What's wrong with my cactus?

The original bit died and the side shoot grew then stopped and then the bit going upwards grew but now it looks like its dying. Whats wong with it and what can I do to save it?

 

The original bit may have died because it is grafted. The sideshoot is far more vigourous than the grafted bit and claimed all the energy of the plant. As for why this is suffering now, it may be perhaps overwatered? Is the pot sitting in the water on the bottom of the cache pot for a while when you water?
Just an hypotesis, mind. I would remove the dying pad, springle a bit of copper fungicide powder, keep the plant dryish and see.

 

we have put our cactii in the greenhouse for the summer and they are thriving, they were looking very sad and not seeming to do well indoors.

 

Yep, I agree with Ivory.
You have what was a grafted cactus, (was it a strange colour?) but the grafted part has died, so what you now have is the root stock.
Probably not worth continuing with, as its probably very vigourous but not very good to look at.

 

Have you tried leaving them in the greenhouse all year?

Of course it depends on what types they are, but most desert cacti are better grown in full light winter and summer, and a good number flower much better after a cold dry winter.

 

Many thanks for the tip. Would that be in a heated greenhouse.

I don't have many but I put a pic of them elsewhere. Here is a link

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=15630

 

Yeah it was a lovely pink colour. I think it's going to die anyway but I'll give it a chance I think.
Thanks

 

Looks to me like the big bit from the Stock has been growing for some time, and you probably need to chop that out when it first started growing - its basically a sucker, and may have stolen too much goodness from the little pink bobble that was grafted on.

My youngest adores those little cacti, and now has a window box of them on the kitchen windowsill.

 

That pink graft will never come back:( they have to be grafted onto another cactus because they contain no chlorophyll so cannot produce any food

 

Members, please note that the recommended maximum size for images is 600 x 800. Rule of thumb is - if it activates the scroll bar at the bottom of your pc window, the it is too big.


For instance, the photo in the OP is 1010 x 758 and the whole image cannot be at once. Unless, of course, you have a 19" monitor!!

 

:confused: About this I have a wee problem: sometimes I upload pics from my FLickr account and they are perfectly "human" in size on flickr, so I think they don´t need resizing, but they turn out much bigger here... I don´t understand.

 

I wouldn't like to say as to what will survive and what will not in a cold greenhouse in winter, without knowing exactly what they are and where they originate.
Having said that, just frost protection will suit most commonly available cacti, and including the money plant.

Dont try it with the pineapple though, 15C min in winter is best, although you can get away with 10C for very short periods.

 

"sometimes I upload pics from my FLickr account and they are perfectly "human" in size on flickr, so I think they don´t need resizing, but they turn out much bigger here"

I expect you uploaded them at a large size to Flickr, and Flickr is displaying them to you, as a courtesy, at a sensible size for your screen.

There is a way to force the size in a web page (i.e regardless of the size of the original image your browser will autoMagically resize it as it displays it), but that isn't something you can do when you just insert an Image Forum Tag into your message [never thought about it before, but it would be quite a handy thing!]

So ... I don't kno0w any way around it, other than getting the original the correct size. Perhaps Flickr can do that, it has a fancy uploading tool, but my memory is too old to remember what tricks it can do :(

I use IrfanView, a freebie tool for viewing and manipulating images on your PC. I COPY (i.e. not move) the images to a temporary folder, open each one and Crop it if necessary, adn then use IfranView's "batch" utility to resize them all to 600px in their longest dimension, and reduce them to 75% quality at the same time. They generally wind up around 60k, which is pretty skinny!

But its all a bit Geeky I'm afraid ...

 

Does that mean my pics were too big then? I know nothing about resizing them I just copy the doda from photoshop and post it aargh.


The little pink bobble died first and then the sucker thing grew out of it. The sucker is now dying so I think I'll scrap it and get something else.

 

Daisee, thanks. DOn´t worry. I know how to handle and resize pics, so I will in the future. I just never realized that flickr was "screen-shrinking" them for me. I thought it was showing them in their real size. Proper resizing in the future, promise. Apology. Now I will leave this thread to cactus discussion!