CactiGuide.com

so many topics about buying plants from garden centres in peat and what to do with them

the general opinion seems to be to get them out of the peat as soon as you can and into a better mix...........there are as many " better mixes" as there are cacti growers the object of this post is to demonstrate that the basic principle of get it out of the peat as soon as you can is a sound one.

peat as a growing medium for seedling cacti under strict growing conditions is no doubt a very successful method of propagation as the big nurseries in Europe and the big box stores in the US regularly demonstrate and its cheap

the problem then comes to the buyer as to what to do next
usually Joe public buys the plant, takes it home and over waters it and the plant rots .........and dies where-upon Joe public mutters darn cactus and buys something else next time

those with "enquiring minds" sometimes find themselves here trying to find out why it died

enter a well known idiot called hob with an "enquiring mind" i like cacti and want to grow them in large quantities ...........so i wander into cactguide and try to learn a little............

lets go back 18 months, i wander into the local garden centre and find 2 rebutia albipilosa, both the same size and the same price,now i look round and no-one else wants them.........not often rebutia turn up in garden centres here so
i'm off to the checkout with 2 almost identical plants and a big grin on my face.

off home with my prize plants...........when i get there, and not knowing any better i re-pot one plant leaving the peat on the roots and giving it a bigger pot, just adding more soil to the bigger pot.
something comes up and the other plant gets left for a while...........meantime i learn to remove the peat and use a "better mix" so plant no2 gets the peat removed and goes into the "new improved" hob mix.

now i learn as i go along, and plant no2 gets bigger and gets re-potted again into the "new improved" hob mix in a bigger pot.
meanwhile plant no1 is not doing so well but i'm busy buying loads more plants and plant no1 is at the back of the new greenhouse and gets forgotten about.

OK those with "enquiring minds" and a long attention span are still with me

end result..........plant no1 finally got re-potted, meanwhile it managed to flower a bit but did not grow much

here you see it on the left with the dried up peat ball finally removed, out of the pot and next to a well grown root system on another plant.


and here again on the left next to plant no2 (remember these were once the same size plants)


conclusion..........peat may be great for seedling cacti under strict nursery growing conditions but as a long term growing media it will not re-wet when allowed to dry between waterings and a plant will struggle with the roots trapped in a ball of dry peat even if surrounded in better quality moist soil.

DAMM. HOBS I DIDN'T LEARN THAT LESSON ABOUT THE BETTER MIX UNTIL AFTER I REPOTTED THE FIRST 15 OR SO NEW PLANTS WITH METHOD #1

I THINK NEXT YEAR I WILL REPOT THE MAJORITY OF MY PLANTS CORRECTLY.

darn you can really notice the difference cant you?
I re-pot any cacti i buy from big box stores anyway, but the difference in size is amazeing.
Before i was into Cacti, we had some form of columnar mamm and dad just chucked it from the pot into a bigger pot full of just rockhard clay dirt. When i re-potted it the middle section was rock hard and even though i drenched it the roots in the middle for dry as a bone, i literally had to get a hammer to smash clay and peat clumps. Which reminds, me, i have to re-pot all them again..

Awesome Hobs!
If only I had read this 7 years ago.
It took me years to figure it out on my own.

I learned to remove the potting mix from the store but not til after I already had some potted like method one, and was gonna let them go til next year.

Now, Let the repotting begin.

Great post Hob! You just can't argue with the photos.

Bryan

I'm not afraid to admit that with the first five cactus I bought a Walmart last year, I left the rock hard peat encrusted root balls in tact when I put them into bigger clay pots. I found this forum shortly after and redid them the right way asap

Sometimes the plant doesn't care. This is an actual Ferocactus as found in a garden centre, "repotted" by balancing the old crusty peat rootball on top of some more peat

Excellent illustration Hob! We might want to put this in a sticky post in cultivation so it's easy for new people to find.

It's something we've all learned through trial and error, so it would be nice to tip off the newbs.

Tim

Great information. Like others...I wish I knew awhile ago.

TimN wrote: We might want to put this in a sticky post in cultivation so it's easy for new people to find.

Done!

Good post Hob; I repot everything mostly the same day, but as Ian says: I found out that Fero's don't like at at to be completely cleaned. Just remove carefully the outer peat and repot it with good drained soil is working better for them. Their rootsystem (for the little-ones that can be bought here) is much to fragile and breaks of and does not restore very well.
Maybe there are more species that don't like to be repotted (ánd totally cleaned). Melo's perhaps?
Harry

What is the Hob soil mix, did I miss something.
Is there no peat in it?

C And D wrote:What is the Hob soil mix, did I miss something.
Is there no peat in it?

the "hob" mix is 1\3 john innes soil (sandy loam type soil which i think has a small amount of peat in it)

1\3 fired clay granules (sold over here as cat litter)

and 1\3 grit (small stones about 2 to 5 mm in size)

a free draining mix which i water from the top until it runs out the bottom then leave to drain, in summer with pots under 4 inch about 3 times a month larger pots a bit less, really small pots every few days.

Thanks Hob, thats what I thought, and the problem soil is the pure peat.
Of course we use a similar mix to yours, 1/4 potting mix with some peat, 1/4 sand (varible size), and 1/2 pumice.
When you were talking about not using peat, I thought you were one of those people that say do not use any peat, it will kill your plants!
The only substitute I know of that people use is coir. I have had diasterous results coir, problably because I try to mix it in with my regular soil mix as a portion of the potting mix. It stays wet too long for me and messes up my watering sch.
But many people and whole-sale nusureys have excellent results with it, mostly as just coir and perlite.
Some day I may change over to the coir.