On Sat, 05 Mar 2016 16:55:17 +0000, cl wrote:

I have a very neglected indoor cactus, the cylindrical type I suppose
you'd call it. The 'root end' looks very dead and brown but it still
has three fairly healthy looking green ends, one the main plant and two
branches.

It seems that cacti are fairly easy to propagate as cuttings, would this
be likely to work with this one? I gather one has to cut the bit you
want to propagate off, leave it to form a callous over the cut and then
plant the calloused end.

Any/all advice welcome.

Depends, but I've had reasonable success breaking off the side bits,
letting them dry for a bit (days not weeks), then potting them up.

I haven't used any special compost, and our cacti are living outside in
pots all year and generally being brutally mistreated.

If the main plant has gone brown at the bottom it may be on the way out,
but then again it might just have a brown bottom.

Let it be, give it a bit of water, see how it goes.

Allegedly if the top is alive and the bottom is dead you can cut the top
off and propagate that.
I've never tried this, however.

Cheers

Dave R

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