~A glimpse into my cacti world~

[DesertSun]

Hello everybody! I got myself some small plants and I am going to repot them. The problem I'm having is I can't find
terracotta pots in the small sizes I want, so I'm still on a search and will have to improvise maybe. I got a Kalanchoe sexangularis, a small Gasteria, a variegated Jade, and others. Getting those in such a small size can be rewarding as you see them grow.

[Pompom]

Nice to see your collection! You have quite a big collection already. About having courage to post pictures when others have so much larger collections... everybody has to start from somewhere right? How long have you been collecting these?

[DesertSun]

Nice to see your collection! You have quite a big collection already. About having courage to post pictures when others have so much larger collections... everybody has to start from somewhere right? How long have you been collecting these?

Thank you a lot! I have even more. Only for a few months, since I didn't have my balcony ready to put them, so I tried to force them to dormancy, then I discovered the forum here, and got to learn that it may not have been such a good idea, but oh well, I am learning from my mistakes. Although I have a large collection of houseplants not having the outside space I needed was deterring me from acquiring cacti, but very soon it will be ready and-yeah-I can't wait. I have so many to repot and I have made my own soil mix, gathered everything I read about the matter. I am worried about our scorching summer, let's see what happens. You are in Europe also, so glad to know!

Here are my Opuntias. I have identified almost all of them. Opuntia microdasys subsp. rufida, opuntia monacantha variegata, Opuntia subulata, Opuntia monstrose.

[DesertSun]

Pompom, I have more than a hundred and fifty plants in the house right now. Fifty or so are succs and cacti. Haven't counted though, I assume it's 50 to 65 more or less. But some of them are so small, they barely take any space. My bigger plants though are up the ceiling (not cacti, unfortunately, I can only dream to see some of my columnars get up there!).
Here are two Euphorbias, the trigona Rubra is a cutting I rooted and has to be repotted also. On the background you can get a glimpse of my indoor jungle.

[DesertSun]

Hi guys and gals! I've been busy, preparing for the major work of getting most of my cacti from the old mix and getting them into new soil. I have gathered materials from everywhere, not all could be found in a shop and I needed specific things for my soil. So, these days will be spent getting rid of soil, cleaning roots, letting dry, repotting. I decided to be more "serious" into displaying, thus I am also gathering such material needed for that. I love terracotta pots and slowly I am going to focus on having most of my collection in this kind of pots. The things I am reading for them are not favorable, so I am considering this as a kind of "let's try and see" this season. I will update part of the process and the results and hopefully very soon all my plants will be ready, enjoying some greek DesertSun (we do have some desert temps in the city the hottest summer months). Wish me luck guys!

[ElieEstephane]

I love clay pots but i don't like how they behave with cacti. They will get very hot so the soil will dry way too soon and the roots will struggle. Next, roots tend to stick to the sides of the pot so it will be hard to remove the plants. Then there's the salt accumulation on the outside. I've also had problems with clay pots that sit very flush to the ground so water was accumulating at the bottom of the pot. This lead to fungus problems in the soil, root loss (thankfully not rot) and halted growth.
If you absolutely must get clay pots, get the sealed non porous ones. Or you can buy cheap low fired pots and seal them yourself. I recall a thread using candle wax to seal the pots

[mmcavall]

I decided to be more "serious" into displaying, thus I am also gathering such material needed for that. I love terracotta pots and slowly I am going to focus on having most of my collection in this kind of pots. The things I am reading for them are not favorable, so I am considering this as a kind of "let's try and see" this season. I will update part of the process and the results and hopefully very soon all my plants will be ready, enjoying some greek DesertSun (we do have some desert temps in the city the hottest summer months). Wish me luck guys!

Good luck!
I think you should follow your intuition and try the terracota pots. For some people, all that is important is plant's health. For others, good looking displays besides the plant is important.
As for aesthetic, I prefer clay pots. When I move a plant from a plastic pot to a clay pot, it looks like the plant changed somewhat, gaining immediately a new “allure” or “aura”.
Clay pots are also safer in the sense they dry out quickly. But advantages end there. Clay pots are more expensive, harder to find, heavier, etc…
Also, even being reluctant to use plastic pots, it is becoming clear for me that most of my plants develop better in them. Many plants in clay pots do not show any sign of growth for long time, while those in plastic pots flourish. In this case, I prefer square pots… a greenhouse bench looks cool and interesting when crowded with square pots arranged side by side.
You will find your way. Keep posting.

