It is in a spot on my porch that doesn’t get a ton of sun this time of year. It gets a little water maybe once a week – please let me know if you have any advice on what I can do. I’m a very novice plant owner and genuinely have no idea what to do
The soil is a succulent/cactus mix I got on Amazon
by Delicious-Estimate-8
10 Comments
Must be a soil or nutrient issue. I have a bunch of them in my backyard, some get a ton of sun get very little sun. Some get a ton of water from my sprinklers and some get almost none. They are all thriving.
https://preview.redd.it/zeh072te1xtf1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4bfb5bdaa205eab7011c86f9eed6344803add1dc
I cut this one off of the big one behind my shed replanted it in my flower garden, it gets extensively watered every other day and has been thriving.
What do you mean by “a little water”? Generally speaking you want to soak a plant by drowning that hoe, but watering infrequently.
Dying? It looks dead already.
I think it’s underwatered. It looks like it’s pulling all the moisture from appendages.
Don’t water plants like that. Everytime you water you should be completely saturating the soil and have water coming out the drainage holes.
First I would like to say that in my experience you are over watering. They are desert plants and only need water every 3 weeks in summer and 4 weeks in winter. They are very drought tolerant so they are very over watered. They can go a long time without water and be fine. They will get softer and start to shrivel when they need water and that’s when I usually water mine. You can fix this. When I first started years ago I did this to the same plant until i researched the care they need. You can save it.
You need to take it out the pot and pull off any black or brown roots. What i do is rinse them really good to sees them clean to know if they are good or not. If they pull off easy with a little tug you know they are root rotted. After that I would repot back in a pot with fresh soil and don’t water it. So they can try to grow new roots without anymore dieing. You can cut off the arms that are see through or squishy. That will cause new growth. But I also suggest to put in a place that it will get better sun since they are a cactus and prefer bright direct sun. If you don’t have that i would get a grow light. In order for you to save this plant it needs more sun. And less water.
I hope you save this beauty. If any questions let me know.
Prickly pears tend to need more water than folks think—more water at ONCE, not more water more often, if that makes sense. I think your cowboy would appreciate a good soak and then let him dry out. You’ll probably lose that twisty paddle, but the others might bounce and the body will be fine.
I am not sure how well your cactus is going to be able to recover those side leaves or recover at all, but the advice should be for you cactus and every cactus in general: put in in the most sunny spot. Watering every week is a lot, unless its standing outside in the summer in a hot climate.
Let the ground dry out, then water plenty (every 2 to 4 weeks) and give it half an hour to drain and make sure it doesnt stand in water.
The other folks are correct. This needs to be soaked, something like every 1-3 months.