anttisepp wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:48 pm
Does it stay permanently in the dark corner?
If so, the only recipe will heal and save it: full sun.
Or a full-spectrum LED grow light. I'll discuss it further later in this post. In the meantime...
Joe, I'm glad you sent us the photo with the base of the cactus in its pot. The beige area is known as corking. Many desert species develop corking as a natural part of the aging process. However, the corking on your cactus is excessive -- a sure sign that its root system isn't healthy enough to grow in what's pretty much pure soil. If you want to save the plant, you
must take it completely out of the pot, clean the soil out of the roots as thoroughly as possible, and repot it in a smaller pot with the 60% pumice-40% soil mix I'm recommending for you. CoolestGravy did a marvelous job of root-cleaning, so see this for photographic examples of what clean roots look like:
https://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewto ... 2&start=15
There are no shortcuts or half-steps here -- the job of unpotting and cleaning will be messy, so I hope you have a room in your house where you'll be able to do it properly. If you don't, it'll have to be an outdoor job to be done when winter gives way to spring. If that's the case, you can't do anything until then -- and certainly no water yet! Once the roots are clean, we can determine the right diameter and depth of the pot you'll need
before you repot. I should also mention that porous clay pots (AKA terracotta) are to be avoided for the reasons I describe here:
https://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45833
The stems growing from the main (parent) stem are called offsets, and you do have a couple you can use as "insurance" plants in case you're not able to get the roots of the entire cactus growing again. This is one:
- Cactus18.jpg (53.12 KiB) Viewed 1963 times
You might be able to remove it with your bare hand. If not, sterilize a sharp knife with alcohol and do the cut right on the attachment point indicated by the red line.
This is the other:
- Cactus19.jpg (40.74 KiB) Viewed 1963 times
I think you should be able to remove that one with your bare hand. By the way, if the spines are liable to poke your skin, use a rolled up newspaper so you don't get stuck with little bleeds. Right after you remove the offsets, give all freshly-exposed tissues a liberal dusting of sulfur powder and let them form a callus. If you're up for this, I'll guide you on how to root the offsets as cuttings in a later post.
The whole thing will be for naught unless you address 2 problem common to all hobbyists growing cacti as houseplants -- lighting and ventilation. In the case of your tall columnar cactus, I think a grow light will have to be mounted on the ceiling. Go back to the Amazon link I posted on 1/28:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=grow+lights+ ... doa-p_3_11
That should give you some ideas. Stores selling hydroponic supplies might be helpful too, so you may want to do some research there. If you decide to root the cuttings, you can put their pots on a small table, and a grow light on the floor or tabletop will be fine. I see ventilation as the bigger problem, especially since you have your cactus stuck in a corner. For that, I'll recommend a floor model oscillating fan aimed in that general area. You don't need a windstorm, just a gentle breeze at least during the day (I don't think you'll need it at night).
One more "by the way"...
It would be nice if we know the species name of your cactus. I only know the 66 species of cacti I grow, and yours isn't one of them. Hopefully one of our other members can give us a name.
). Have you been fertilizing? If so, what fert are you using, and how often are you applying it? If you're fertilizing very little or not at all, now would be a good time to have a conversation about this.
