How to care for a cactus
Question: How to care for a cactus? They gave it to me, this is my first plant!
Natalie: At the beginning, read the literature on cacti - what kind of plants they are, what features they have: Cacti. Next, you will most likely have to transplant the cactus, here it is important to choose the right soil and pot size. The cactus pot should be small, slightly larger than the diameter of the cactus itself. More details about the soil are written below. After transplantation, you do not need to water the cactus for two days and keep it under shade from the sun. Then put on a sunny windowsill (not a computer) and water only when the ground in the pot dries. While there is no active growth, do not feed. In the future, you need to find out from the photo what kind of cactus you have (you can ask here) and find out if it blooms at home, what temperature of the cactus is needed for wintering.
How to water a cactus
Question: How to water a cactus, there is no calendar for watering cacti? I understand that there are several families of cacti and care for them is different, but maybe there is a simplified version, I heard about this, watering days are circled?
Colleague: It is impossible, according to plan, the fact is that a lot depends on the weather. In cloudy rainy weather, watering is less common, in hot and sunny - more often. On average, from May to September, it is necessary to water once every 5 days. If it's hot, even every 3 days. And if it gets colder or rains, then even once every 7-10 days. There is no one-size-fits-all way. Everything is on intuition. Since September, watering has been gradually reduced: first once a week, October - once every 10 days, in November once every 2 weeks and that's it, for wintering, as after the last watering the soil will dry out.
Care for Cacti - in the Encyclopedia of Houseplants section.
Question: I have this situation: I poured all the cacti into a pallet for half an hour, half a pallet. The next day there was no sun at all. And the earth is wet for the third day, the temperature is + 8C. What to do? Ventilate?
Colleague: Turn on the heater! Put them next to each other. They are urgently in a warm place. To the kitchen, bedroom... You can dry with a hairdryer (heat the pot).
Natalie: I believe that you need to take out the most tender or raw cacti from pots and dry in rolls of toilet paper, or on newspapers. Those whose land is drier - put in a warm place. But I do not advise watering from the pallet - it is very easy to waterlift the soil.
Question: Cactus (prickly pear) at the base of part of the side branches appeared lethargy, folds, although the main trunk looks normal. And what about the reduction of irrigation to the period of rest - with its reduction, the bush simply wilts, the top on its side. Polish - and everything is restored.
Answer: You apparently have a problem in that you reduce watering, and the temperature is kept at a high level. If you cannot lower the temperature, i.e. transfer the plant to a cooler room, then water so that the cactus does not wilt and wrinkle.
How to transplant a cactus
Question: How to transplant cacti correctly, especially if they have a lot of balls or other processes in the shape.
Natalie: The easiest way is to put the "freshly separated" children in places of breaks on the surface of absolutely dry soil in a pot and not water or touch for three weeks, as long as possible (until they start to wrinkle slightly). After three to four weeks, you can water, the first time it is better from the pallet, since the soil will dry out a lot during this time and if you water from above, the water does not flow for a long time. Then, when the soil is saturated with moisture, let it drain and drain from the pallet. You can do it differently - put small gravel on the surface of the pot, and children on it, then after three weeks you can water it on top.
Colleague: Make a pot of expanded clay soil for cacti easier, a thick layer of small pebbles on top. It's just that the soil will not work, it is usually greasy or dense... it is desirable to dilute it with fine expanded clay or gravel. Small gravel or coarse sand can be bought in aquarium stores, and there are pebbles for the top. Put the kids upside down on pebbles. In a warm place, spray daily.
Cactus Land
Question: In what soil should cacti be planted?
Answer: a well-known collector of cacti, author of books I. A. Zaletaeva recommends the following mixture: 2 part of sheet humus, 2 part of clay earth in the form of lumps, 2 part of sand, 1 part of charcoal and brick (equally) for 3.5 liters of all this mixture is added 1 part of superphosphate and 1 teaspoon of lime.
