How To Grow Cactus

Hello. I'm Mike, and welcome to Camden Garden Centre. I'm going to give you some help with some gardening advice.

I'm going to repot a cactus plant. Then what you'll need for that is the plant itself, a larger container, a clean container with drainage holes in the bottom, and a cactus compost. It's important to use a cactus compost, because this compost has got additional sand added to it.

As you can probably see there, the grains of sand shining out from the darker compost, and that gives your cactus good drainage. I'm going to put a little bit of compost in the bottom of the container, and just going to see if the height's right. So the only way I can do that is to pop the cactus in there.

Yes, that should be sufficient. I've got gloves on of course, because cacti are spiny. I'm now going to show you how to take the cactus out of the container.

Put your fingers around there, and turn it upside down and give it a little tap on the base, and that will release the root ball. Now I'm going to put the cactus in there, and now I'm going to trickle compost down the sides there, and I've got a pencil here to just help me push the compost down there. It's important not to leave any air gaps at this point so you need to push the compost down to make sure it's pressing against the roots.

Make sure this plant is centrally positioned as well in the container, and that it's upright. And finally, put the label back in the pot and just tap the pot gently on the ground. OK.

And the next thing to do with that is to water it, and leave it in a hot, sunny position because, as you know, cacti originate from desert regions. I'm now going to show you an established group of cacti growing together in a container. Quite a pretty effect, that.

But one of the problems with cacti is that they get a pest called mealy bug, and if you look very carefully, it looks like white fluffy stuff there. And if you look closely, it's all over this plant, and that's very characteristic of mealy bug that it gets into little cracks and crevices where the leaf is attached to the stem. Here's some more down here, and here.

It's all over this plant, and so we need to spray that with a proprietary insecticide. And here I've got an organic insecticide, so that's not going to harm the environment, but I need to really spray it thickly to get the mealy bug completely covered. And you need to spray all parts of the plant.

Good. And now that plant's best left in the shade, just for a day, to allow the insecticide to dry on the leaves. You'll need to keep checking out for mealy bug as well, because in all likelihood it will reappear as well, because the insecticide won't kill off the egg stages, so you'll need to keep re-treating it.

Cacti like hot, sunny positions, so this rather attractive group of cacti here needs normally to live in a south facing window, or any sunny window. And that's how to grow cacti.
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