The Ants Show Me The Way

Yes. That's right. Just follow the ants... and they will lead you to seed!

I had no idea that my parodia sellowii which I recently inherited had seed brewing but today there were probably 20 or so ants walking all over my parodia.

So I investigated... I couldn't really see any seed or pods or anything because it was covered in wool but when I pushed the wool away with a stick I found some seed.

After carefully getting all of it out I was left with 50 or so seeds. It's my second plant to give me seed I think. The first one was an orbea variegata. I checked out my other P. sellowii but I don't think it had any seed.

Will do another post soon with what I've sown. I've got lots of other seed to sow thanks to IXOXI.

I love a nice Parodia, any pics by a chance Mitchell?

Peace
~Kandahar

This is how I found out the first time my Copiapoa lauii had seeds. I managed to save a few of them, but the ants were doing as conga line all the way back to their hill, each carrying a seed on their way home. I sat for half an hour by the hole collecting the seeds back as the ants thoughtfully harvested them for me...

I've got ants here that are jumping the gun, rather than wait for seeds the little mongrels are instead making off with the flowers antlers. Got a madly flowering M. mystax they have absolutely ravaged!

I hope there's enough left in the flowers to be able to pollinate despite the ants attack.

The mother plant which I collected the seed from is just over 10cm.



My other P. sellowii's with different numbers of spines:
Terribly underpotted

and covered in weeds (is this one also P. sellowii? It doesn't have fluff at the top)


Lots of my plants really need to be potted up but I don't know what to use in my mix. I need to find a pumice substitute if anyone knows of any? Tried kitty litter but cannot find the right type. I've heard that Rich-Gro aquatic mix is suitable but it needs to be crushed up.

I like to use decomposed granite, and some diatomaceous earth 2:1 ratio in place of pumice or scoria.

Any idea where I could get my hands on some DG or diatomaceous earth in Melbourne?
I can get my hands on scoria. I'm pretty sure Bunnings Dandenong sells it.

Scoria is easy to get, but PROPER sized scoria is not. Until I found where to get good decomposed granite, I was smashing bags of scoria by sledgehammer, and then screening it for the right sized bits. Bags of DG are easy enough to find at many soil & garden centers, though they often have a lot of microparticles and need to be watered, screened & sifted to get what you want (and you can easily lose up to half the weight in the process). It's well worth the effort though, and a lot easier then smashing scoria.