Mrs.Green windowsills-growing cacti against the odds (links on page 9)
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:56 pm
After much debating back and forth with myself, wether to start a blog or not , I take the chanse and hope I don’t upset the serious cactiphiles to much..
If you are looking for stunningly beautiful pics of flowering cacti , this isn’t the place for you. As mentioned in the heading, I am really keeping cacti against the odds. I live in a place with long winters and very little daylight for several months, I have no greenhouse and no growlights so I don’t expect much flowering. The Schlumbergeras and an old Echinopsis do grace me with flowers every year though.
There are lots of really lovely blogs here with gorgeous pictures of cacti, this little blog will try to look at growing cacti and succulents ( and some other plants) from a another point
Why you shouldn’t repot in winter..
I normally don’t repot plants in winter apart from small plants in minipots. Thinking that disturbing the plants in winter isn’t a good idea for several reasons. Today I learned thats even another reason this isn’t a good idea.. Even though I haven’t been collecting cacti for a really long time, I have had a few cacti for more than ten years. These should have been repotted a long time ago and normally I would have waited untill spring but a couple of them didn’t look good so I decided to go ahead today.
As mentioned I usually repot larger plants in summer and I do it outside, very practical since you don’t have to worry about soil/ substrate everywere and you can use the garden hose if needed. Since its winter, to cold to do repotting outside and the garden hose is stashed away I had to do it in the kitchen. Lecaballs rolling all over the place was the least problem.. Since the soil was impossible to remove without damaging the roots, what do you do when you can’t use the garden hose? The shower off course! Which I can tell you is a bad idea.. All the soil coming off the rootclump clogged the shower, resulting in a lot of water on the bathroom floor.. on the bright side the floor got very clean.
If you are looking for stunningly beautiful pics of flowering cacti , this isn’t the place for you. As mentioned in the heading, I am really keeping cacti against the odds. I live in a place with long winters and very little daylight for several months, I have no greenhouse and no growlights so I don’t expect much flowering. The Schlumbergeras and an old Echinopsis do grace me with flowers every year though.
There are lots of really lovely blogs here with gorgeous pictures of cacti, this little blog will try to look at growing cacti and succulents ( and some other plants) from a another point
Why you shouldn’t repot in winter..
I normally don’t repot plants in winter apart from small plants in minipots. Thinking that disturbing the plants in winter isn’t a good idea for several reasons. Today I learned thats even another reason this isn’t a good idea.. Even though I haven’t been collecting cacti for a really long time, I have had a few cacti for more than ten years. These should have been repotted a long time ago and normally I would have waited untill spring but a couple of them didn’t look good so I decided to go ahead today.
As mentioned I usually repot larger plants in summer and I do it outside, very practical since you don’t have to worry about soil/ substrate everywere and you can use the garden hose if needed. Since its winter, to cold to do repotting outside and the garden hose is stashed away I had to do it in the kitchen. Lecaballs rolling all over the place was the least problem.. Since the soil was impossible to remove without damaging the roots, what do you do when you can’t use the garden hose? The shower off course! Which I can tell you is a bad idea.. All the soil coming off the rootclump clogged the shower, resulting in a lot of water on the bathroom floor.. on the bright side the floor got very clean.