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RE: 🌸 Desert.plants.passion / Spring flowers (4)
Oh I dunno :D But that tells me you have lots :p
I have some aeonium plants that I keep on an open balcony, one is in a hanging basket so I'd say there is a lot of air flow and I keep getting mealybugs on them. So frustrating!
You mix yourself mineral soil, or it is possible to get it somewhere? That is so cool! I will have to try it :) Thank you. Now you are my cactus guru :p
I have planted my Aeoniums in mineral soil, and there is no bugs of any kind! I had cacti on balcony also, a small one where I kept about 700 species. Three years ago I have moved in a house so now they are outside, waiting for a glasshouse to come. And when I kept them on balcony they had no mealybugs since I planted them in mineral soil.... (before that it was invasion and I had to use insecticide regularly).
I see you're living in Portugal.. I live in Croatia where most of the land is clay, but still I managed to find a place where is perfect soil for cacti- containing very small green, blue stones, and about 10% humus! Than I mix it with zeolite. I'm sure!!! that you can find some mineral soil in Portugal also. That soil from nature will be the best choice. But if you have no time for that you can buy pumice, zeolite, vermiculite...
For more info read this: http://xerophilia.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-Stone-Eaters.pdf
That is the best written article for cacti soil.
Wow, thank you! I guess this will be mu mission for this summer. Find the right soil and repot the babies :)
So basically the more stones and other kind of pebbles the better. I have been mixing some regular shop-bought soil with perlite and lots of sand for them.
"a small one where I kept about 700 species" - wow!!
Yes, the more stones the better, but not any kind of stones. Nor any kind of sand. Perlite is ok. Just read that link, that guy really understood the point of cacti soil.
The shop-bought soil is the worse for cacti. Only young seedlings will appreciate it, for the rest use just anything else. Heavy clay is also not recommended.
Oh yes, I did manage to tuck them in, but was collecting only small growing species. Yet this year I'm sawing some columnar cacti. Now I have enough space :)
Yes, I read to that part that if we don't know what to use... more stones is better than more organic material. That is already a great tip (looking towards one baby that probably rotted).
I have 2 columnar cacti. But I prefer the smaller ones and the barrel ones that can grow to massive sizes.