Pot Orientation

[cambodian]

I was told recently that it's important to maintain the same orientation (to the sun) with my potted cactus.

Anyone care to agree or disagree?

I've been turning them fairly regularly thinking they would enjoy an even amount of sun on all sides

cheers

[Change]

great question...

Id be interested to know aswell.

I keep my cacti on a north facing wall so they get plenty of sun plus the added heat from the wall.

I never really considered that one side might be missing out.

[Bert&Ernie]

I really don't think it matters... but who knows

I had a cacti that was getting a little burnt on one side so i turned it and now it looks much better!

I think that if it isn't really necessary then why do it its just a waste of time and effort. I don't think turning it to give it more even light would be any different than just leaving it alone.

[Distracted]

Plants grow towards the sun, when you change their orientation they stop growing the way they were and have to put new energy into growing towards a new direction, i don't see why cacti wouldn't do something similar, unless they simply work based on gravity as they do for pupping.

I've been told if you turn the pots of cacti it can lead to them not flowering.

In short, i reckon the more you leave the pot alone the better it will be, not to mention lifting a pot up can damage the root system which isn't a good thing either.

edit: try and model your cacti like their natural habitat, cacti in the ground don't twist around

Edited March 14, 2013 by Distracted

[iGarden99]

There was a really good post on Facebook about this some months ago.. I've looked and looked and can't find it yet. Basically, it said that you should be very careful to keep the same orientation. They may have been talking about when moving a plant or putting one in the ground. Essentially, it could take years to recover and also damage the side which may have been in shade/less sun and is now in more sun. (Like going out in the strong sun when you have been indoors all Winter.)

It was suggested that you mark orientation on pots so that when you transplant you can do it correctly.

Leafy houseplants are a different thing. People rotate them 1/4 turn at a time to keep them looking good on all sides.

[cambodian]

Yeah fair enough. It's not that I want to turn them or thought there would be any benefit from doing so, the topic came up as a result of me doing some re-potting and also needing to move them. I was told if I didn't orient them the same way their growth would be set back for some time.

cheers

[Optimystic]

My seedlings I have growing in the window get rotated at every watering.... a few of them will bend towards the light if I don't, even with my addition of mylar to reflect sunlight back to the other side of the seedlings... but today the forecast just became perfect for acclimating them outdoors and I already moved some downstairs to where they'll get a little more light in a much larger window... I almost made a post about one cause I didn't know what to do with him! This guy keeps bending all the way sideways towards the light! when I turn him around he'll bend all the way the other direction! He's gotten even more top heavy so he'll be one of the first seedlings I transplant here pretty soon...

I know I had some of the same thing happening with a few of my larger ones... and when you have alot of plants its really easy to lose track of orientation lol but if one is bending one way i'll flip the plant around and I haven't had any problems with that situation... at least one bridgesii ended up growing really wavy like a snake... it was pretty cool til I had to chop that one down to save him from base rot

[iGarden99]

I still haven't found the article I wanted, but I did find this:

"Transplant cacti in their original directional orientation. This is very important! The south and southwest sides of these plants become toughened and resistant to sunburn. The more tender north or east sides are likely to sunburn and scar and may rot if exposed to the intense hot sun. Before transplanting, mark the north side with chalk, ribbon, etc., and replant with that side again to the north. To aid in protecting against sunburning, the newly transplanted plants may be covered with a piece of shade cloth. The shade cloth should be left on until signs of new growth and establishment occur."

http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1225.pdf

Since this was in N. Hemisphere, I'd reverse and mark South side DownUnder.

[GoOnThen]

All of my Trichs sat for three years in the same place and never got moved.

Last year I moved all of them and paid no attention to which way around they were put in there new spot. I had to cut roots off that had grown out of the bottom of the pots and they are now getting an hour or more sun than they had before.

I had only ever had one Trich flower before but that was a cutting that had flowered before it was cut and it was a 6 foot cutting.

This year I have had six of them flower.

I have no idea what caused this whether it was stress from cutting the roots, less water, more sun, being moved or the just where all old enough to flower.

Probably doesn't help at all but I thought the move could have had something to do with it.

Cheers

Got

[bogfrog]

My intial reaction was 'pfft, dont be ridiculous' when my partner told me that keeping the pot orientation the same was incredibly important.

He works at the local botanical gardens, and this is a rule they strictly adhere to with all plants, cacti included.

I used to rotate my pots and i didnt seem to get alot of growth. My partner was also a chronic fidgeter, always rotating pots and picking them up.

This past season i havent touched them and i have had much better growth and overall health. This could be down to many factors (such as the mintest NZ summer in 70 years) but not rotating the pots is the only thing i have changed.

My partner moved all his trichos to a new spot at the begining of spring, inevitable changing the orientation. His trichos havn't grown bugger all this year.

But his miniatures have, and he kept the orientation the same for those.

