Earlier this year I came across some cacti planted in something that looked like drywall cement. Those guys are doing fine, but I have a new question: Do department stores hot glue blooms onto a cactus?? here's my little 4" cacti garden: I went to pull the grey rock out of the dirt to check the soil, and i had several of the pebbles still stuck to it. I remembered one of you saying that sometimes arrangements get sprayed with wax or glue to keep them looking pretty (uck!). Taking a closer look at this pot, I think the flower on top of this cactus has been HOT Glued On! Then again, I thought that the white growth of my mammalaria was an infestation of mealy bugs, too. :eek: Can anybody straighten me out with this? (plant identification would be a bonus, too!)
Yes, there is a horrible practice of using hot glue to attach straw flowers to cacti. Ugh! We have not-so-affectionately coined them as "glufers". You might Google that term & find quite a few discussions on various forums about this practice in the C&S trade. If you heat up an X-acto knife (or similar), you might be able to perform surgery to remove the dern thing! Gluing the top dressing on pots of groupings is another bad deal. Good luck getting them out! Are you looking for an ID on just the one with the flower? Other than Mammillaria, I don't know.
I'd be worried that the heat of the glue when it was applied will have been enough to kill the central growing point of the cactus. Might be best to take it back and demand your money back.
I am appalled. Not only is this plant abuse but CHEATING as well. A friend of mine acquired a young sago palm from a local retail establishment. It is growing in a medium that appears to be varnished gravel---hard and immovable, like pavement. What's up with this? Not unique to this plant: I have seen this stuff used elsewhere on other plants. Apparently enough water trickles in between the stones so that the plant stays alive...is there soil under there? Does the retail plant industry think that this technique looks pretty, or is it simply convenience---if the medium is lacquered solid the plants can be handled without spillage? ---I dunno. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my plants in what I can recognize as some kinda organic material. Soil, even.
