Hello fellow dopers:
I have a small cactus that braved a long journey from sunny Arizona to dwell with me in the frozen wasteland of southern Michigan (though you wouldn’t know it from the 90+ temperatures), and recently the poor fellow hasn’t been doing to well. What would you recommend for proper care and maintenance? How often should I water it? What is the proper ammount of sunlight, type of soil, etc.? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
I am going to assume it’s an indoor cactus.
During winter, probably once every 4 weeks.
During summer, maybe every 2 weeks.
An open ‘soil’ but don’t actually use dirt, use a very free flowing potting mix, with a good level of small stone, sand (but nor brickies sand as it will compct too much), ‘polyeurethane balls’ (like you find in bean bags). Oh and clean your sand thoroughly (ie. wash it until all of the yellow goes).
You do not want the mix to hold water, so little organic matter.
Avoid a saucer (but if you must), then raise the pot up from the saucer so his feet aren’t getting wet, otherwise you will rot your root.
Keep it our of cold winds and moist air streams as they will develop a fungus. They prefer a dry and hot environment so keep it out of your bathroom.
Try and avoid window sills as the temperature variation may be too great between day and night, but try and get it aound 8 hours of light a day in winter and the more the merrier in summer.
Keep in mind that ‘hairy’ cactus can tolerate great amounts of sun as they ‘hair’ keeps them cool.
HTH.
PWT.
Many cactus species can tolerate quite low temperatures as long as they are dry at the roots (there are some Opuntia growing outdoors at Kew Gardens, but they are growing in almost pure gravel)
I keep mine in an unheated greenhouse through the winter and don’t water them at all; in the spring I bring them into the house and water/feed them a week later; they nearly always flower prolifically at this point.