madgardener wrote:
Well, I was sitting in the livingroom the other night, and was
looking at the cart where I have some of the cacti and a few plants
sitting it out in front of a southern window until I can once again
put them outside for full appreciation for sun, rain, etc, when I
decided for some reason to look closer at my huge golden barrel
cactus I'd purchased a year and a half ago. It had survived thru
the first winter after I bought it in replacement to the smaller
one, and loved the spring, summer and fall outside despite the
massive rainy weather we had last year. Moved it inside to the
livingroom (where my house is warm and dry due to heat pump), it
got winter southern exposure and slight watering every three weeks
in a well draining pot that I made sure never had standing water on
it. Walked over to it and poked it carefully with a chop-stick and
sure enough, my subtle feelings were dead on.............it was
dead, the spines were just fooling me into thinking it was still
whole. I've killed yet another large specimen. Cereus, is it
because ALL these cacti need cooler, dryer temps? Emphasis on the
cooler......the house was consistantly 76-78 degrees, and dry.
snip

Why on earth do you keep your house so warm? Don't you have a room with
some light and a door to close it off for the winter? I have 2 cacti,
don't know the names but they do fine in a South window. We keep the
house at 68 during the day and 65 at night.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8b
Sunset Zone 5