Help with cactus, any experience?

[Frankie]

I have 2 cactus. A Watch Chain and a Titanopsis Calcareum, so far they have done well. But I am sure they now need bigger pots. What type soil do I use and what size pot? Can the new pot harm them if it is to big or to small? Do they do better if the pot is a certain material?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Charlene]

i have 2 but i have no idea what they are. gary bought them at walmart years and years and years ago when they were teeeeeny tiny. i potted them in sand. they have grown over the years and one of them even bloomed last year. i put them outside all summer, rarely water them. they get rained on occasionally. i bring them in the house in the fall and put them in a sunny window. i splash water on them 2 or 3 times over the winter and when all danger of frost is over, i kick them back outside. i have never repotted them.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

we rooted some from my husband grandmother that could make anything she touched grow but we planted ours in our front yard in clay we water about once a month in the summer and they are doing great. so i might not be much help here. as i dont have a green thumb i can kill a fake plant as my husband says. but good luck with yours.

i hope mine will bloom this year.. how long does it take them to bloom after you have planted them?

Diane

 

[Wee Mite Miniatures]

You can pay a bag of a special mixture to pot your cactus in.

Make sure you use a soil that drains well. Do not over water. Most do well but I have been know to kill a them. My Christmas cactus does well. My orchid cactus seems skimpy. My Sunrise cactus has never re-bloomed. I have one tall one, no idea what it is but it grew a foot last summer, it is close to 5 feet tall now. Some like to be over crowded. Most take a while to adjust after re-potting but then do fine.

Two years ago I tried planting some winter hardy cactus. The two I planted survived two New England winters so last year I tried planting three more.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I have bought that bagged mix for cactus, but I think it is too loamy. If you can find some nice gravel in your area that would be better. Maybe some on the side of a rural road. But, most likely your cactus don't need repotting.

I do what Charlene does--put them outside all summer and bring them in to a sunny window for the winter. About once a month in the winter, I set them in the bathtub or sink and use the sprayer on them.

I have some that were given me in 1991, and a baby saguaro that we got at the Phoenix Botanical gardens in 1998--which has grown about 5 inches (they start to get arms at age 50--one of my lucky children will inherit it

).

Why do we love cacti? People that don't like them can't understand it at all. I've had cactus since I was about 10 years old. I don't know why I like them. Once, when we were kids, my sister flung her arm out in her sleep and hit my cactus on the window sill. She has never forgotten that!

 

[Taylor Jo]

We lived in the desert for years and had LOTS of cactus in and out of the house. Now we live in Mo and we brought several with us and had them in the horse trailer and went around a corner and wham everything got turned dumped and turned upside down. We had no way of keeping them so we lost everything but one. One tiny one. It's in a coffee mug.

They tend to like smaller vs bigger. AND they like sand vs dirt so your better off with sand if you can get it and like someone else said don't over water. Water once a week. Count to 5 and if it looks like your underwatering then add a little more over watering add a little less... Use your gut. Good luck. TJ

 

[nbark]

Okay, I had a cactus farm in Massachusetts and the best thing for cactus is a pot that you think is too small. Out in the desert they are wedged in between rocks and hard dirt. The bigger the pot the bigger the root gets, not the cactus. Keep your cactus in the smaller pots, they like it better.

Also, if you cactus have aerioles (cactus needles) they get moisture out of the air and need very little water. If you have a succulent that has no aerioles, they need more water, like a burro's tail, jade tree or even Poinsetta. Yes, poinsetta is a cactus. All cactus are succulents, not all succulents are cactus.

They also do well with an occasional drink of miracle grow.

If you have an easter cactus, xmas cactus or any of those, the best thing for getting them to flower is to stick them outside in the summer under a bush. Don't touch them, let Mother Nature take care of them. When you bring them in at the end of the summer you will be amazed at how many flowers you get. Again, a little miracle grow when you bring them in and they will grow like mad.

Hope this helps

 

[Charlene]

i found a couple of pics of my little cactus that bloomed. this was in june of last year.

to give you an idea of size, that's about an 8" clay pot.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

i found a couple of pics of my little cactus that bloomed. this was in june of last year.

to give you an idea of size, that's about an 8" clay pot.

Charlene

if you dont mind me asking what kind of Cactus is that. i just love that one. when mine blooms it is the big yellow flowers.

If any one has any pics of a Easter one can you post pics

thanks

diane

 

[Charlene]

diane, i have no idea! originally, it was in one of those little bitty 2" pots at walmart. it's probably 8 or 9 years old and has been repotted only one time.

believe it or not, we have cactus growing out here, right in the middle of west central illinois. it's that awful prickly pear cactus that grows low to the ground. it's beautiful when it's in bloom, HUGE yellow flowers, but the barbs are dastardly. i learned very quickly that you don't walk around outside without socks on! i made that mistake, walked through a patch of prickly pear cactus and got barbs in my ankles. they seemed to jump out at me. they are almost microscopic...you can feel them in your skin but they're almost impossible to see to pull them out.

gary spent the first 2 or 3 years out here, all summer long, digging up every prickly pear cactus he could find and throwing them in the burn barrel. he pretty much cleared our 7 acre patch of them. occasionally i will run across one in the yard. when i do, i stop dead in my tracks and get rid of it!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Charlene, I have one of those, but mine is only one arm. Yours is beautiful. I can see why you wonder about repotting. Mine is in a small pot with 2 other cacti. Maybe I need to repot mine...

I know someone who makes prickly pear jelly every year. She lays the pods on the grill to singe off the spines. It is lovely jelly.

 

[Charlene]

i'll have to get a picture of my other one. it's never bloomed and it's funny looking but holds a special place in my heart because gary babied it for the first couple of years and was SO proud of it.

prickly pear jelly, huh? hmmmm! would you believe people actually SELL prickly pear cactus on ebay? i couldn't believe it when i saw that. i could RETIRE! lol

 

[nbark]

Charlene your cacti is doing so well because it is pot bound and loving it. I would not repot this. You can always cut a finger off, let it lay on a piece of paper for a week or two until the wound heals and you see a root sprouting. This is how they propagate in the desert. If you want to know the exact name you can contact Florida Cactus is Apopka Florida and they can give you the latin and english name for this. Hope this helps you out.

Nancy

 

[Charlene]

thanks nancy, that's pretty much what i thought...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

gary's mom is 75 years old. she has a Christmas cactus that belonged to HER mother. it's in a great big wash tub and during the holidays, it blooms so profusely, you can hardly see the plant through the blooms.