kyle has bought some cacti from the Eden project, can anyone give me tips for looking after them. At the moment there are five of them all differant varities in a wee five inch pot with a hard sand and grave medium.
Dave.
Is there much spare room left on edge of the pots or do the cacti 'fill' the pot? Unless they are fill the pots and are larger than the whole pot I would leave them be for now...they do manage with very little around their roots and usually they start looking bit 'tired' when in need of more space.
Majority of the cacti is from really, really arid areas where the rain fall is next to nothing or far apart...and there definately is no compost in the soil. So when it comes to re-potting them..keep to very similar potting medium that they are now by mixing sand, grit and small amount of loam/top soil to keep it together...no potting compost!
In nature often the only moisture they get is from the air..the change of the night and day time temps are quite severe and it causes the moisture to condence on surface of the plants and run down to the base.
So when ever you water your plants...do it in very small quantities and make sure the all the previous moisture is well spent up. Majority of the times cacti is killer by over watering.
You could fill spray bottle with rain water and keep it nearby your plants..then every now and then..when you remember..give them little mist so that odd some will get to the roots. When they are still small that should be plenty.
Good thing with misting is that it also keep the amount of dust a bit down.
Does you plants have 'name' labels on them?
Oh and...if you plants are going to be in baking sun in summer...you can water a little more freely..but then keep them very dry during winter months..window sill particularly are deceivingly cold and cacti won't need water hardy at all. They store enough to keep them going for long periods of time. It is safer to bring your plants into the house away from the cold windows..depending of the species..some will need more warmth than others and even small amount too much moisture with cold from the windows can kill them..quickly.
It is fairly easy to keep cacti going on and growing..to get them to flower is bit more tricky and need bit more special attention for it.
Some think they are boring plants..but I find them interesting to look .. ;D I hope you got one that will produce edible fruit.. ;) ;D
I used to water pretty freely in the growing season, then keep them dry in winter. The latter is vital, and most, though not all, need to be above freezing. Repot when they start looking crowded; they don't need a lot of root room.