GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Resuscitating a neglected indoor cactus

Martin Brown · 17-03-2016, 10:19 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

On 06/03/2016 10:11, wrote:
David wrote:
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.

Yes, that last is what I was going to try.

A picture is worth a thousand words here. Some cylindrical cacti do go
corky and brown at the base since their ultimate form is tree like.

I have had to chop the top off some of mine that exceeded greenhouse
height after about 40 years of growth. A good clean cut and enough time
for the wound to callous and at this time of year they should root OK -
box cutter knives or unsafe razor blades are ideal for this.

If the base is healthy then new shoots will emerge from the cut end.
Indeed one way to force rare species to throw pups is to drill out the
growing point after grafting onto a specialist fast root stock!

I recommend John Innes No2 cut with equal parts of 3-5mm grit for
drainage. That way the plant gets a nice free draining airy compost.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown