"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"michael adams" wrote
,snip
There are tales of cacti in the old days being allowed to dry out
completely in the autumn, being removed from the pots, their roots
shaken out, then wrapped in newspaper, and stored in drawers in a frost
free atmosphere.
michael adams

So would a darkish shed be OK?
I thought they needed light, even un winter........
Jenny

There are most probably degrees of dormancy. Removing plants from
their pots - which presumably means fairly small specimans in any
case, and keeping them in the dark was presumably the lesser of two
evils as compared with any irreversable cold damage they might suffer.
Although presumably such plants might not perform as well as plants
which were overwintered in the light. It might also disturb the
flowering impetus etc and set that back a year or two. That might be
the main drawback. Or maybe precisely the opposite.

Any Southern hemisphere i.e South African succulents that haven't
been naturalised, and some cultivated epiphytes such as Christmas
Cactus would clearly be poor candidates for such treatments.

These "tales" never actually mentioned how many plants survived
such treatment. But providing the plants weren't attacked by pests
or diseases in the meantime, providing they had sufficient reserves
unless cacti can somehow "lose the will to live", I'd imagine
most would survive.

Or possibly trays of cacti could always be taken out of the shed
on any sunny days which could be guarenteed to stay dry.

Guaranteed maybe being the operative word.
michael adams

Thanks for all your excellent input Michael. I presume you have a collection
yourself?
Jenny