Try an Independant Garden Center for your best bets... they'll tend to have large groupings of Succulent plants.

Something else.. I attended Michigan State University back in the Ice Age! Being a science major, I had occasion to take a botany class or two. There was a rather famous professor At MSU, William James Beal. He created the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden which is the oldest continuously operated botanical garden in the United States at MSU. Part of his research had to do with this very topic about seed viability. As the story goes, he buried numerous bottles, Beal's Bottles, on the grounds of the MSU campus (back then it was The Michigan Agricultural Collage). At predetermined times, a bottle would be dug up and the seeds planted to see how many would germinate. The experiment is still ongoing and will conclude in 2100. So Karyn, I guess it all depends on the seed. Here's wishing you 100%

Well, fluorescent tubes are certainly a viable option. As for being the best, not always, but probably the best for a middle level of lighting. Fluorescent light is probably the best for your setup but you might need to use compact fluorescents rather than straight tubes if you need very intense light in a fairly short space. As for houseplants needing 20W tubes, that is just meaningless twaddle. Your plants need whatever tubes will fit in the space you have, and whatever will provide sufficient light for their needs. How long are your shelves? Will the plants be getting any natural light? Will they be growing there all the time or just in the winter? Most cacti and succulents will need very high light if they won't be getting any direct sunlight, two tubes probably won't be enough but it depends how wide the shelves are. Don't use any warm white for the cacti, just cool white. You might want to consider wide spectrum daylight fluorescents if you wish to flower your plants without natural light. Regular fluorescents may make the flowers look washed out, or not show the colours correctly. Or maybe you want to try out a regular tube first since the ones with the best colour rendering are quite expensive. Do you have fittings already? Or ballasts? Or reflectors? The tubes should be placed inside good quality reflectors to shine the light down onto the plants or you will waste a lot of light. Or you can surround the whole lot with mylar or white card but it seems like you would want something that looks nice and where you can see the plants. Consider placing a white or metal sheet at least behind the cactus shelf to increase the light.

Barb...both happy and sad....Happy he is moving forward with his life. Knowing he will go far as long as he stays focused on his studies, and learns to quit being so wasteful. Sad because he is moving on and we will be seeing very little of him in the next 4 years or so. We havent made any new life adventures yet. House needs some TLC. I suppose first we will get used to having a home with just us and the critters and go from there. Chell I used to be a dog and cat groomer. I loved it too. But my employer was a deedeedee. Never had the money to pay me each week and always "owed" me. And she never gave me my tips either.Then at the end of the year she reported more earnings for me than what I had really made.Fortunitly I kept records and proved my case and won, so make sure you don't let the same happen to you. I have kept my clippers, blades and accessories and still will do a neighbors dog or two once in awhile to keep my skills up.....but don't miss the hair stuck in places I did'nt know existed....lol. Love all the pictures the everyone post. Always enjoy seeing ya'lls babies. Regina