[planthelper]

we discussed once before a bit, and both sides swear there method is the better one, and it can be better both way's.

i'm a non rotator, and I even use the labels or other things to exactly mark the direction of where most of the sun comes from. as nothing is worse than rearranging your plants, and than to find them suddenly sunburned. this can happen to plants and cacti, but mostly is not such a big problem, with plants, as it can be with cacti. a cactus which never was exposed to much direct sunlight, will burn if suddenly moved into a sunny aspect. the same can happen if a cactus is turned 180 degree's, because the shady side which is not accustomed to direct sun, suddenly get's abundance of the latter.

leafy plants behave the same, because a leaf which was build for shade, is stressed if it suddenly get's full sun, all tissue is custom build!

however, if you rotate religiously and NEVER FORGET to do so, than all of the above doesn't count, because the cactus or plant, will average out the amount of sunlight it receives.

having said this, a button cactus which get's rotated all the time, probably looks better, than a non rotated one, specialy if your direct sunlight, only comes from one aspect (like a window).

but suddenly forgetting to turn the plant could have disastrous consequences...

when repoting, take good care to keep the same polarisation.

Edited March 15, 2013 by planthelper

[Evil Genius]

I dont Rotate as my collection is too big. Plants in Nature dont Rotate so i dont see the urgency to do so either. But i guess it might be possible to get the Plants to a more even growth if you do it religiously. But like i said, i think its not really important.

[CβL]

Sometimes I get plants that are getting scorched by the sun, and I rotate them to let the other side of the cactus get burned too

[cambodian]

Thanks of the input

I usually move my pots to a more sunny winter spot and less sunny summer spot and now I think I'm convinced now to mark them and keep the same orientation.

I guess the logical thing to do would be select half a dozen that are the same size and turn half of them around and see what happens over time

[Sallubrious]

I rotate mine to a minor degree to get light to the shaded pups that I want to grow a bit quicker.

When I do it do it, I try accentuate the precession of the ecliptic by just turning them a bit each day.

So that means from the winter equinox until the summer equinox (winter coming into summer) I'm turning them a few degrees clockwise (if viewed from above) each morning or night - and from the summer equinox back to winter I'm turning them a few degrees anti-clockwise each day.

I only do it for my really sexy favourite plants that give me a horn, most of the others just sit there all year long facing the same way.

I'm sure all the other ones are jealous.

Edited March 15, 2013 by SallyD

[Joshua_h]

This is intriguing, I have never really thought about this. I constantly move and inadvertently rotate my collection. I do so to move them into a container to bottom water them. So I like the thing Planthelper said about if you do it religiously it doesn't count.

[planthelper]

there is another issue, which fits nicely into this topic, and this is plant burn caused by changes, of the seasons, and your local environment!

i'm talking about, say a house or a tree, which blocks off the morning sun most of the time over the year, but not when the day's are the longest. or the same thing can happen even during the shorter days of the year, when the lower ecliptic allows the sun, to enter a window directly, but will not do so over summer.

most of the time those changes are happening gradedualy (i give up on this word, dyslexia got the better of me, I tried 3 different versions and it's still wrong, hehehe) and burns are avoided, but i burned lot's of lophs this way, and they din't get used to it, as some people suggested would happen.

in short, once you discovered your favourite and save spots for you cacti, use them for your new specimens and seedlings, and than once you know how tough they are, you can move them on towards a brighter or more dangerous aspect.

best would be, to know how much light the cactus received, with the previous owner.

if that is impossible, check the pedros for glaucasious color and wax, this will tell you which side of the pedro faced the sun at the previous location, and how much light they received.

thumb rule, the more glaucasious the less light it received, and orientation wise, the side of the pedro with the more glaucacious appereance will be the side which faced away from the sun.

[solaritea]

Happened to come across this yesterday at a mid-size home based nursery in California.

Normally I pay no attention to orientation and occasionally this has lead to sunburns. I think I'll start trying to pay attention.

Edited March 22, 2013 by solaritea

[cambodian]

Just a bit of an update. I re-potted and moved around 100 of my trichs about a month before my original post, payimg no attention to orientation. In this time they have all put on quite a bit of new growth, as well as shot out some new pups. All of them appear to have a very similar amount of growth. So, I know that aint really scientific, but I'm thinking maybe it doesn't really make a lot of difference. At least not in autumn when things are slowing down.

[planthelper]

Just a bit of an update. I re-potted and moved around 100 of my trichs about a month before my original post, payimg no attention to orientation. In this time they have all put on quite a bit of new growth, as well as shot out some new pups. All of them appear to have a very similar amount of growth. So, I know that aint really scientific, but I'm thinking maybe it doesn't really make a lot of difference. At least not in autumn when things are slowing down.

sigh...

many times, it might not make any difference (if medium direct sun levels were involved), but at other times (with extreme direct sun levels involved), you could seriously sunburn your whole collection, doing what you did. and btw, sunburn can mean the death!

[cambodian]

Yeah thanks planthelper I got that, that's why I said at least not in autumn