I can't see the pictures.... Can anyone else?

Well, I didn't move or delete the images. I did take a lot of time making sure I got them on the post correctly though! I guess the best I can do is post the link to where they are below. Doesn't make my first post here look too great, does it!?!

EDIT: There. I think I fixed it! See, I didn't do anything wrong at all! I'm a computer genius!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures that should be in my post.

This post was edited by ThothMer on Sun, Jun 23, 13 at 13:38

I can't see the pictures.... Can anyone else?

Saw the pics in your last link, the rest dont work.

Ouch, that looks terrible. I hope those spots fade a way over time. As in the fresh white colour goes away. Atleast they survived!!!

Wow!
We had that happen last year but thank goodness it was small hail. Yours was horrible. At least with you epi you could cut back and have all new growth, but your biggies wil always have battle wounds.
My hardy cacti bed was really torn apart after hurricane sandi last year.
Yowsers,
Chris

Thanks for looking to Teisa, NameTaken, and Chrisware.

No NameTaken, they likely won't go away. The white is the dead epidermal layer (if that is the correct term for plants) that is like dried paper. On some, especially the epiphyllum, the entire soft tissue has died off so the internal skeletal/pithy part of the plant is exposed. I'm not expecting them to grow back since new growth occurs at the top. However I do have a couple that seem to get thicker very slowly over time so damage/holes seem to become smaller. Perhaps on some this will occur. I'm still thinking the ones that are damaged at the top have been extremely compromised. New growth will have to happen somehow, I just don't know how. Time will tell I guess.

Wow Chrisware. I guess I can only have a very small idea of what your experience must be like after the hurricane. My condolences. I've been trying to figure out some kind of plan for an emergency sheltering construction for any similar happening here in the future. Needless to say I've come up with nothing that I feel would be doable. Meanwhile, when the money presents itself, I'll be shopping for new younglings if they can be found. I think you deserve to go shopping too!
Understood about the permanence of the damage. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

And sorry again to everyone for the initial trouble getting the pictures to stay in the post.

Ouch! Yeah some of them got beaten pretty good. I'll let other advise you.

Thoth, I suspect the reason your pics did not show may have been the link you used. Did you use the HTML link? For old forums like this one, only the archaic HTML system will work. Here's two of your photos:

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Wow, that is unfortunate:( My condolences.

On the upside, you get to re-invent your collection and enjoy the process of hacking an renewing!

I'm not a real cactus guy but I would think the thing to do with your columnars is to hack right below the damage and let them push out some new growth. Hopefully, someone else will confirm this. It's the best time of year to do so. Make sure you fertilize them since summer is when they really need it. Your Aloe should renew itself by winter if not sooner.

Is your dog looking at you wondering why on Earth are you "playing" with the boring plants instead of paying attention to the dog? My dog never understands.

If you can live with the damage on some, you can keep some. Others... time to get new cactus.

Thank you Paul. I had used a code the first time around, and the preview showed everything was fine, but somehow it all got mixed up and lots of quotation marks were added. So back to Google I went and searched again for how to add multiple pictures to gardenweb and I found a person who posted here who made it much easier to understand. So yea for that! Thanks for your help very much.

Thank you Hanzrobo. I appreciate your empathy. And yes, I'm already looking for new additions to my collection. I actually found a pot of three tiny Pilosocerus azureus with 7 ribs yesterday! So aside from starting all over again, at least I have them. You may have picked up that I like blue plants, as well as any other amazing colors I can find. What is taking longer to get over is some of these plants survived a major relocation to a new environment with me, and the amount of time I'd had them prior to that as well. Tiny things that are now so much larger. I'll get by I'm sure, eventually.

What needs to be cut I'll wind up cutting if I have to. What I can leave alone and allow new growth to happen naturally I'll just watch.

And yeah, the Aloe is already getting along fine. Lots of other plants that aren't included in this post were affected. I lost a kalanchoe. Literally. I can't find any of the pieces or anything! Then a tiny bit turned up in a pot of cat nip seedlings. That's nice because it's one of the old friends of mine. Two other aloes were so pot-bound that you couldn't see the pot. One is almost untouched, one is almost just a pot now! And on and on.

A bright side is I'll have lots of tiny plants of the ones I can grow from pieces. A mystery cactus (possibly Mammillaria species?) I have that grows rather quickly has gone from one potted plant to three potted plants now with all the pieces I picked up and stuffed in some dirt. It looks very much like a Mammillaria elongatus, only the central spines are hook shaped. I kind of went crazy when it bloomed last year. After that it grew so much more, and it just comes apart so easily, obviously a clever way of propagating itself. I'm attempting to add a picture of it below. This page needs some niceness to look at I think.

Thanks very much for reading and adding your thoughts. I agree with you and have already started a moderate fertilizing process. Though I did recently read somewhere that a lower nitrogen fertilizer is better for cacti and succulents because too much nitrogen can cause them to retain too much water and get too soft. Maybe someone here has some thoughts on that as well.

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The garden is watered and sitting in their wet/dry outdoor sauna, and I'm huddled up to the air conditioner and thinking it's nap time now. I'll dream of happy plants with lot of amazing flowers!

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Everything is relative, isn't it? Even if you may not have had the damage of the tornados and can be grateful for that, you are still living the reality of what did happen to you.

Your poor plants, they truly look sad. I would be in tears. It looks like you have had those plants for a long time. Can't offer any advice, I just hope the best for you and that you can salvage as much as possible and keep the positive attitude you have.

Thank you for sharing the flowers :-)