Transcript:
This is the first caffeine that I’ve had in 30 days. It is so good! Hey, what’s up? You guys, I’m Caitlin From. Leave me alone. Plants and today here. I have my magnificent rat tail cactus. This is actually the second rat tail cactus that I have had if you saw my video on how I accidentally spent 350 on plants. Then you saw this plant in the video and I wanted to share with you. How you keep these guys happy and healthy because when it comes to cactuses. These guys are super unique as you can see. Long, flowy, beautiful. I really know what you call these arms these. Um, drop it down the comments. If you know what these are called, but these long stems of cactus, just absolutely gorgeous. So if you have one or if you want to get one of these plants, then keep on watching, and we will get into the care right now now. These beautiful cactus are native to Mexico. Just a little bit south of my home Place of Arizona, however, despite being native to a super warm, hot dry climate, these plants aren’t necessarily going to be cared for in the way that you would typically think of a cactus. So if you’re looking online, you will see that these cactuses can tolerate bright direct flight, and I will tell you from personal experience that if you live somewhere that has hot sun like probably Mexico or in my case, Arizona, then bright direct light. Probably is not the way to go for you. I’ll put a picture right here, but you can see what happens. When these guys get bright, direct light, it isn’t pretty with that said, of course, like almost every plant that we discuss on this channel. This guy will like upgrade indirectly and what you might start to notice if this guy is getting too much light before it gets to that crispy, crunchy, scary picture that I just showed you is it’ll. Start to lose a little bit of its color. Now do note that it is normal. As these plants age that instead of being a bright, vibrant green, they will become more of a beige or a paler color. Um, you know, just like your eye. As we age, we kind of lose a lot of our coloring and get gray hair and paler skin. The same can happen to plants. So, um, just keep in mind the age of your cactus. But, uh, if it is kind of newer. It was looking super vibrant a week ago. And you notice that it is looking duller. Now then the sun could be the culprit of your problem. There I’m just gonna set this guy down because he is. Uh, kind of poking me a little bit right now, and that kind of gets into one of the points. I want to make about this cactus. If you are a cactus lover, then you may know it is a love-hate relationship in the sense that some of the cactus you will own will be very painful. If you touch them. Their needles will stick into you, and it’s not this wonderful experience now. This guy is what I consider kind of a middle of the road cactus. In terms of if he will hurt you if you accidentally happen to bump into the sky or just touch him lightly. You’ll be completely fine. The needles won’t hurt you. However, if you go in and try and pinch down on any of these little stems with the needles, then they will come out. They will hurt you and they will stick into you, and that’s it’s just not a wonderful experience for anyone involved. I’m sure the cactus doesn’t love it either. So just keep that in mind when you are handling and repotting these guys as a matter of fact, um. I just took this guy out of his nursery pot last week, and I used the skewer method. Which you if you are not familiar with that method. Um, basically, we’ll hold on. Let me just show you so you are going to want to take, uh, four. I do four, but I mean. I guess you could use any amount of that. You want of these little shish kebab skewers that you can get at the grocery store and basically what I’m going to do. Is I’m just going to stick these in at? Um, I guess not the four corners because there are no corners on circle, but four points kind of far apart on the soil. This will work best if your soil is a little dry and all you need to do is just pull it up and you’ve got an unpotted cactus. Now I’m going to put this right back in here because I’m not trying to get soil everywhere, but if you have plans, that are cactus or, um, you know, maybe something with thorns or something like a donkey tail that you just don’t want to disturb the plant too much. This is a great way in and out of the pot. And, of course you can save your skewer for future repotting adventures, all right, back to the cure for this plant. So like the jungle cactus that we have recently discussed on this channel. This cactus is also an epiphytic one, which again if you haven’t heard this spiel already basically means that it doesn’t need to grow in a soil medium. It can grow in the side of a tree it can grow on a rock it can grow basically, wherever the hell it wants to grow, which is fantastic. Um, that gets into our watering. So, of course, cactuses typically are not going to want to be super super wet, but particularly this guy when you’re in an apathetic scenario, um, as you can probably imagine. The water is going to just kind of drizzle down. It’s not going to be collecting in the soil. So, um, of course, be sure that you have a well draining soil, a well draining pot and just don’t go nuts with the watering because otherwise you can absolutely rot these plants, but again exhibit a this is what happens when it gets too much sun and not enough water, so don’t do that either, really what I’m trying to