A thread for your ugly cactus

This gymnocalycium has gone through a hard life. I repotted it a few weeks back and it had little in the way of roots. It has lost most its spines and the growing point may be damaged (it keeps throwing out pups). This is the unsunburnt side also.
I put it out in the sun for a day last week and by the end of the day it was burnt and shrivelled. It recovered fine though although one side is still quiet discoloured.

It has one pup coming


and it's pup from last year

It's looking really healthy and growing so much. I'm keeping it well watered and trying to make it grow columnar

It's funny to think they are a clone of each other.

I've also got a lithop which got excited and burst out of its skin a month or so ago.

Wait till I show some photos of my ugly cacti, lol.

IXOXI wrote:

Wait till I show some photos of my ugly cacti, lol.

Shall do

I am SO in on this one, I just came from my home and wont be back for a few days so bare with me on this thread.
I have a lithop that is did surgery on and it lost over 3/4 of the plant material and is still attempting to come back and I have no idea on what it will do

Also I have a TBM that is utterly and completely scaring which hasent shown growth in 2 years and then last week I noticed a pup emerging from the messiest part of the plant haha.

I shall get my depressing photo's soon!
More pics! IXOXI, I am waiting

Peace
~Kanda

Here we go, from beauty to fugly in a very short time

In case anyone was wondering that damage was caused by my dog ! NOT eating them but caused by his chain, he was tied up during a storm and went bonkers and damaged a good portion of my plants.

Very disheartening.

I will take a pic in the morning, but I found a TBM segment on the lawn smashed by chicken peck marks haha, will pot her back up and see how we go

More, but this time mice/rats eating them !!!

wow, that hurts How old would they be? a fair age yeah?

Peace
~Kanda

Yeah those Asterias would have been between 4-5 years old. Most of them have re-shot small pups but are in a bad bad way. I don't know what to do with them.

What do you mean by in a bad way? As in un-attractive?
I dont know either I could only think of grafts but I'm sure you have lots as is.

~Kanda

I mean they are in a constant battle against bacteria due to the open wounds and are having difficulty photosynthesising for the same reason massive loss of skin area. This in turn also makes watering them very difficult because it will pool in the middle and exacerbate the problem.

I could graft a pup or two but they are generally from the middle of the plant and would not be removed easily.

Now I know what you are saying, sounds like a predicament =\
So just let them callouse over and do their own thing?
Geez.

~Kanda

Ok, I have a lot more ugly cacti, but this is definitely one of the worst.
In a 6 month period it survived being attacked twice by kurrawongs, once by a kookaburra, once by a massive caterpillar that ate a lot of the head, was knocked off the shelf twice and spent 2 months on it's side rolled under a cabinet!
Amazingly enough, it looks a LOT better now then it did 2 months ago...
... and YES, it does have 3 holes that go completely through it.

Yes. That is quiet ugly... but it's a battler and you've got to respect that.

I had an aloe variegata which fell off the bench and behind some big pots. I don't know how long it had been there... I don't think it had been there too long but the head was buried in the ground and it rotted.

It had a pup though which is still kicking.

A not so pretty Mammillaria I had, later died due to complete stemrot.


Poor little mite savaged Rebutia, have to take a new photo of this one as it's starting to recover somewhat.

What great flowers! (pretty much the only reason to keep most rebutias).

More than enough reason to keep this one as it's in a sorry state, hopefully it will grow out of it in the end.
Here's it current look, slowly growing out of the mite damage and also throwing some pups.What you can't really see in the photo is that it's shaped like an hourglass nowadays, mite damage constricted the top.


And my other mite savaged plant slowly clawing it's way back to life.

How long does it take to outgrow that damage on the loph?

No idea mate, it's my first and only Loph. lol

Will start off with a pup from my ugly G. baldianum. Has lots of new growth and three buds.


Next is a very ugly mamm. Anyone care to ID it?
It has numerous holes which go through to the centre of the plant, one can be seen at its base.
I chopped its head off and it can be seen next to it. It already has roots.
It's also a pupping machine and I've already got many pups from it which have rooted and are growing well.



Last is my Notocactus scopa which is a little the worse for wear. It has a large hole near the top and sunburn on the other side. I don't know what happened at the base but the other day I pulled off whole patches of skin and spines to reveal already calloused skin. The only part that looks good on it is the top of the plant where it is growing well. Hope it pups this season and I can pull the pups off and get rid of that ugly plant.

Mitch, your second pic looks like it might be the same as a mystery Mamm that I have. I think I orginally picked it up from Bunnings, and like yours I found mine to be paradoxically rot-prone and yet a pupping monster. I tentatively ID'd mine as M. leucantha based on photos in Cacti: The Illustrated Dictionary. In truth, I'm not really sure what it is and I suspect it may be a nursery hybrid.

Quote :

Mitch, your second pic looks like it might be the same as a mystery Mamm
that I have. I think I orginally picked it up from Bunnings, and like
yours I found mine to be paradoxically rot-prone and yet a pupping
monster. I tentatively ID'd mine as M. leucantha based on photos
in Cacti: The Illustrated Dictionary. In truth, I'm not really sure
what it is and I suspect it may be a nursery hybrid.

Lachy, is it from Hamilton's World of Cacti, or Collector's Corner?

Lachy wrote:

Mitch, your second pic looks like it might be the same as a mystery Mamm that I have. I tentatively ID'd mine as M. leucantha

That is what I kind of ID'd it as -> an M. crinita ssp.
It looks similar but that's about it.

One of the pups I took off it also got a hole in it. I don't know what causes the holes because it's not rot on my plants.
Possibly insects or snails eating it although they are huge holes.

How about this one... I was just repotting some more plants and was loosening the dirt on my echinocactus grusonii when all of a sudden I started pulling the skin off!

I think the base would have rotted but under the rot the plant had healed and the rotted area dried up. The rotted area is what I pulled off to reveal this.

As you can see the roots are healthy but I'll be leaving the plant unpotted for a day or two to let it dry out. Hopefully it's fully calloused and no more rot happens.

I don't know why but the plant seems to shrivel up after a day or so in the sun and when I water it it plumps up again then shrivels.
Hope it's alright.




And I'll put this in here because the plants dirty at the moment (I just potted it up) but my Mamm. hahniana?? is coming into bud.



You should be able to see two pink flower buds in the centre of this image. There are lots more flower buds but it was hard to get a photo.