Geekery lol. I needz toolz.

I'm frighteningly fascinated by the pests as well, HWT. Not that I want them on my plants but when I find them, you better believe they get looked at lol

Pagan

That... is... awesome! Could have used some of that as I failed miserably to hand pollinate my little trees.

Believe it or not, I use cat whiskers. I haven't tried on adenium though. I'd have to isolate them and I'm not set up for it.

Oh come on, Nick, you must have an assortment of some things!

I do, but nothing this extensive... yet. And I highly doubt my cat would hold still long enough for me to hand pollinate the Adenium. How do you keep yours calm while you utilize her whiskers? :)

Let's be clear about one thing, Nicholas: it did cross my mind to give you made-up instructions on how to carefully hold a cat so you can use his whiskers to hand-pollinate flowers.

But okay, i'll be a grown-up instead lol The whisker I use typically does not have the cat attached to one end anymore. They do shed their whiskers. Check your couch, bed, keyboards, near their food bowl or just generally on the floor. For small, delicate flowers of plants like gasterias and haworthias, use the soft end. I suppose you'd have to use the blunt end for something like adeniums.

Pagan

I think my cat will rearrange my anatomy if I tried that.

Just came home from a late shift to read this and I'm trying to laugh quietly so I don't wake everyone up. I can't stop giggling picturing u wrestling with the cat Nicholas.

Pagan, what a great tool kit. Mine looking nothing like that. But u have given me some ideas on what I can use, now to just remember where they are in the house.

You two made me laugh really hard. Pagan I love the idea of having a toolbox dedicated to this, currently all of my gadgets are piled on a bonsai drip tray. This would be much more orderly! Now I know the big secret to keeping your Mesembs alive, you water them with a turkey baster! No splatter.

Tracy

I actually just use the pointy watering thing for those, Tracy.

Tool box! Great idea. They really shouldn't be mixed in with other stuff in various drawers.

P.

p.s. I just realized I was being dense, Nick. That said, I think it's possible to use Hodor to pollinate plants with open flowers like lithops and, faucarias. Wont even need whiskers, the tail will do.

Pagan you should put together complete tool kits to sell. I'm sure more than just us adenium addicts would like a complete setup like that :)

Free individually-wrapped cat whiskers for your pollinating needs!

Meant the whole cat but I guess the whiskers could work too.

Holy catz Pagan, your toolkit made me cringe. I'm scared of pain. LMBFBO. Great tools though. I think you have great equipment to get the job done with our tropicals.

My poor kitties would not like being wrestled around to pollinate plants. ha ha ha. But I did see a couple whiskers not to long ago, wish I had though of using them to cross pollinate my plants. I use a teeny tiny paint brush.

My cats' expertise is depotting plants. They're useless for repotting though.

Has anyone discovered a really good and reliable hygrometer?

P

My favorite tool is the super long tweezers. I don't know where I got these but they are awesome. I have a Crested Perl Von Nurnberg that I cannot touch with my fingers because it leaves marks on the purple leaves, I call it my MC Hammer plant LOL. Can't touch this... Anyhow I use the tweezers to pull off dead foliage.

I use the ice pick for laying out my lines for seed.

Oh! I need one of those sifters! Do they come in different screen size as well?

I have a pair of long tweezers too but not as sturdy as your pair looks. And also not as visible (i.e. I can't find it).

Pagan

This sifter came from Walmart, they only had one size available. I think a kitchen type of shop may offer various grade sizes of mesh. I am looking at your eye pieces and thinking I need to get something similar so I can inspect things :0

You absolutely want those, Trace. I tend to obsess about spiders especially indoors in winter because they really make my life easier by eating everybody else. So when cleaning up individual plants, I won't accidentally remove them just because I see some web-like thing.

so, if I use a lucky rabbit's foot for pollinating … I could get lucky ...

Probably, Dave. But only if you kept the foot attached to the rabbit. This lore has been updated to modern sensibilities lol

Amazon is no help finding the sieve I want. I may have to (gulp) go to an actual kitchen type store.

Pagan - try searching the Internet for tea strainer as that is what tracys looks like and it may bring up different gauges your after?

Pagan_scissorhands ...

Hey Phil, thanks for that lead. I had no idea what a tea strainer was but it actually led me to something called a deep fryer, which is exactly what I wanted.

Imagine how long it took me to find one of those metal things threaded like wood screws on one end and machine screw threading on the other. I mean, are there people on the planet who were born knowing what hanger bolts are?!

Pagan

P.S. Dave, I wish! Also, I want eight arms.