learning experience. One of my favorite variegates which I have tentatively named lime-aide I had recently cut and re-grafted... suffice it to say much is lost and will hopefully be found or recovered, but I can no pull the bandages off of my grafts only 4 days old at max to see what has not made it and what has as many of these grafts I have done are areole grafts. I'm definitely having a hard time realizing that I may have lost a great many cacti that of all things were going to be gifts to many of my friends this Christmas. Such is life.

[Wakinyan]

Just a bit of the damage

[judih]

what happened? animal got in?

[Wakinyan]

I believe a Homo sapien animal may have indeed gotten in. I say that as it is unlikely that an animal of any other sort would have brought plants outside as well. Seed trays and newly grafted specimens seems to have been the main target. I was strongly considering donating many of these variegates and crested to members of different forums for postage to try and spur some more interest in the forums. Some I had already slated out to give as gifts to friends for Christmas.

[Vasion]

Shame to see this. I've never grown cacti but understand they take a very long time?

[Wakinyan]

Everything is relative. But as a general rule they do grow a bit slower than many other plants you might like to grow. You can increase their rate of growth by grafting however.

[judih]

homo sapiens - the most bizarre species. motivation: amusement? alleviating boredom, anti-plant agenda? searching for contraband?
so many of your ongoing stories have been placed on hold.

[Wakinyan]

Lol, I would say I am better at talking than I am at writing but can I really say that? In the end the reason for such a thing as this doesn't really matter or interest me so much as the initial feelings that come and then I let those go as they don't really matter all that much either. What matters? Moving forward and trying to salvage a bad situation. For me, this means not messing with any of my grafts as while they may only be a few days old... one never knows. So far, I have detected a few that have obviously detached and those I have either attempted to re-graft or simply acknowledged they are past saving. It is hard to re-graft an areole for instance as it is already a single areole. What is left to cut on? Even some of the grafts where I left 2 areoles on were so soft by the time I could tell they had definitely been detached there was not much I could do to save them. The bottom line is that when you use parafilm you have the advantage of a nice snug graft, but when that graft is thrown to hell and back one also has the disadvantage of not being able to see through the parafilm very well to see if the graft itself has come loose. For me, unless it is obvious I leave it alone and hope for the best while expecting the worst. If I am pleasantly surprised by even one of these grafts I will indeed be a happy camper.

[Stonehenge]

Sorry to hear that, stuff happens so just start over and one day it will seem like no big deal.

[Wakinyan]

Well said Stonehenge. Small stuff like this doesn't really matter in the long run.

[judih]

what matters is acknowledging and learning. Perhaps making things safer or better. And yes, continuing. Maya Angelou spoke about our task in life, something to the effect of "cleaning up our little corner of chaos." a task that is never done!