Free the roots!

Discuss repotting, soil, lighting, fertilizing, watering, etc. in this category.
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Licespray
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Licespray »

How long can you leave a cactus with roots out/exposed?
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7george
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by 7george »

Licespray wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:37 pm How long can you leave a cactus with roots out/exposed?
As long as you wish. It is safer than keeping one in moist soil, especially in rest periods. Sometimes I leave some of my cacti waiting for new soil and pots for the whole winter, up to 6 months. Just keep cacti upright and roots better shaded. Some of the finer roots may dry out but this happens in the soil too.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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Licespray
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Licespray »

Thanks mate,
I’ve had a couple out for a couple weeks (well, was given them and I haven’t completed my cactus garden yet.. doing a big day of it tommorow though!)
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WayneByerly
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by WayneByerly »

Pompom wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 7:35 pm Is it ok for it to have the roots little cramped there?
Everything that I have learned, through articles on the internet, and videos on YouTube, etc, has taught me that xeric plants much prefer being under potted rather than being over potted. A large pot can accumulate water and stay wet longer than your Cactus wants to deal with, deeper than your cacti's roots will reach... where a smaller pot will dry out quicker.
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Pompom
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Pompom »

WayneByerly wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:26 pm
Pompom wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 7:35 pm Is it ok for it (e. grusonii) to have the roots little cramped there?
Everything that I have learned, through articles on the internet, and videos on YouTube, etc, has taught me that xeric plants much prefer being under potted rather than being over potted. A large pot can accumulate water and stay wet longer than your Cactus wants to deal with, deeper than your cacti's roots will reach... where a smaller pot will dry out quicker.
Thanks :) I don't know if this particular cactus prefers slightly bigger pot or something since it hasn't grown that much (no new spines formed). It sits still in the pot and seems to be growing, but it kinda grows from bottom, not from top. It's definitely taller today compared to the day I bought it. Maybe it was on its dry side when I bought it and now it's filling the water storage or something. I've never seen a cactus doing this. Here you can see what I mean. The cactus has risen from the soil level but hasn't grown any new spines. Do you happen to know what is going on? I'm pretty sure it's something completely normal but I'd like to hear an explanation for this kind of behavior.
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by 7george »

Yes, it is normal for many globular cacti, even for columnar ones sometimes. Some even go completely under soil surface and then emerge after first rains, water. Your cactus just expanded vertically. You better leave repotting for next year. And keep it dry till next spring, it is easier to repot contracted cactus.
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Pompom
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Pompom »

7george wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:00 pm Yes, it is normal for many globular cacti, even for columnar ones sometimes. Some even go completely under soil surface and then emerge after first rains, water. Your cactus just expanded vertically. You better leave repotting for next year. And keep it dry till next spring, it is easier to repot contracted cactus.
Thank you! That's something I want to remember in future.
I can't wait the spring! I have been planning to repot all of my plants then and give them more suitable pots. I read that in these latitudes it's better to grow cacti in terra cottas and cheramic pots cause usually it's not that warm here. It's safer to use terra cottas or other breathable materials.
About holding up the waterings for winter. I'll try my best! The plants I have to keep inside (20C, 68F) for whole winter so I need to give them light waterings two or three times in winter to make sure the roots stay alive.
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WayneByerly
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by WayneByerly »

Pompom wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 10:27 am I don't know if this particular cactus prefers slightly bigger pot or ...

Do you happen to know what is going on? I'm pretty sure it's something completely normal but I'd like to hear an explanation ...
First off, I'd like to apologize for not being able to offer you an explanation on what's going on here. I'm just not a botanist, and I am not as conversant as I think I should be regarding the biological function of plants. But 7George is correct. This is completely normal.

Now, as far as pot size is concerned I'll say it again. Stick with the smaller pot. Just because your begonias (or any other kind of typical house plant) like a bigger pot, it does not mean that your cacti do. Xeric plants are different. Most of them like being in smaller pots... Being under potted... being rootbound.

