How to Grow a Cactus

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If you would like to have your own desert in your own home, try growing the cactus from seeds instead of buying them in in the store.

Steps

1. Make sure that the pod is ready for harvesting. After the flower dies off, nothing is left except the pod. Echinocactus Grusonii and most other barrels will produce hundreds of pods each season. Gather the pods just before they dry out, they're not full of moisture but are still damp inside. The seed itself is black but some might have a slight red color to them. The main point is that you want the seed to be mature. One good indication is how the pod comes off, a slight twist and they fall right into your fingers leaving the fiber/cotton on the cactus.
   
2. Use a knife to slice the tops off and slice down one side of the pad. This exposes the seeds. Use a little tool (kind of like a small shovel about the size of a popsicle stick) to scrape the seeds out of the pod, scrape the flesh from the pod also and then place the seeds in some water to soak overnight.
   
3. Use a horse syringe to suck the small seeds into the syringe. This takes some of the water up with it also and in a germination tray it allows you to broadcast the seeds evenly into the tray. Keep shaking the syringe up so the seeds don't settle at the bottom and all come out at once.
   
4. Fill the trays up with a 60% peat moss/40% vermiculite. Create a mixture using one part of this and one part of number two coarse sand, mixed well. To plant the seeds inject them evenly across the whole tray. Keep the trays in full sun but keep the soil moist until the seeds germinate, once the seeds come up (4 to 6 weeks) they look like small pencil erasers, red in color not green. Over time they start to add their needles (small as they are).
   

Tips

• Use a pair of tweezers to move them out of the propagation trays and into 2" pots. Use the same soil mix in the 2" pots as you did in the trays, at this stage they'll sit and grow for about one year.
  
• After the first year, move the ones that survive into 4 inch pots where they sit for another year or two. It's at this point we sell the 4" pots they have enough needles to ward off most of the normal landscape creatures and there well established to be able to grow in their final setting. Be careful not to disturb the routes when transplanting.
  
• If you want a lot of Echinocactus Grusonii, get the small ones and space them out enough to allow growth. It's much more affordable to gather a number at this stage that to wait until they go to gallon or five gallon size.
  

Warnings

• Use special gloves to handle cacti when the spines grow, or you risk getting the spines stuck in your fingers.
  
• Breaking spines on a cactus is not a good idea, as they take a long time to grow back and make the plant look tatty.
  
• Look out for parasites on your cactus. White blobs could be Mealy Bugs. Pick them off with a stick or skewer. Malathion will kill Red Spider Mites and Scale, which show up as brown spots.
  

Things You'll Need

• Razor knife
  
• Tweezers
  
• Horse syringe
  
• 4" pots
  

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Sources and Citations

• http://www.rsigrowers.com
  

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