Oh Dear!!! I'm feeling cruel now..

Oh dear Lincslass, still you did your best. Fingers crossed the broken bits 'take' and I promise I don't think you're cruel ;)

lol ! :D
(that's not for your sore fingers ... although if you had done it the way I said, your fingers would be all right - like mine always are)
I'm sure the cactus is very grateful to you :)

I hope the broken bits will catch, but it would have been a good idea if you left them to dry off for a few days before planting them.

Best of luck...you should have listened Hywel he is the expert in all things prickly!!

You said it Dotty. I use my kitchen tongues for moving cactus.

Hywel I tried your way and it wouldn't budge, I never even swore at him although the air was blue at myself after my mishap, lol, I didn't think to let the ends dry out, I just popped them in, the baby offshoot is doing well though so at least I know that all is not lost....
Needless to say I never tackled any of the others, they'll be an experience for another day....

Don't water it for a while then now you have the tops in the same pot as the bottoms or they will rot. If you get desperate you could try cutting the pot open with snips as a last resort but take prickle precautions first! Hope your fingers go better soon.

You have to be ruthless. Stick a trowel in the pot and go all the way round. Then put the pot on it's side, and prize it out.
Lift it by the roots and drop it into the new pot.
Put a stick to keep it upright while you fill the pot with compost --- it works every time :)
I've never hurt my fingers with a cactus, in all the years I've had them.

LOL, my plants and cacti are always attacking me, kitchen tongues seems a good idea but I'm definitely wrapping my next ones in newspaper to protect them..
Stera I have done that in the past but it won't work on a ceramic pot, lol.. at least I didn't need the tweezers this time as didn't leave any spines in my fingers.....

Would the prickles go through rubber gloves?

they don't bite Hywel he's our "cactus whisperer" ?

lol ! :D

poor you hope your fingers heal soon. My poor old dad a few years back when on holiday aboard forgot to look behind him before he sat on a low wall. Yes you guest it the tweezers had to come out to remove the spines from his you know what.

Ouch!

Ooer bet that was nasty, also think of the humiliation for him.......

luckily for him (he was 86) he had met a nice lady who he had started a new romance with and she was his nurse. He wasn't two embarrassed and just saw the funny side of the situation, that was my dad all over bless him! Miss him so, he past away on good Friday this year aged 92.

Oh bless him x
nice to think of funny moments...

Lincslass, I note your photo is in the GoYpedia under 'Desert Plants', well done ......... Are these edible? surely not ! ... lol

Well Alan, gypsies eat hedgehogs by wrapping them in clay and baking them - the prickles come off with the clay. Why not give it a go....

Hi Steragram, Tandoori hedgehog sounds quite tasty or did you mean the cactus? ...lol

I meant the cactus as you were asking if they were edible. Better not eat hedgehogs nowadays, poor things are getting scarce, but can't say I'm convinced about Tandoori cactus either.

<]:~))