Melnikov: Leafy land is collected like this. First, birches must be quite old. Fallen foliage and grass are removed from above. Carefully remove with a spatula (even rather cut down) 3-4 cm of the upper layer, then wipe through a sieve from the roots of the grass. It should be sand-free, a little red in color with an admixture of black grains of 2-3 mm. This is the sheet humus. Secondly, you need to do this in dry weather, or chop up strips of this land, dry and reseed.
More secrets of soil for cacti:
- Clay soil is grains of clay 2-4 cm from well-weathered hillsides, it is there at the exit in this state, but the addition of clay is needed only for cacti with a turnip root. Ariocarpus feel very good in clean clay.
- Charcoal is also suitable from supermarkets (birch). Instead
- of clay, it is better to add sod soil (5-6 cm of bay meadow), sifted from dust, to the universal mixture.
- Lime is not needed at all in the soil, it is enough in our water, but rather, on the contrary, it is necessary to add 1 part of peat (red such) to acidify the substrate.
- Astrophytums and white-pubescent cereuses respond well to marble chips added to the mixture.
- If you transplant in the spring, superphosphate will not hurt at all - flowering will be more abundant.
If you store the land on the balcony in winter, then the only drawback is that it will need to be thawed before planting. In any case, the cactus soil must be sterilized before planting.
Q: Can moss sphagnum be used as an additive in the land cactus mix?
Colleague: No, sphagnum in cactus soil is not needed.
Vladimir Melnikov: Sphagnum is very good to use instead of drainage. And it's not bad to add to the substrate, but in very small quantities. This is a very good antiseptic. No root rot will approach. You can also do this: when transplanting, very long roots have to be cut off, then dried, etc. And with sphagnum, all this is done easier: you trim, wrap your roots in moss, and in moist ground. The plant does not lose a day after picking, losses - zero.
How to transplant cactus babies
Question: Rak sit down cactus kids: there are three cactus, kids, very small, broke off from a big cactus?
Answer: Take three small plates, fill with cactus earth, put (do not dig!) Cactus in the plates with the scrap area down so that they become on the needles. Put in a warm place. Moisturize the soil, but little by little, it should be slightly wet, but not wet. Cacti will take root and take root themselves. The main thing is that the earth is loose. If the children are prickly pears, they must be fixed with pebbles, otherwise they will fall. All others just put on the upper drainage (pebbles) so that the body does not touch the ground, they will let the roots to the ground themselves.
Answer: You take a pot, pour 1/4 expanded clay, the rest is land for cacti, you stick segments there. First sprinkle the scrap site with activated crushed coal, add coal to the ground. Let the day 3-4 stand in a warm dark place. Then, after two weeks, slowly water it. Take root! My cat broke off the prickly pear, I stuck 4 segments, 3 took root.
yamaika: I rooted all my prickly pears in the same way: first I dry them for a couple of days, and then I "stick" a couple of centimeters into the SLIGHTLY wet ready soil for cacti - and in the brightest place. And only a week later - real watering. The main thing is that I do all this in the spring, or in the summer. By definition, prickly pear ears are not stable, so for the first two months you can stick a support so that the plant takes an upright position.
Alla: In the fall, on vacation in Turkey, I tore off a prickly pear cake, dried it beforehand, put it in a plastic bag, wrapping the tip with wet cotton wool. And when I turned it around at home (five days later), there were already small roots.
Kids on cacti
Question: Over the summer, on almost all childless cacti on the sunny side, children grew up, from five to two dozen on one cactus. The cacti themselves have grown a lot over the summer, and even these children. Was it bad or was it good for the cactus? In general, what does this indicate?
Colleague: To have fewer children, you need less nitrogen in the soil. Children from an excess of nitrogen are formed. So it is better to transplant the cactus into the soil more victorious (more sand and brick crumbs), or fertilize it only with special cactus fertilizers, in which there is a minimum of nitrogen. By the way, cacti that are planted from children in the third generation (baby from a child taken from another child of a cactus grown from seed) do not bloom - they simply do not know how. Only overgrown with children.
It can also be a shrinking cactus, for example, mammillaria prolifera or wilda, or maybe some kind of ayloster. And there is no need to rob children from them.
