I have a Sulcorebutia rauschii which has been partly eaten overnight by a snail, despite being on the top shelf of a rack and sitting in a tray of gravel!
It has a number of pups that I can rescue but to give them a good start what type of potting medium would be advisable, bearing in mind I'm in the UK, so solutions that involve adding lumps of lava or other exotic mixes don't come easily to hand!
Thanks.
"Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
Location: The sunny North of England!
Hello gillinger,
I have successfully rooted cuttings of Peniocereus greggii and also pups by placing them in coarse sand. The cuttings were kept in a semi-shaded area near my pecan nut tree and received watering by my irrigation system three times a week. I always made sure, that the cut or base of the pup was healed and applied a bit of a rooting hormone. I am not sure the latter was effective, becasue it was rather old. However, it did contain the broad spectrum fungicide Benomyl. I did try to avoid root rot caused by a soil-borne fungus.
The coarse sand I obtained from one of our local arroyos, which are dry creek beds most of the time. There was very little organic matter visible in that growing medium, but the plants nevertheless were growing fine for some time even without fertilization.
Thanks, Harald. I've got some horticultural sand so I'll mix that with a sparing amount of potting compost. I'm going to try cinnamon for rooting. I'm told it's a natural fungicide.
"Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
Location: The sunny North of England!
