HI, I know this is a old listing but I was wondering if you would have any Christmas, easter, or thanksgiving cactus left? I would be more then happy to even receive a few pieces only of the plants and would love to pay you something including the shipping for any. Thank you, and please message me at meadowridge@ granitewave.com

I tend to disagree with some of the advice in that link: sand for play boxes is usually too fine, it is specifically good packing sand to make sand castles and sand cookies and similar...if it was coarse, it would not stick together. So that info is, IMO, incorrect. You need to find what is referred to as Horticultural sand - much grittier, with bigger particles. Most of us do not use sand at all (very few ppl do, and they have lots of knowledge and experience with growing succulents). You would be much better off reading info on this forum: ppl giving advice grow (and many, like Jeff above), have been growing succulents for years. Our goal is to keep plants healthy, and #1 is usually drainage problem: mix needs to drain fast/well, and soil with fine sand will not provide drainage. Perlite is available to most. It is good idea to sift or rinse it, to get rid of dust. Pumice is anorher excellent substrate, not always readily available. Chicken grit/small granite gravel, is another ingredient excellent to use. There are many more inorganc ingredients that could be used. MG bagged potting soil is considered not good enough and many will not use it (including me). You could make much better draining mix by using just sifted perlite and Cactus&Succulent soil in 1:1 ratio. If you already have MG soil and want to use it, I would suggest to add even more perlite (60-80%). If you have pumice, use it instead of perlite. Or mix it with perlite, and use much less soil. Adding grit helps a lot. Grains of different ingredients should be approx. of same size: 4-6mm is good. It could be tad smaller, but, IMO, 2mm or less is too fine. Over 6mm gets to be too large. Many succulets do not need very large pots. Try to find out where some grow naturally: most in very 'rocky' areas, with literally no soil (or very little), and many on and in-between the rocks: tight spaces. So size of the pot is not always a problem. Bigger is not neccessarily better :) Repoting is usually not needed every year, and if repotting, it is better to go up just a bit - if plant needs it. Succulents could be grown in large pots - but drainage is even more important. Lots of water retaining soil that will fill up large pot will take very long time to dry up and cause lots of damage. If you provide good drainage (and have space for it), you can grow tiny plant in a wine barrel.... There is ton of info here, from good and experienced growers. Not like on some blogs, that offer incorrect info (at least partially) - often not based on experience, but incorrect info passed down. ETA: I just re-read blog you posted link to: here is contradicting info offered within 2 or 3 paragraphs: ..."The type of sand I buy is just the stuff they sell for use in a sandbox (I buy it at either Home Depot or Lowes)"... ..."Just don’t use sand from the garden, the beach, or a sandbox (you never know what nasties will be in that sand)"... Do not use play sand - either from the bag or a sandbox... Anything will work for short period of time. But if you want to grow succulents for a long time, keep them healthy - try to provide good drainage and good light.

Well everyone has their own preference. I use Al's gritty mix which is very popular in the container gardening forum. It's equal parts pine bark, Turface, and granite grit. Here's a thread with some pictures of it for size reference. Succulent Soil Mix Some of those ingredients can be a bit difficult to find, so another option is to just amend a standard potting soil with whatever grit you can find. Pine bark can be found at hardware stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) as mulch. You want the smaller stuff though, not the big nuggets. Perlite can be found at nurseries and many hardware stores as well. (Although I wouldn't want to use it as the bulk of a soil because it tends to float and looks a bit ugly to me.) Pumice or lava rock would be better choices because they look a bit more natural and are still lightweight, yet don't float. But I have not been able to find them in an appropriate size here. Granite grit I found at a couple of feed/farm supply stores. (You want grower, #2, or medium size depending on how it's labeled.) Whatever you find, I would suggest using 80-90% grit and 10-20% standard potting soil. Finding ingredients to make your own soil takes a bit of effort, but it is much better than bagged potting soils or even the so-called cactus potting soils.

Omar is spot on - it's this http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62939/#b also known as Shin Daggar which alludes to the fact it's dangerous to shins if the shin owner is not paying attention. I would love to propagate this, with gloves, of course. Sadly it does die after it blooms. Dave's garden website doesn't indicate that it grows close to Fort Worth but I attest that it does. At the risk of sounding not too bright, we live at the base of an old Indian mountain...Comanches and Apaches lived on and around our land. The romanticist and legend writer in me wonders if I could spin the presence of this plant into their history in our area. Thank you Omar for the ID.