Transcript:
Hello, welcome to the greenhouse. Jared, here with groovy plants ranch. So the time has come for you to repot your cactus and you’re looking at it, and you’re probably thinking how the heck and we’re going to do that today. I’m going to show you a few tips on how to do this without injuring yourself or others. One of the first things I would say is. You may be thinking. You have a nice pair of gloves and that’ll be fine. Let me just tell you now. I don’t care! If you have welding gloves, they are not going to work and you’re probably going to ruin whatever you have that said wearing gloves during this process is probably a good idea. So one of the first things you’re going to need to do is find a pot that has a nice drain hole in the bottom. This is a non-negotiable cacti need drain holes, most plants. Do we prefer terracotta because it’s wicks up moisture really nicely, but you can use various pus. Just make sure it has a nice drain hole in the bottom. Next you’re gonna need to add just a little bit of soil to your pot. I’ve already put some in this, but this is a really gritty mixture. This is a mixture of pumice pear light, a little bit of core fiber and bark. You can also add a little sand in there if you want to. There are many commercially available cactus and succulent mixes that you can use. The key is allowing your plans to go thoroughly dry between watering now for repotting. We like to do a two inch increase at most four pot size. So if you have a six inch pot, you can move up to a seven or an eight generaly. Pot sizes go two inches at a time. So most of what you’re gonna find is 4 inch 6 inch 8 inch 10 inch here. We are moving just up about an inch. This plant is filled in. You’ll know your plant is ready to be up potted when it has roots all the way around, and it seems like it’s proportional to the pot. I’m gonna repot this because I think the terracotta would look nicer than the plastic pot that it’s growing in now to remove the plant with barrel cactus or multi stem prickly pear type cactus or even column cactus. I like to use paper so you can use newspaper at home. This is just some packing paper, but what you’re gonna do is twist it or fold it over until you have a nice setup like this. This allows you to wrap around the cactus without stabbing yourself or damaging too many of the cactus needles. So then massage the pot. This is fairly well rooted and this is going to allow you to lift the plant out so so far. I have not been injured. Things are going well. I’m going to massage this soil just a little bit, so it fits down in my new pot. Nicely that looks like a nice mix. It’s very gritty, and I’m going to give it a little twist. Make sure everything’s in here and we can remove the paper now. You may need to adjust it a little bit, and that’s where the gloves come in handy now. You don’t want to pack a cactus in? You want to just lightly dress around it? So one handful of it at a time. And you spin your pot. Do that all the way around. Make sure all those little air pockets are getting filled as you can see and then a nice little smack on each side Do that until the air pockets are all filled. You can then top dress with gravel if you prefer. I’m not going to for this video, but it does add a nice finished. Look to your plant now. I’m also going to show you how to handle prickly pear. Cutting’s, prickly pear are very different than your typical barrel cactus, and they come with a much much more difficult to deal with defense system, so this plant has multi stems. I would probably repot that using the paper method, but a nice pair of barbecue. Tongs really comes in handy when dealing with prickly pear so here. I have a cutting that I’m going to transplant. This is a nice, large, prickly pear. Prickly pear are covered in what is called. Glock ins. And they are these small little hairs, and you may think the thorns or needles on this cactus are bad, but wait until you get in lockets. It’s like having fiberglass in your hands, so you definitely want to avoid those at all cost. I have wrapped the end of my barbecue tongs in paper to prevent damage to the prickly pear pad now. I’ve already prefilled my pot. This prickly pear pad has been sitting for several days, so it is calloused over and healed, and I’m just going to massage out an opening in this soil position, the prickly pear pad in there without without touching those glutes and then just kind of reinforce it with the POTTI medium and again you can top dress if you wish now this prickly pear. If kept warming and plenty of light should have roots developing and anywhere from a week to three or four weeks and this coming spring will be pushing new growth when repotting spring is always the best time to do it because it is right before they start their active growing cycle so. I hope this has been helpful. Good luck with repotting. Just remember the basic steps and don’t ruin a good pair of gloves. Enjoy your plants. We’ll see you next time.