Hi! I’m a cancer survivor and I received this beautiful plant in 2014 when I was going through chemo. She only had a few stems at the time. I believe it needs a larger pot because I think she probably could grow larger. I don’t even know where to start to find someone. Any help would be appreciated.
by catslay_4
2 Comments
What do you mean you don’t know where you’d start to find someone? I’d say just like you do with cactus repotting, get several sheets of newspaper and thick garden gloves. And wrap the newspaper around the stems so you can get ahold of it to repot. I’ve done this with cactus and never had any issues between the paper and my gloves. Just use a couple of sheets and be really careful!
As others will tell you, you can do this without a hired hand. Buy a new pot – preferably lightweight composite. For removing the plant from the pot, you may want: leather gloves, long sleeve shirt, jute, plastic wrap, hori-hori knife/garden trowel. The biggest obstacle will be the thorns so best approach is to tie the stems together with jute then wrap with plastic. You can put some solo cups over some of the stems if you’re worried about damage.
If your plant is stuck and truly root bound, you may need to cut some of the roots to free it from the pot. Use the hori hori or trowel here for cutting.
Have your other pot ready to go, fill it up 3/4 of the way for the new plant. It’s a good idea to grab a small bag of perlite to go with the new potting soil (this will help with drainage – a lot of the store brands ‘cactus’ soils are actually quite heavy). Place new plant in, make sure it’s an inch or two below to lip of the pot, then fill with the soil – making sure you tuck in the sides (use your trowel here). It’s important that you water well after planting – give it an extra long soak so that the soil get fully saturated from top to bottom.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions or run into any problems.