Many kinds of cacti and succulents can be grown in the home.
My own collection, relatively small because it is confined to limited available space, is constantly growing.
Almost any soil will suffice if you have space for only a few plants.
As long as plants are not overwatered, they will be pleased in a decorative planter on a coffee or end table, where they will receive plenty of artificial and natural daylight.
Giving Cacti And Succulents More Care
If you are a serious grower, you must give your plants more care.
Drainage
The principal requirement is excellent drainage, a point that cannot be stressed enough.
These plants come from lands of little humus, from rocky, gravelly, harsh soils, where rains come in sudden overwhelming cloudbursts that inundate everything and as quickly drain away, leaving the surface soil as dry as before.
In these places, the hot sun burns down on them day after day, and only at night, when there is a quick drop in temperature with a light dew that the thirsty plants absorb, is there any relief.
Pot Sizes
Use as small a pot as possible when potting, providing it is stable enough.
Clay pots are preferable because they are porous and use fairly “good” soil since plants will most likely remain in some container for a long time.
Even cacti appreciate and respond to a proper diet. If using a pot larger than 2″ inches across, choose an azalea or squatty type to give additional horizontal root space and a broader base to support the heavy top.
A standard pot is apt to tip.
Soil Mixture
A good soil mixture to use consists of:
- 2 parts sand (coarse builder’s)
- 2 parts of good loam (compost)
- 1 part broken chard plus charcoal plus eggshell
- 1 part leafmold or coarse humus
- 2 cups bonemeal and 1/2 cup limestone to each bushel of mixture
Potting Process
When potting, trim any broken roots and place an inch square of screening over the drainage hole. I use plastic screening cloth since it does not rust or rot away.
The screening aims to discourage worms, slugs, and earwigs when you summer your plants outdoors.
Place a few pieces of pot chard at the bottom to keep the drainage hole free, add a little soil, and then set the plant in place, spreading out the roots if they are bare and covering them with soil.
Repotting Process
If repotting, here’s what to do:
- Scrape away some of the soil and tuck in fresh soil around the edges.
- Work with fairly dry soil that will pour and easily sift as you shoulder the plants down well, so their base is just above the top level of the soil.
- On the left hand, wear a glove to hold the cactus in position as you work the soil into place with a blunt dibble.
- Allow an inch of space below the pot’s rim, and then tap the pot to settle the soil and eliminate air.
- The next step is to set the pot in a pan of water to soak and dry the outside of the pot after you remove it.
- After a couple of days, place in full sun, and from then on, water no more than once a week, either by soaking or from overhead.
Either way, be thorough and allow pots to drain completely.
Always let the soil dry out between waterings, but never permit the plants to go into the night with wet tops, or they may rot.
Succulent Care Tips
Roots need air to keep healthy, but unless you overwater, use an air-tight container (ceramic or plastic), or allow the sail to go sour with stagnant wetness, you will have no trouble.
During the dark, chilly days from December into February, rest your plants by withholding water almost entirely.
By mid-February, start watering again and give a boost with a liquid fertilizer in March. Thus by April, plants will begin to bloom and, according to the kind, give a display that will continue into the fall months.
Additional Care Tips
If you place plants outdoors in the summer, keep them off the ground and protect them from rain.
Suitable locations are a covered porch or the side of the house, where the eaves protect them against rain and other elements.
There is no watering problem when you go away on vacation, and for the apartment dweller, no other group of plants is easier to care for nor more worthwhile in this and other respects.
44659 by Helen I. McArdle