over here garden centres (similar to big box stores over there) grow young plants in peat because they do well for a while in it and its cheap........once the peat dries its very hard to re-wet.....
i have never seen either pumice or coir for sale over here in garden centres (box stores)
incurable cactoholic
growing rebutia's with a mix of others.
Another thing I've found is that many times, the cacti from the box stores are also seriously overpotted. I guess they do it to keep the plant stable in its pot, but a small rootball adrift in a sea of potting mix is also a prescription for rot. Although I have to give them credit for one thing - I'm seeing fewer and fewer drowned cacti around here. If anything, they're not watering them at all. I bought a cute "little" mammirilla a few weeks ago that grew about five sizes after I soaked the pot for about ten minutes in preparation for repotting. (It was so dehydrated that I was afraid the roots would just crumble, so I soaked it, drained it well and let it sit overnight. The next morning, something was much bigger than I expected...)
Do you do the same thing with mesembs and other succulents too?
With cacti I usually water well first, then the store soil falls away pretty easily without much trauma. Then when I repot I don't water till things have dried up and risk of rot from broken roots is at a minimum.
So far so good, but I am nervous about doing this with a peat bound Pleiospolos... Should I be skittery about this one?
Are you worried about getting the Pleiospilos wet? Don't be! You'll never hurt a mesemb by getting it wet, so long as it dries out afterwards and provided you don't keep doing it day after day. Soak it until the peat softens, an hour or two if necessary. Or sometimes the peat can be crumbled off by squeezing it but its easy to damage roots that way.
P. nelii needs a little summer water anyway, unless it is already stacked high and ready to burst. I water it occasionally during summer but use a clay pot to stop it exploding. Growing it like a Lithops is likely to give autumn flowers, while treating it as a winter grower will give spring flowers. I grow it mostly in winter which leads to July flowers! Probably in very hot summers you should stick to winter growing.
This back and forth today has been a real treat. I so appreciate your experienced advice.
My concern with the Pleiospilos is probably more out of ignorance. I am afraid it has sensitive roots that will reject any damage. My intention is to soak it so the peat will crumble away. Then to repot in my sand-based potting mix that dries very quickly. There are 2 plants in the 2' plastic pot - probably cause seed grown.
I know nothing about its root system, so I am torn between a shallow clay bowl for two plants (I would divide them - though this is probably not the right time) or puttin the 2 in a regular 4 inch clay put for a deeper root system.
Again, I am highly grateful for the personal advice you are giving me.
Don't worry about roots too much, just make sure not to water for a while after repotting. Consider you shouldn't be watering it often anyway it shouldn't be an issue.
Yes, generally they have a very small amount of roots as they get watered very infrequently and therefore the roots dry up usually if watered on a normal schedule.
I was asking about peat in another post and after reading all this i took a recent KMart cactus and replanted it(Tephrocatus articulatus... i think) which i had in planter with other cactus that need less light, didn't know what it was at the time.
I thought i was getting most of the peat off when i replant stuff but after taking a spray bottle with water to the hard piece of peat was able to loosen it up and found a big piece of stick in the roots also.
So thanks for info and i'll see how looks in a few days. (looks at planter and wonders which one is next}
Due to recent drop in morale beatings will continue till attitudes improve.
Great advice hob, supported with strong empiric result. I heard advices before that there is no need to repot cactus untill it overgrows pot.
This spring I decide to repot all my plants (some of them still were in oginal pots and soil), and... maybe it just me... but I have feeling that they grown better.
This topic helps me a lot to explain to my wife that the mess I make with mixing soil is kind of necessary.
To be honest... I've re-potted all my plants after one year (and that was in the beginning of this year!), but I've left some old soil (that probably includes peat) on the roots. I'll just let the winter pass and fix it.
Thanks for this topic. I can imagine that it's very helpful for starters.