say is go in water, the soil when it’s dry, but not any time before that because no one’s gonna be happy. Additionally, in the winter months, these can go dormant, So if you start to notice your cactus dying back a little bit in those months, don’t go crazy. But, of course, do note in plant dormancy that they typically do not like to. Um, you know, be getting much water during that time, so you can typically just skip your waterings all together and resume it in the springtime. Additionally, during those winter months. This guy is not going to be frost tolerant. He like I said, is native to Mexico likes those warmer conditions, so if it’s dropping below 40 degrees or so, I would recommend bringing him inside. Otherwise, you’re gonna have a pretty cold, sad little cactus As for propagating these guys. This is one of the easiest cactuses to propagate. You don’t have to wait for an arm or anything like that to come off. Although where’d they go? You can see right here. I’ve actually got two cute little babies right here. Um, so they will just kind of pop out new stems on their own, however, with that said, if you’re a patient and you have a friend who just loves this cactus and you want to give them a section of it? Basically, you’re just going to clean up a pair of pruning shears or I don’t tell anyone just use kitchen scissors. Um, but just clean this up with some rubbing alcohol. You can chop off a piece. Wait for it for a couple days to call us up. Um, place it in some sand or some soil, and it will root up for you from there. Super easy to propagate. And you know if your plant is looking long like this one, but it’s not super full on the top. Luckily, this guy is, uh, technically both long and full, so I don’t need to do this. But in that scenario, you can just kind of cut off the tips, put them in the top, and eventually you’ll have a super long and full cactus. As for how long these guys can get, I have read online that they can get up to six feet long. Which is what I aspire to in life. Um, I would love to have one of these at six feet long and just trailing throughout my house. Um, this guy, I’m so bad at measuring links. This is what probably like a foot and a half two feet. Um, so we’re getting there. We’re just a couple feet away from maxed out, so it should be there in no time flat. Additionally, this guy has pretty thin little. Um, tendrils. Is that the word tendrils? Is that what these things are called? Please help a girl out. Comment down below. What these long cactus things are called, but as you’ll notice, um, they are like I said pretty thin. However, you may find other cactuses that look very similar. So if you like this plant also note the monkeytail cactus, my personal favorite, there’s the dogtail cactus, which I don’t think is quite as cool, but it looks very similar and then one that people often confuse this plant for by based on the name is the golden rat tail cactus. Also, it sometimes goes by the Golden Rod Cactus if it’s like growing in the ground versus in a hanging pot, but nonetheless same plant but different than this one. So if you are looking to buy one of these just be mindful of which one you are buying because to be honest with you. I initially thought that I bought a golden and then it was this one, but it’s fine. It’s it’s all fine. We’re all happy here and, uh, we love cactuses, no matter what kind they are, unless it’s a prickly pear, Those can all just go die and burn, because listen. Your girl has had far too many prickly pear spines stuck in her to want to have one of those around. Hey, you can’t hear me that fast. We gotta cut this part in because I forgot to say, But it’s super important so one of the main reasons that a lot of people online will fall in love with these plants and buy them. Is these beautiful pink blooms that they get on them? I’ll put a picture right here. Absolutely gorgeous. They tend to come out in the springtime after they come out of their dormancy. The problem is these blooms only last a couple days. So word to the wise. If you see this plant online for sale with all these blooms on it and you are specifically trying to buy this plant. Do note that by the time that this plant ships to you, the blooms will likely be gone. I say this specifically because I typically see implant groups when these plants are blooming and gorgeous people will jack up the prices like three times of what they normally go for so again. If you’re looking to buy these just be cognizant of that fact unless you can buy them. Locally chances are by the time that they arrive at your house. Those flowers will be done as a door now. Okay, back to what I saying. Well, that is all I have for today for this gorgeous rat tail cactus. But as always if you had questions that you were hoping I was going to address that I did not address then. Drop them in the comment section down below. I will do my very best to get back to you. In a timely manner and hopefully you can get your plant questions figured out as always. Don’t forget to hit that like button and we are still working to get to a thousand subscribers before the new year. So if you are watching this And it is before January 1st, 2021 That’s so crazy that seems like a million years away, but it’s like a couple months. Oh, my God, um, or even after that either way hit that subscribe button for more plane care videos in the future. Thank you guys so much for checking this one out, and I hope to see you in the next video.