This made my morning!

[KittieKAT]

this is exactly WHY people from Massachusetts have such a bad rep......grrrrrrr, what a moron i just wanna punch her in the head! " Red balls" honestly.....really? Can she really be that dumb to try and root them then dump water on the fresh hacked off cuttings so they rott...

[KittieKAT]

Really hate to be from MA after watching that stuff

[DaveW]

I think I would sooner grab Opuntia's and many other cacti with thick pads of newspaper rather than gloves (unless they are the cut resistant Kevlar gloves glass workers use) because the spines eventually go through normal ones including leather. Whereas you can throw newspaper away complete with attached spines and glochids after each use.

The name sand seems to be used to cover a multitude of forms from almost dust to virtually fine grit and need not always be quartz sand. And you thought you always knew exactly what sand meant, even though that may not mean the same to others when you talk of sand? Often what is technically 3mm fine gravel is still referred to as "gritty or coarse sand". I suppose we ought really to state the finest grain size to use in our mixes. Anybody any suggestions?

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-la ... thing.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So the scientific definition of sand is:-

"Sand-sized particles range in size from 63 microns to 2 millimetres. Gravel is anything larger than that; silt and mud are finer."

"But the term "sand" does not specify composition, it only specifies grain size. So you can have gypsum sand like at White Sands National Monument, or olivine sand on certain Hawaiian beaches, or any other composition where mechanical and chemical weathering bust rock of any composition into sand-sized particles."

[dustin0352]

OMG I just watched the videos this post is about... I truly hope people on the youtube are not cutting little red balls to root... As for the soil mix, I really dont want to badmouth ones mix, but wow that's a lot of fine sand and peat. Im sure many can attest that anyones particular soil mix is usually personalized for their geographical location. Like I shared in my soil mix video, I remove all wetting agents from simple topsoil, and add lots of coir, pumice and perlite due to the heavy almost daily rains I have in FL. I need my mix to hold water for a few days, but I also need it to dry out before the next thunderstorm. If I ever get a chance to move out west with significantly less rain fall my mix would greatly alter, but not in ways of adding sand and peat... To each their own on soil mix I guess, find a base method and proceed with trial and error for you local, keeping in mind to keep records on drying times, wetting times, plant growth/health, and root conditions. But peat and sand
Again sorry guys for bringing this old thread back to life, just wanted to thank Daiv and Andy for acknowledgment of me as cactusmain.

[KittieKAT]

Little red balls....i died!