I'm glad I've seen this. My e mail was asking me to confirm my e mail address, thought it was odd, haven't replied.

That's lovely Christian, especially to see so late in the year

Yes I thought the same Diane, and that's a big heavy pot. Guess they'll move it on a trolley, or even take the plants out and replace with something else.

I've grown this plant for a good number of years and agree with Diane, it looks healthy, so maybe just needs to be a bit bigger. Mine offsets OK, but not quickly. Good luck!

I visited Wisley gardens today and they had some lovely pots of Echeverias on display I suspect it's partly to encourage people to use plants that are tolerant of dry conditions. They looked happy, although there had obviously been one casualty.

Definitely very strange. I've never seen this happen either, I wonder why

Good to see Diane, I've had a few late cactus flowers this year, always a nice surprise.

Interesting Eric, I also have an old plant of C. krainziana in a 12" bowl, here it is a few years ago It seems to have smaller heads than yours, but also has never flowered.

The late Terry Smale used to use a hair for pollination, as many of us once saw on Gardeners' World. I have been the servant of a good number of cats and certainly wouldn't recommend trying to get a whisker from one! However, they do lose whiskers occasionally, so that's a possibility. Good luck!

Two lovely plants, beautiful markings on the friedrichii