Piante grasse cactus spine

Tag: terracotta

Pots and inert in the cultivation of succulents: can we recycle them or is it better to throw everything away?

Autumn comes into full swing and with the arrival of cold days, succulents plants require less “attention” from us. In this period, at least in Northern Italy or in middle-north Europe, the plants must already be in their winter location, protected from bad weather and excessive cold. There is time for repotting, since it is better to wait until mid or late winter for this type of operation. Watering is obviously suspended and all we have to do is carry out some preventive treatments to protect the succulents from fungi and mold during the winter months. So, what better time than this to dedicate yourself to tidying up the pots, jars, soil and materials needed for the substrates? And this is where a far from banal question arises for many growers: pots and aggregates (inert) are expensive, is it really worth throwing them away and buying new ones or is it possible to recycle all this material? The answer, clearly, is yes: recycling is a must, but be careful, under certain conditions and making sure that everything we are going to reuse is perfectly clean and free of parasites, spores, mold, dust, etc.

The following article is dedicated to this theme, which goes into detail about the cleaning and sterilization of vases (plastic and terracotta) and the materials used for the substrates (pumice, lapillus, gravel, etc.) which have been set aside after the last repottings carried out in recent months. (…)

Continue reading “Pots and inert in the cultivation of succulents: can we recycle them or is it better to throw everything away?”

Plastic, terracotta, square or round? Here’s how to choose pots for cacti and succulents

Plastic or terracotta pots? Round, square, shallow or deep? And then again: is it better to have one plant per pot or several plants in one box or in a large bowl? At first glance, the subject may seem trivial, but the choice of the right vase for growing cacti and succulent plants has an undeniable impact on the consequence of the cultivation. The choice of the right pot, it can be said, is indeed closely related to the type of cultivation we adopt for our plants (indoors, on a balcony, in a greenhouse, in the open air, etc.) and to the various elements that characterize it, such as watering, type of substrate, exposure, temperature, and much more.

Net of purely aesthetic and therefore personal choices, let’s see how to choose the right containers for succulents’ cultivation, evaluating the pros and cons of the various shapes and materials with which the pots available on the market are made. (…)

Continue reading “Plastic, terracotta, square or round? Here’s how to choose pots for cacti and succulents”

How to repot cactus and succulent plants: in which period, how to proceed, which tricks to use

Some growers repot every year, while some others repot when required – i.e. when a plant shows signs of suffering or when the pot has become too small related to the stem. There can be many reasons for repotting (or racking, as someone says alternatively) a cactus or a succulent plant, and every grower has his own rules. As for me, I don’t have “fixed deadlines”: I evaluate plant by plant trying to understand if new soil and more space are needed. I repot my succulents when I see that the vase is now too small, when I believe that the soil has exploited or when I want to grow specific specimens more quickly. While it is true that many plants live quietly in the same container for five or six years (in many cases even longer!), it’s also true that frequent repottings (once a year or every two years) help to speed up the growth of cacti, particularly young plants and genera that over time take on considerable sizes, such as Echinocactus and Ferocactus. I repot, also, when I notice that a plant has blocked for a long time and it doesn’t grow or produce new thorns. It can be the spy that something, at the root level, is going wrong. A plant that doesn’t grow or doesn’t swell despite watering, or, again, a plant that loses its colour (showing, for example, a lack of magnesium that not even fertilization can solve) can be saved by a repotting, with the cleaning of roots and the supply of new soil.

So let’s see in this article in which period it is better to repot cactus and succulent plants, which pots to choose (square, round, terracotta or plastic), how to check the roots and how to proceed in practice. (…)

Per proseguire nella lettura dell'articolo Accedi o Abbonati
To continue reading the article LogIn or Subscribe
USEFUL INFO AND CONTACTS​
SECURE PAYMENTS
  • Credit card
  • Paypal
  • Stripe