KEEP THE SMALLER POT TILL NEXT YEAR, and give it as little water as you can get by with this winter. Remember, in their natural habitat, that they will sometimes go months and months and months without any rain, and that most cacti like a winter dormancy period for a season of rest. Although interior temperatures will not even come close to simulating a winter. But you do need to restrict its water for the winter, cold or not.

This is another one of those things that I call General Rule0s. That it is generally true of most cacti. There are however Species Specific Rules that will supersede any General Rule, and you need to do the research necessary to find out the requirements of any particular species.

Now ... I've been waiting for several days to see a response from you from any posting. Because I know you have one of these Aloes too ... so this is for you Pompom. I thought I'd post these pictures so that you could see what your Aloe will do if it has not already done so. And I'm talking about blooming.

Here's the flower in the middle of the picture. It's not coming from the center of the plant, but from one side about halfway down.
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Here's a little bit of a close up... Zoom in just a little...
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And here's a zoomed in picture from a 15x macro clip-on lens... this is as close as I can get.
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Pompom »

WayneByerly wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:04 pm Now ... I've been waiting for several days to see a response from you from any posting. Because I know you have one of these Aloes too ... so this is for you Pompom. I thought I'd post these pictures so that you could see what your Aloe will do if it has not already done so. And I'm talking about blooming.
Thanks for the response Wayne! For every part, not only for this quoted part. I have no idea why I'm so nervous with the aloes and why it feels so hard to grow them. With cacti I go like "naah, they'll be fine, I trust them" but with aloes I'm like "Oh god why is this happening, is this normal, what is this, where is that"... I've killed one aloe (a. juvenna) and don't want to lose this. I also got a aloe vera offset from my friend couple weeks ago and it's not doing good at all. I'm trying to follow specific rules for aloe vera cuttings/offsets but it's just not doing good. It has roots and everything but there's still something I'm doing wrong. Aloes seem to dislike my conditions...
As for the aloe of yours. Wow. Just wow. Not only the plant looks super healthy, it's flowering too! May I ask, what kind of soil you use for it? Maybe mine appreciate different soil when the time of repotting comes. Mine hasn't flowered yet but I hope that day will eventually come. Our plants definitely share some looks, but they're still little different. Yours has stronger white markings and has deeper green. Also, they do fill their leaves differently while mine does more convex and yours more concave. Mine is little etiolated though, it can do something for the looks of it. Mine's slowly starting to look more like pineapple than aloe, don't you think? :lol:
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Pompom
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Pompom »

More roots here! The e. subdenudatas here are not my plants, they'll be gifts for my friends. I read this particular species is pretty easy to grow here in Finland and many have got them to bloom, so they'll be perfect gifts for people who have not that much experience with cacti. It also doesn't need as much light as many other species. The fero was a lucky find from grocery shop, it's one of the species I had in my list. Of course it needed to come home. It's about 7cm in diameter. Echinopsis are about 5cm in diameter each.

And about the repotting. The echinopsis are going to my friends who don't have that much experience. I wanted to be sure and change the soil for them as I'm pretty sure my friends won't do that very eagerly. Usually when I have bought a pot with two cacti, it has meant there are two individuals and they've been just planted together. I thought the echinopsis are just like that too. I liked the roots these two have but they didn't separate. I tried to clean and untangle the roots but they were stuck together. Finally I found the reason: they had this tiny connection on the roots. I made sure both plants have roots of their own and after that cut the connection in order to separate them. The connection was really small and I'm sure it didn't do much for the individuals.
NOTE TO SELF: When handling e. subdenudata, use gloves! I can't believe how many tiny spines this apparently spineless cactus sheds! I wonder why my own didn't do so...
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Also. I've read from echinopsis site that echinopsis have shallow roots system (in general of course). That means the roots tend to be at the top part of the soil. But still I had to note the length of the other plants roots! I've been measuring the roots of my plants and other of these tiny plants had so looooong roots. Sorry for the blurry picture but I hope everyone gets the point. 20cm roots! This has to be my personal record.
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As for the fero. Everything went well. This one had much more porous soil than the echinopsis so I guess that means I need to make very porous soil for it. I read it needs more moisture than many other cacti which kinda makes sense with the need of porous soil. If it needs to be watered more frequently, it's safer to use porous soil as it minimizes possible chance of getting root rot.
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WayneByerly
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by WayneByerly »

