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How does your cactus garden grow? (Cactus pic thread)

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Mitakuye Oyasin said:
Wow, looks like the roots grew through the pot and into the ground.
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It did for sure. About a good 8-10" of roots got lopped off this container. Once rooted dramatically helps them stay upright as a sided benefit. The rooting through container happens to the majority of my cuts if they are larger but remain in smallish containers. I cut all the roots off with a flush cutter when I move everything into dormancy or they just can't stay upright.

Pot is probably ~5" tall for scale ~4" wide.
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That trich pictured, including pot, was about 56" tall. Highly not recommended, initial post joking aside. Unless you like trich-dominos into scars and breaks. I'd have the entire collection in 3-5 gallon containers if I didn't have far too many. Particularly how much space they'd take up during dormancy.
 
Mitakuye Oyasin said:
Can one ever have "far too many" cacti?
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I stopped counting at 215 individual pots. That was probably 20-40 pots ago.

You be the judge and jury haha... I love them so no question there. Collection would keep ballooning if I lived somewhere they didn't have to go dormant from Nov to May every year with a full collection move in and out + wheening into sun. Got ones I moved solo today / yesterday that got six heads and tall as I in 5 gallon pots.
 
I don’t understand how people manage to get such thick growth. It must be the natural sun at the right latitude — like a billion-watt HPS lamp — that makes it happen. Up here in the north, you can only get narrow growth, which does widen as it grows toward the light, but for example, you just can’t get thick growth from a thick cutting.
 

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juha said:
I don’t understand how people manage to get such thick growth. It must be the natural sun at the right latitude — like a billion-watt HPS lamp — that makes it happen. Up here in the north, you can only get narrow growth, which does widen as it grows toward the light, but for example, you just can’t get thick growth from a thick cutting.
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How far north are you? Here at the northern end of the 53rd parallel my plants get fairly thicc after a few years - depending on the species and variety - with keeping them outdoors from roughly May to October. Pot size appears to have some level of impact on this, as does the amount of sunshine in any given year. Duller years make thinner plants.

Fertilising with undiluted urine may also have helped, but there is a limit with that, and you don't want to do that with specimens which end up in your living area. I'm fortunate to have use of a conservatory in the winter for keeping hard frost at bay, so this may extend their growing season a bit by making the spring sunlight more immediately available.

Some of the specimens that I don't get around to bringing outside will be noticeably etiolated in comparison to the same clones that do get direct daylight. Also, some of my plants that I had in mind as just being thin turned out to appear far thicker once I'd cut them, so it could be a matter of perception, and maybe patience.

How does this compare with your situation?

Oh, and - welcome to the Nexus!
 
Transform said:
How far north are you? Here at the northern end of the 53rd parallel my plants get fairly thicc after a few years - depending on the species and variety - with keeping them outdoors from roughly May to October. Pot size appears to have some level of impact on this, as does the amount of sunshine in any given year. Duller years make thinner plants.

Fertilising with undiluted urine may also have helped, but there is a limit with that, and you don't want to do that with specimens which end up in your living area. I'm fortunate to have use of a conservatory in the winter for keeping hard frost at bay, so this may extend their growing season a bit by making the spring sunlight more immediately available.

Some of the specimens that I don't get around to bringing outside will be noticeably etiolated in comparison to the same clones that do get direct daylight. Also, some of my plants that I had in mind as just being thin turned out to appear far thicker once I'd cut them, so it could be a matter of perception, and maybe patience.

How does this compare with your situation?

Oh, and - welcome to the Nexus!
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I’m at 60.2° N. I live in an urban environment, and sunlight reaches my balcony for only about 4 hours at best, due to the geometry of the surrounding buildings. Because of that, I grow cacti year-round under LED lights in a grow tent (Sanlight EVO 3-60 1.5, 200 W).


That said, my cacti never really live long enough to reach two years of age, since I tend to cut them into cuttings and for consumption.


However, if the goal is to develop a thick basal growth, this is what happens under those conditions (see photo).
 

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juha said:
I’m at 60.2° N. I live in an urban environment, and sunlight reaches my balcony for only about 4 hours at best, due to the geometry of the surrounding buildings. Because of that, I grow cacti year-round under LED lights in a grow tent (Sanlight EVO 3-60 1.5, 200 W).


That said, my cacti never really live long enough to reach two years of age, since I tend to cut them into cuttings and for consumption.


However, if the goal is to develop a thick basal growth, this is what happens under those conditions (see photo).
Click to expand...
Though seedlings probably need to be grown for about three years before it’s worth taking cuttings from them.
 
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