Freya: You can transplant into fresh soil for cacti, you can also add sand from yourself to the ready-made soil, and during the growing season feed it with slightly potassium fertilizers, in special "for cacti" usually the proportions are correct, but nitrogen - avoid, because unhealthily "detach" cacti, as a rule, precisely from excess nitrogen in the soil! Yes, if now cacti are wintering, then do not touch them until February-March - during wintering they do not care how much nitrogen there is!
Melnikov Vladimir: It seems to me that first you need to decide on what you still have. After all, there are many dernin, bushy, plentiful cacti. For them, the removal of children is a reason for even more childminding. And, naturally, after such operations they will not bloom - all the energy goes to vegetative reproduction.
How to grow a cactus from seeds
Question: How to propagate cacti with your own seeds. My berries ripen.
Answer: There is a whole bunch of cactus seeds in the fruit. It must, after it has fallen off, be opened, take out the seeds and dry. Then (preferably in the spring) sow the seeds on the sand (disinfected). Sow - do not bury, just put on top. Put a bowl of sand, low and wide, in a greenhouse or cover with glass. The plate must have drainage holes. The sand should be wet, but not wet, do not lift the glass. Pour into a pallet. Cacti come out every other day, can germinate up to a month. Temperature - 25-30 degrees, at night - 15-20. When the cacti begin to squeeze each other, you need to dive them into new soil - a little richer, but there should be half of the sand in it.
Moss in crops
Question: In my area with cactus crops, the earth is turning green. What is it - moss, algae? Sterilized the earth? Water, of course not distilled. Do I need to do something?
Answer: Even if you sterilized the soil, you will not be able to fully maintain a sterile environment all the time. But this is not necessary. These greens - algae, appear in conditions of high humidity. But it is at high humidity that seedlings of cacti and succulents grow, without it they will die. Now you should not be afraid of central heating, but the decay of seedlings. Since they are more terrible than drafts and excess humidity, it is better not to ventilate the greenhouse, but to make holes in the lid so that it never fogs. And the soil must be neatly loosened - the top layer of the earth will dry out, and with it the greens. Just do not touch the soil at a distance closer than 1 cm from the seedlings, you can accidentally damage the roots, and they easily rot.
Cactus inoculation
Question: How to vaccinate cacti?
Answer: It is not very difficult, the main thing is that you have some kind of echinopsis, you can buy from grandmothers. It is desirable that it be cylindrical - long.
It should be cut off approximately in the middle of the trunk. Your cactus is dry - great! So it should be. Carefully cut off the dried part, put the cuttings of the cactus on a fresh section of echinopsis, and so that the main (central vessels of both coincide. Well, imagine that you are a doctor and sew legs to a bunny. The main thing is that the yellow cactus (graft) is not wider than the echinopsis (rootstock). Then you need to fix the graft. For example, take a ring, tie 4 rubber bands to it from different sides. You put the ring on the cuttings, knit the elastic bands below under the pot so that the graft with the rootstock is pressed to each other. Rubber bands at the level of echinopsis are tied with threads to increase tension. Let 3 days stand like that. Then you remove this thread - but so as not to move anything. This is to take the tension off.
Dry crust on cactus
Question: I have two cacti start to get covered from below with some kind of brown dry muck. This is not plaque, but simply their skin becomes this color. Can it come from old age? One of them is really old. And the other is also not young. But this last one is thin and long. Maybe you can somehow cut off the top and root it? if anyone knows how this is done, I will be glad if you share.
Colleague: This is from old age and watering with cold water. If the sun burned - it can also be. By the way, there are cacti that will definitely test - astrophytums. They have it normal.
Cactus temperatures in winter
Question: To what temperature can you leave cacti on the balcony so as not to freeze?
Freya: It very much depends on which cactus! Very different temperatures are optimal or critically low for them! Well, in general, lowering to + 5 is permissible for everyone (occasionally, for a short time up to + 2- + 3), but optimally + 10- + 12C. Some cacti, for example, chamecereus, with completely dry soil easily tolerates frost, and decent! Rebucies (just not sulki!) Are also calmly less so. Only the main commandment is no watering! Watering + cold = decay.