Pompom wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:07 pm Our plants definitely share some looks, but they're still little different. Yours has stronger white markings and has deeper green. Also, they do fill their leaves differently while mine does more convex and yours more concave.
You may well be right. I'm no longer certain that our aloes are the same species. Mine does have stronger white markings and yours does have thicker leaves. Although I would like to modify this position slightly by saying that I have seen two different specimens of the same species of cactus that looks so different as to nearly force one to believe that they are different species. The slight color difference could possibly be attributable to the automatic exposure settings that our different cameras use in composing the pictures. I don’t know. and mine does seem to have a little more pronounced toothy Leaf edges.

Pompom wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:07 pm As for the aloe of yours. Wow. Just wow. Not only the plant looks super healthy, it's flowering too! May I ask, what kind of soil you use for it?
I'm afraid this question is going to take a little more of a response then I had actually intended, although the pictures that I include below we're going to go somewhere in this topic. So it might as well be here.

First, I use the same soil mixture for my succulents as I use for my cacti. It's somewhere between 10 and 15% organic which is strictly pine bark and 85 to 90% inorganic, and is a mixture of pumice, turface, coarse sand, Bonsai Block (which is a high fired calcined clay), decomposed granite (chicken grit) and a combination of red and black volcanic rock. The pieces mostly fall between 2 and 6 mm in size although a small percentage of it is a little bit bigger. I just cannot bring myself to throw away the larger pieces

Justification for the use of pine bark.

I've repotted about 75 cacti this growing season and in every single situation where there was pine bark in the soil of what I was going to repot, you could see that the roots of the cacti were clinging quite strongly, even tenaciously, to the Pine bark pieces. Cacti roots do appear to LOVE pine bark. I'll include a photo of that here to show how ferociously that cacti roots attach themselves to the Pine bark fines. I HAD sixteen or eighteen pictures that were just like what follows immediately below, illustrating how the roots CLING SO TIGHTLY to the bark, but most have disappeared. Anyway, in the interest of saving space I'm only going to send one.
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Ive also been following Steve Johnsons methodology for fertilization. He's got a big posting on the Forum that I think you would do well to look at. It's quite large and covers a couple of years. About 28 pages. Here's a link to it ...
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34730

Well ... I mostly follow his regimen ... mostly. He proposes that we fertilize every time we water using Dyna Gro Orchid Pro 7-9-5 fertilizer, <<He actually recommends the Dyna Gro 7-7-7, but it's only available in gallon size containers, which is about $65, and recognizing that that's a little steep for some people, he says the 7-9-5 is an acceptable substitute You can get it in 8 oz bottles from Amazon for about $8>> and he recommends that we use a 100% inorganic mix... But with my experience with cacti roots clinging so ferociously to pine bark fines, I substitute somewhere between 10 and 15% Pine bark.

I do quite understand that you’re access to Amazon is probably extremely limited and perhaps not even a viable choice. So find yourself a balanced fertilizer, even parts of NPK formula, and dilute to appropriate levels. I just don’t know what more I can tell you than that

To illustrate the efficacy of such a mix, i include 2 pictures of a cactus that i decanted just recently in order to look at the roots. And a picture of the roots of a pachypodium that's being grown in the same soil mixture.
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And this is the Pachypodium that I mentioned above.
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It is extremely difficult to argue with such phenomenal success. The roots in the pictures above are healthier than just about anything I have ever seen.


