Repotting the Christmas Cactus
So... After last time with the prune and propagate, this time I need to repot the poor thing. Over time all plants will work their soil to nothing, its just a natural thing that plants do.
My plant is still young, only about 5 years old, but as you can see the soil is showing signs that it is not at its best!
That white residue you can see is a mix of both saprophytic fungus and some lime left from the hard water from the tap. All in all neither are actually likely to harm the plant at all, but it looks unsightly and over time it CAN if not addressed.
As you can see the plant itself isn't pot-bound but that soil is just brittle, crumbling and seeing as the plant hasn't had a change since I got it I think its time for a change anyway!
The medium I'm using is the same stuff as I used last time. Levingtons cacti and succulent mix.
All you need to do is to gently scrape off the top few millimetres, be as gentle as you can here, you don't want to damage the plant!
You will also want to gently pull apart the bottom half of the root ball and tease out those fine roots.
Once you are happy then you can half fill your new pot with some or your fresh medium and pop your plant your plant on top. Obviously you will need to play with the amount of medium in the pot so that the plant sits at the right level below the lip.
And here we are all done.
I also took the liberty of popping in a set of three leaves that I managed to break off the plant while trying to juggle the plant and my camera!
Yeah, yeah... No need to comment! B-)
All I needed to do now is to give it a water and pop it back onto its window ledge.
In a couple of weeks, when it shows signs of putting out new leaves I will start giving it a weak mix of a general purpose liquid fertilizer like this one, once every two weeks until mid summer.
That injection of fertiliser should kick start some good leaf growth and hopefully give it plenty of strength for a good show of flowers come next Christmas!
#Plants #propagation #pruning #cacti #cactus #Schlumbergera #ChristmasCactus