How & When to Separate these Pups

[Enjoycacti]

Greetings! I would so appreciate advice on how and when to separate these pups. In spring, I cut one off beneath the soil and potted it. The performance is lacklustre. Meanwhile this summer a handful of others have grown beside the mother plant-- their growth has been tremendous. How to cut them away properly? When? What happens if I leave all the pups with the mother plant? The plant has been identified as a Trichocereus hybrid.

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MANY MANY THANKS!!! L Rawn

[greenknight]

If you leave the pups. you'll have a clump, which is the natural growth habit. It will do fine that way. Whether you grow it as a single-stem plant or as a clump is just a matter of personal preference - but it will keep trying to become a clump. To keep it as a solitary column, you'll either be discarding a lot of offsets or making a lot more plants.

If you want to propagate some, I suggest letting them grow until they're pretty good sized - a bigger start will make a big plant sooner, and will have developed more of its own roots. When you're ready to divide it, unpot the whole thing and carefully separate it so you keep as many roots as possible.

I would remove that biggest offset if only because the smaller one next to it is going to be squeezed between it and the main plant, plus it's going to make an unbalanced, awkward-looking display. Let it grow for a year or two first.

[Enjoycacti]

Thank you very much for the good information! I am so pleased to have found this forum. L