Cactus Plants Toccoa GA

Cactus is one of those plants with so many versions, the story never ends. I’ve been to houses containing hundreds of these guys -- a hobby run amok.

The only problem is you can love them too much. When deciding how to cultivate them, never forget their home: the desert. The closer you get to that, the better your success.

I never buy the big ones. They can be rudely expensive and hard to adapt. My collection stems, so to speak, from the cheap bins of garden centers or gifts from friends (we do cactus trading). I’ve never spent more than a dollar.

Normally, we enjoy plants that grow fast and perhaps flower once or twice a year. Cacti are on glacial time. If you get an inch of growth in a year, you’re flying.

The flowering — who knows? They have the most incredibly fickle flowering clock. The instinct can be buried for years, then suddenly flourish. You may see it flower only once in your lifetime, so enjoy the party.

At the stores, these guys always are in little pots that look like torture. They are not. The rule is to find pots that are twice the diameter of the plant. Larger pots are OK, but you risk never seeing any flowers.

The soil is a major debate and often a mistaken choice. It’s the desert thing, remember? I’ve found a mixture of contractor’s sand (the brown stuff, not the play sand) plus a small amount of peat moss to hold the water to the roots works fine. I never use fertilizer and rarely repot them. I might use a dash of lime to simulate a limestone habitat.

The pots need a drainage hole. Place on a plastic saucer. Clay makes good cacti homes. It absorbs water and dries out fast, just like the desert.

The only other requirements are a sunny window and a watering scheme. They must totally dry, then receive a rare deluge, as happens in the desert. Once a month may be enough.

Cacti under those thorns are succulents that store water in their leaves or branches. If you see any sponginess, droop or other sick appearance, they are dehydrated and need water, just enough to dampen the roots. If they fall apart and rot, they are over watered.

They have the reputation of being impossible to kill. Not quite. Probably 90 percent of them die due to too much water. This overwhelms their storage capacity and quickly starts a fatal rot of the plant tissue and its roots.

It’s always a surprise what that little guy for 89 cents will look like in 10 or 15 years. Many are spike type or columnar, and these might need support. I use bamboo sticks and string to keep them from obeying gravity.

We see a lot of cacti with brightly colored tops. These are grafts of different varieties. They are interesting but surreal. Perhaps the best application is to graft onto an old, spent plant to come up with a new one.

Oh, the needles. You learn pretty quick about that. A disposable pair of rubber gloves stops them.