CactiGuide.com

I’m panicking. We got this from my brother 20 years ago. Can I save it?

A couple of things -- see this first:

viewtopic.php?t=43819

All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. Cacti and succulents have different growing requirements, so it's helpful to know that your plant is in fact a succulent. You'll get better advice by posting in the Succulent Growing Help forum. I'm one of the moderators, so I can move your thread over there if you'd like.

Yea please… that’d be great. I appreciate it

Juliann2023 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2023 12:03 am Yea please… that’d be great. I appreciate it

Done deal.

Just wanted to follow up with you on a couple of things...

Although my expertise is with desert cacti, I do have a fair amount of experience coming from my younger days when I grew cacti and succulents. The two different types of plant have one thing in common -- they need a free-draining mix. You have a great big potful of what appears to be soil and nothing more. That amount of soil takes a long time to dry out after it's watered, and your Euphorbia (I think it's an E. ammak) isn't getting nearly enough drainage and aeration to the roots. I highly recommend that you lean it out with some sort of mineral gravel -- pumice is perfect, although you can go with crushed granite poultry grit, Turface (if you're able to get it), or calcined clay cat litter. For cacti, I generally recommend a 50/50 soil-mineral gravel mix. You may not need to go quite as lean for succulents, but you still need to lean out the mix.

The other thing I noticed -- the pot may be too big for the roots. My guess is that if you unpot the Euphorbia, there won't be much of a root system. "Rule of thumb", size the pot to the roots, not the stem of the plant. Unfortunately I can't make a suggestion on the right pot size you should go with, so hopefully one of our experienced succulent growers can give you some advice on that.

The pot might be so large to keep the plant from tipping over. If so, you can pot in a smaller pot and then place the smaller pot in a larger pot full of gravel or stones to provide weight.

jerrytheplater wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2023 2:51 pm The pot might be so large to keep the plant from tipping over. If so, you can pot in a smaller pot and then place the smaller pot in a larger pot full of gravel or stones to provide weight.

Good idea!