New Mammillaria
Although I keep swearing I'll stop buying cacti with hooked spines, it's always a case of "Ooh, look at that interesting shape"
Bombycina is highly variable and a clumping cactus: some are fluffy and then there's this one. I think the aureole spines are particularly attractive so... I saw it the last time I went to the garden centre and it was still there when I went back.
No choice but to come home with me.
So how did you finally stop killing cacti?
Stopped watering them. Put them in pots and left them outside to do their thing and feel the seasons
And then you are rewarded with flowers: they don't really flower indoors
Most seem to need a rest and a colder, dry season. Light has very little to do with it
That is a beauty! Cacti are like lithops haha: you can never have just one
Nope! For a long time I refused to buy cacti because I killed too many except one that was utterly bullet-proof. Also a hook-spined Mammillaria clumper that is hell to repot and weed. I've had it for about 15 years now
Tongs or leather welding gloves?
Not a fan of tongs, except for weeding. They get stuck to the gloves too. I just resign myself to pulling out a few spines as I try to extricate the gloves from the cactus
There really isn't a good solution unless you can find something tough and smooth (and inflexible)
Nope. Even taking this home was messy, the spines got entangled with the shade netting I bought. Somehow I managed to extricate it one spine at a time and only one got pulled off