You can buy seeds here: http://www.cactusstore.com/category_100/CACTI-SEED-INDEX.htm Here is a link that might be useful: Exotic Cacti seeds

stevenwayne, the plant that I believe you are asking about (in the second photo of the second set of pics hanging to the left of the large Aloe in the desert box) is Hoya keysii (that is what it was sold to me as). The leaves are thick, solid, and slightly pubescent, the flowers are white and have a "springtime" scent...kind of daffodil-ish to me. It grows and flowers well with no special care on my part. Kathy

An old post was resurrected! I have been swamped with life (work, kids, etc.) this year, that's why I haven't been contributing much of late. My apologies. I have also been involved with another somewhat related hobby: developing a reef aquarium. Let me tell you, many coral and other reef animals absolutely rival succulents for color and form. Yes, I do have a greenhouse, which serves 2 purposes: it protects plants from too much rain - especially my Mesembs during the summer and cactus during the cool time. I keep as many plants as I can outdoors unprotected during the spring-summer-fall. I overwinter pretty everything except the true tropical plants (Adenium, some Pachy) in my unheated garage. Soil mix of choice for mesembs and other smaller & slower species is a formula with various proportions of turface, garden coil, fine gravel and pumice. Everything else is in a mix basically of 50-50 turface to perlite. Fertilizer is diluted liquid algoflash for most plants. Bigger things just get a healthy dose of Osmocote slow release + micros in the spring plus added Mag + gypsum. x

mawehe63 I missed your posting about Opuntia. There are a few forms without glochids (the small spines), one microdasys (cv. 'Caress' and one fragilis too I think). The long spines on Opuntia are barbed and get stuck in skin too, but I find them easier to handle than glochids. At least they give some protection against the glochids, which are present on long-spined Opuntia as well. I grow some O. fragilis (extremely hardy), small but, as the name implies, fragile which can be disappointing, it's a matter of taste. O. polyacantha is a long-spined, robust, hardy species - some forms can be grown outside in Northern Europe without protection. Many forms are reasonably small and easy to handle, and they often have very nice flowers. O. macrocentra and phaecantha could be worth looking at too, especially dwarf forms. O. compressa (humifusa) is a spineless, classic hardy species, but the glochids can be annoying (but they are far fewer than on microdasys). I looked up some general information about the weather in Tennesee, and it seems as it rains a lot there. Those I mentioned should however be fine if they are covered in winter. There are a few tender species among them (Rebutia heliosa and Lobivia famatimensis for example), but that is usually noted in the seller's description. Some well-known hardy species are Escobaria missouriensis and vivipara, Echinocereus triglochidiatus, cocinneus and viridiflorus. Protection from rain in winter is advisable but not always necessary, it depends much on how well-drained the soil is. Some more funny-looking cacti: Leuchtenbergia principis, Puna/Maihueniopsis clavarioides and the two Pelecyphora species. I saw an interesting thread on the BCSS forum about a hardy Gymnocalycium species: Here is a link that might be useful: Gymnocalycium gibbosum