Question: Despite the fact that we have the end of April on the calendar, the temperature outside my window is + 10-15, at night it drops to + 8. I am worried about my cacti, will they freeze? Can cacti and succulents tolerate a similar temperature during growth ?
Freya: In my opinion, your only option is not to water until it gets warmer. If the roots are dry, nothing will happen to them, they will slow down in growth, but they will not suffer from "thirst," at such a temperature it is impossible! But wet soil and + 8 - it can be fraught with rot.
Melnikov Vladimir: I took my plants out into the fresh air a week ago. The temperature is similar. There are no problems. I even watered a little from above. The only thing to refrain from "freedom" for Discocactus, Melocactus, Uebelmannia, plants with rootstocks Hylocereus, Myrtyllocactus, and most succulents should not be frozen. As for the "between windows" - then there can be no problems at all. During the day, the space there heats up, the next day the temperature rises again. I.e. hypothermia does not threaten in such a short period, a good temperature difference is obtained. The first spines this year will be very strong and large. Of course, you shouldn't water them. In the absence of experience and sufficient "prickly" material for experiments, you should not do this. Although Oleg Ilyushenko told me that in the fall (!), Visiting Albert Plapp (the owner of the cactus nursery), he raised pots with plants - and water poured out of them (!). It was + 6.
Cactus growth
Question: We have an incredible heat for the fifth day. I had to take out all the flowers from the south balcony, I left only cacti and succulents. There are only cacti left, in the evening they are all sluggish (yesterday at 19 o'clock it was + 42C on the balcony) cacti leave overnight, but I don't know if this is not harmful for them.
Chapa: Usually, the growth of cacti is inhibited at temperatures above + 35-40 (different species). It makes sense to remove them from the scorching sun, at least in the shade, if you cannot provide them with comfortable conditions in a bright room with air conditioning.
Colleague: In this heat, cacti should be sprayed 2-3 times a day if the sun is hiding, and watered at night. And you don't need to wear cacti back and forth. You can shade them with paper from the sun. Mine are also some sluggish, so I rearranged them in the pallet to the most shady place - they moved away!
How to make a cactus grow not in length, but in width
Question: I specially put my cacti on a low table on the balcony to catch the direct midday sun - even to the detriment of the length of daylight hours. How to make a cactus grow not in length, but in width? My mammilaria stretched out, although it should not be large and round.
Answer: The more intense the UV lighting, the better the cactus grows in width. Put UV lighting on cacti, or try to find a place with direct sunlight.
Mealy worm on cacti
Question: There was a mealy worm on cacti, how to fight?
Colleague:
- It is necessary to thoroughly rinse the roots from the worm. Under hot water - start in warm, and gradually remove cold. There will be nothing for the cactus, and the worm will boil. Not a single white speck should remain !
- Lather the roots of Fairey hold in foam. Rinse thoroughly.
- Dip the roots in a phytoverm solution - very strong, like thrips. Hold for 15 minutes.
- Dry the cactus.
- Throw out all the infected land, pour boiling water over the pot, wash with a comet.
- Plant the dried cactus in a new earth, into which add 2 packages of crushed activated carbon, perlite and vermiculite.
- Process (spill) the entire collection with phytoverm.
- Put the cactus back in place.
Question: I noticed small droplets such as water droplets on the spines of the cactus, and a white coating between the folds of the cacti, similar to whipped foam (when viewed closely). It is easy to clean... but still then appears.
Colleague: It's a mealybug. It is necessary to remove the plaque, and then treat with phytoverm or actellic. This plaque is not wetted, the worms hide from the water, if the plaque is not removed, nothing will happen to them. Wipe with alcohol, wind the cotton wool on a paper clip - first unfold the paper clip, and then double one tip so that there is a flat loop, and wind the cotton wool on this loop. It is more convenient to wipe this way. And then just spray them with a solution. Cacti, by the way, can be wet. If they are not wintering in the cold, of course. His confidor, in the proportion of 1 bag per half liter. Spray and spill once. Soap solution will not give anything - this is not a tick. Chervets is a terrible reptile, it will be necessary to process cacti before wintering, otherwise it tends to become active in winter and harm cacti.