[DesertSun]

Good evening mmcavall! You are right, clay does aesthetically appeal to me so much more than plastic. On the other hand, they are heavier, they draw humidity from the soil so perhaps rhizomes will be drawn to cling to the inside surface of the clay and that could be dangerous in the scorching summer months. I will plant in both and see. I bought 25 terracotta pots for starts, today was such a tiring day, I repotted all of my succulents, 47 repottings overall. And tomorrow is even more difficult, as I am not with cacti as with succulents, I admit I love my cacti somewhat more. And I have to pay extra care not to hurt roots, not to leave peat in the "heart" of the roots, not to damage any of them. I am going to do my best. My soil will be a mix of earth soil (dissinfected), leaf humus, small pieces of white marble, in Greece we call this rizaki, smaller size pumice and perlite. I hate perlite, but it's safer for me to use it now than mess with other more demanding on measuring etcetera materials. For some I will use plastic pots, that I will then put into clay cachepots.

I would appreciate some advice if anyone has the will and time. I will wash the roots to remove all peat that was in there from the nursery. How many days do I need to wait for them to dry out and any wounded roots to calus over before I pot them up? Thank you!

[mmcavall]

Be careful when using white marble. it is a reactive rock, such as dolomite and limestone. It can turn your substrate more alkaline than the plants would like.
You can test the rocks: to do it, use two glasses, put the rocks inside both, and add water to one, vinegar to the other. In the water you will see no bubbles, in the vinegar you will see bubbles , which means that this rock is reactive. There are some threads about that, but sorry I'm a little in hurry now, maybe latter I can search them for you.

[jph8]

Concerning terracotta pots - I understand that many prefer plastic in terms of plant health, but I'm finding that during the humid summers in North Carolina, I'm having success with terracotta pots. Plastic works pretty well, but like glazed pots, they tend to hold the moisture in longer.

[DesertSun]

Thank you Marcello for the tip, I will check the alkalinity! Thank you Elie for the advice and jph8 for your input!
Since yesterday all of my cacti are bare rooted and drying off. I'm afraid to wait, and yet I have to wait for them to be totally dry
before putting them into new soil. The ones that have a clumping habit where a lit bit capricious and difficult to not separate when trying to get all the peat out. Most of the soil was totally worthless and had become so difficult to rewet that I'm sure my cacti wouldn't be able to survive in the summer if they stayed in the same soil. It was difficult to handle the Opuntias, had to have special thick gloves the whole time on my hands. I don't know how the gymnocalycium with the buds will react to the stress of a repotting, I hope it keeps the buds and they flower. I've never had a flowering cactus before and it was something nice to wait for. But, what must be done...

[ElieEstephane]

If the weather is nice and warm, 3-4 days of drying are good. But hold off watering for a week or so.
I used to remove peat by soaking the whole thing in water and wiggling very fast in water. I would then dry roots first using a fan at max speed for several hours then let them dry overnight and repot the next day and water after a week. However, this procedure is very risky and i only use it because i don't have much time.
Concerning terracotta, i love them too and i'm moving my collection very slowly to clay pots but i'm very cautious about them. My mix is heavily gritty and dries quite fast so i'm gonna experiment with adding more organic matter first before moving my whole collection.
One final note, keep clay pots very close together when you put them in full sun to reduce the amount of heat that hits the pots or the roots will suffer. You want the sun on your plants and not to cook the roots since they are generally much cooler underground.

[DesertSun]

Thank you so very much Elie! All members giving me advice really help me being less anxious, it's so nice to have your help! You are right on the drying too fast thing, I must be cautious in the summer. Your mix is strictly mineral if I remember right? Mine will have some organic matter in it. I am already thinking of providing shade in the hottest hours of the day, around midday to 3 o'clock maybe, to help with the excessive heat.

[ElieEstephane]

I actually don't like to use an all mineral mix except for a fussy plant or growing seeds. My general mix is 2 parts grit to 1 part compost (rotted plant matter) and i modify it according to each plant. For example, i use a 1:1 ratio for epiphytes. This mix is doing miracles for me and i never lost a plant. I planted some pachycereus pringlei in the 2:1 mix in clay pots and some of them struggled a bit.
However, im not sure if i'm gonna add more compost or some peat moss or ground soil. I'll have to experiment more before moving to clay since i have several hundreds of plants and i can't risk anything.

[DesertSun]

Today was an even more tiring day, I repotted more than forty plants, mostly cacti. I am so tired, my feet hurt, my back hurts, but I am also very pleased with the work I did. But I finished repotting all my cacti, yay!!!
I want to show you my cactus soil mix and I hope you find it OK. I used pieces of lava, pieces of marble, pumice, compost, perlite and dissinfected earth soil. It was very gritty, I also put some in a pot and watered it, to see how it behaved, water went through it quite quickly. I checked the marble with the way Marcello told me and it wasn't reactive.