Now, I kind of like to keep you up-to-date in the progress that the Aloe's flower is making, so I’m including two more pictures of the flower that were taken yesterday and today.
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The flower in the picture taken today it's just a little bit taller than the one taken yesterday. I only include two pictures so that I can show the rate of growth of the flower.
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Pompom
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by Pompom »

WayneByerly wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:18 pm First, I use the same soil mixture for my succulents as I use for my cacti. It's somewhere between 10 and 15% organic which is strictly pine bark and 85 to 90% inorganic, and is a mixture of pumice, turface, coarse sand, Bonsai Block (which is a high fired calcined clay), decomposed granite (chicken grit) and a combination of red and black volcanic rock. The pieces mostly fall between 2 and 6 mm in size although a small percentage of it is a little bit bigger. I just cannot bring myself to throw away the larger pieces

I've repotted about 75 cacti this growing season and in every single situation where there was pine bark in the soil of what I was going to repot, you could see that the roots of the cacti were clinging quite strongly, even tenaciously, to the Pine bark pieces. Cacti roots do appear to LOVE pine bark. I'll include a photo of that here to show how ferociously that cacti roots attach themselves to the Pine bark fines. I HAD sixteen or eighteen pictures that were just like what follows immediately below, illustrating how the roots CLING SO TIGHTLY to the bark, but most have disappeared. Anyway, in the interest of saving space I'm only going to send one.

It is extremely difficult to argue with such phenomenal success. The roots in the pictures above are healthier than just about anything I have ever seen.
Thanks Wayne!! I love your soil! The roots of the two plants look absolutely healthy. Never seen roots like that, congratulations! I'm definitely going to add more inorganic stuff to my soil if I find some. Gravel is easy to get here, but it's heavy. I need to get a self for the cacti if I decide to use that. The windowsill can't hold that much weight. I've read it's possible to find pumice every now and then but it's hard to find here. I use the hard baked clayballs as substitute for now.
And as for the pine bark, I think I saw it on sale somewhere when I was looking for a new cactus. I'm definitely going to buy it if I find it again. There's still time for me to find more compounds to add to the soil I'm using since the repotting is going to happen around march-may depends how soon every plant decides to start to grow (we're not asking from the steno though, it's probably not going to say yes to anything. It's not going to say no to anything either. It's probably going to just hang out there. Doing stuff I think. If doing stuff is considered as not doing a thing...).

How's your aloes flower doing now?
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by ElieEstephane »

Sorry i didn't have the time to read all the posts but it will be better not to give the fero more water. Their distinct feature is their spines and growing them too fast would result in weak spines. The slower you grow them the bigger spines they have
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7george
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by 7george »

ElieEstephane wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 6:55 pm Sorry i didn't have the time to read all the posts but it will be better not to give the fero more water. Their distinct feature is their spines and growing them too fast would result in weak spines. The slower you grow them the bigger spines they have
That Fero has been grown hydroponically from a seed: big head, small roots and spines. I would not water it until I see new growth next spring as well as the Astrophytum and Mammillaria plants seen above. Unless I want to loose them.

Porous soil is important indeed. I often leave some small particles in the mix and this reduces growth rate of cacti planted with time.
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Re: Free the roots!

Post by keith »

Hi Wayne hows it going. Slow at work so I'm drifting into details as usual , soil looks great many ingredients.

Bonsai Block (which is a high fired calcined clay) = turface ? Same thing ? If yes which is more expensive ? Probably Bonsai Block ? Maybe size is different ?

Turface is a soil conditioner. It is a calcine clay product used to improve drainage, reduce compaction, hold moisture, improve the CEC of the soil. The clay is mined in MS, then run through an oven at 1500 degrees. After the clay is baked at 1500 degrees, a permanent soil particle is produced which will never break down. Kind of like clay pottery, but very small pieces. Why use it? On athletic fields especially, compaction is the enemy. Compacted soils have very little oxygen for the roots, and without oxygen the turf struggles to survive. If I can add a product to the soil which will adds oxygen to the soil, monitors the moisture content, and does not compact, then the turfs chances for survival are much greater. Turface is the product. Ideally you would like Turface to be 25% of the soil in high traffic areas.


I've used both pumice and turface both are excellent IMO and I think Diatomaceous earth also acts like micoscopic pumice holding water and O2

When I try and go without any of the above in my soil it's not so great.
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