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captaincactuscakes

Growing Trichocereus Outdoors in Colder Climates

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I live in a frozen desert wasteland so my outdoor grow time is limited to about 4 months for my more tender plants, particularly my cacti. I generally move my pots outdoors around this time and take back in sometime in September but I have problems with my plants showing uneven growth or even mild etiolation from the change in temps. I've gotten better over the years but I can't help but feel I'm shortchanging my babies by limiting the space their roots can expand during the outdoor grow season. So, I have an idea that I'm sure will work but I don't know if it will necessarily work better...

What if I were to plant my potted cacti outdoors in a raised bed to allow their roots to expand and get as much delicious water and food they desire for the months they are able to then remove from the bed in the fall, trim up the roots and induce hibernation? The following Spring, I can do it again with the goal of having more growth (not to mention natural resistance to pests and the elements) and enjoy the aesthetics of my plants in the earth where they belong.

Has anyone done this before? Did you notice any advantages/disadvantages to doing it this way vs just moving to increasingly larger pots?

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Hmmm i can see your logic and i struggle with this problem too, but i get the feeling that this idea will be very labour-intensive and might end up just stunting their growth as much as living in a pot would.

I have been told by several experienced gardeners that the easiest way to damage any plant and stunt its growth is by disturbing and damaging the root system.

I really like the idea of having a raised bed though, and if you are not likely to be moving house anytime soon it is the ideal place for cacti to be.

How cold are we talking here?

It might be a silly idea, but could you build your raised bed and cover it over completely with a tarpaulin weighed down with rocks during the winter months? If you could protect them from the rain and frost they would probably get through just fine.

Ideally you could build a small greenhouse around the raised bed, but that would require a fair bit of time and money.

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i can't speak from experience but i would say that would stress your plants a fair bit, and may make them more susceptible to issues arising from the cold. also sounds like a hang of a lot of trouble (and pain), and they'd barely get established in the ground before you dig them up again. how frozen does the ground get? if you want to plant them could you erect a structure over them for the cold months (a portable greenhouse or something) to keep the weather off? other options include starting a seed raising blitz (literally thousands) and weeding out the seedlings/young plants that succumb to the cold.

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Hmm good point, it could create undue stress... It's very cold, as low as -10F in the wintertime (USDA zone 5b) I could look into a greenhouse, maybe I should just build one designed for my cacti. I may give this a shot with a couple PC Pachs just to see what happens (and if I lose them, it wouldn't be a serious loss)

I'm in a permanent location but my money is currently tied up in a landscaping project. Maybe I will set up a serious building next spring. Thanks for the input!

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You would probably be better off just putting them into the biggest pots you possibly can that you are still able to move inside when you have to. But ofcourse that depends on how many plants you have and how much space etc. whether on not that would be worth doing. Then once they start to get rootbound maybe pull them out and give the roots a good trim like people do with bonsai and repot them once they have healed. Im not speaking from experience, but thats probably what i would do in your situation.

Good luck

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Wouldnt recommend digging in/out cacti every year. a.) Its a hell of a work, especially when they get bigger. b.) Roots dont really like being dug in/out so oftenly. That being said, i think it could work if you bring em in early enough before big rains come down. Thought about it a few times but always discarded the idea as it was too much work for me. I guess it depends on how many cacti you have. With one or two cacti, this could work. But you gotta be careful as natural soil can contain some nasty buggers. Like cockroaches, nematodes and such.

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To add another option - you could instead of a greenhouse, just make a pergola type structure that will stop rain from falling on a raised bed. As long as cacti are not soaked, they generally do alright with very cold temperatures. I'm unsure if -10F is too cold for such an option though.

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You could always chop them down every year and root the cuts inside over the colder months and keep doubling your collection. That way if the left over stump in the ground dies you will still have a cutting rooting inside.

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You could always chop them down every year and root the cuts inside over the colder months and keep doubling your collection. That way if the left over stump in the ground dies you will still have a cutting rooting inside.

now you're thinking with cactus

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I can get them through -3 Celsius average nights for the long cold winter ( and colder for short stints) as long as they are not plump with water and with wet media. I go for a G'house principally to keep the rain off, I am considering the pergola idea.

Snow is better as it'll insulate, until it melts. I've had potted ones survive colder when covered in snow, but it will make them ugly.

-10F = -23 C thats gotta put the freeze stress on...lol

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Pretty sure they wont make -10 to -20. In a greenhouse maybe but not outside. I am living in a very warm part of germany and i even lost a shitload of frost hardy cacti this year due to the wet/cold combination.

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Hello

I live in the opposite climate of what you describe.

I suggest you skip the bridgesii for outdoor experiements, but do experiment with scopulicola and fat pachanois

I remember Auxin has experimented and thought about this, as he lives in similar cold climate I think

so I am sure he would have something to say about this... maybe someone who talks to him through PM's could let him know of this thread?

apart from putting some kind of insulator to keep the base roots warmer [mulch, tree bark, ???]

a cool idea I got from someone else is putting plastic or even better styrofoam glasses at each tip at the snow/frost season, at the point of the coldest nights.

IME, snow at the tips can fuck up cacti, and the Trichocereus bridgesii looks like the least cold hardy af them all Trichocerei of this group from my limited experience.

Of course , I dont really get frost here so, what do I know?

It still puzzles me, lots of people around the world, especially europe or germany, pretty cool climates, mild cool to cold and they get on with gardening a lot. And like you do, they put their plants in and out ech year!

and here in the sunny and warm greece, we fucking import whatever plant we are told to. We are so fuckin medieval.

so stupid we are , we have not yet realised what power this sun is and how easy it could be for greece to become a super power in gardening business through individual , non state helped, I mean, agriculture. first grade production.

fucking fuckers

excuse the rave. I am drinkin beers. again.

:)

btw super awesome thread. keep it up.

a greenhouse seems the answer to the problem, the only solution it seems for decent results....

Edited by mutant
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I'm still looking for an effective method, lol.

Cutting, rooting, and doubling every year doesnt work the way it might in ones imagination, not in our climates. Theres a time and place for cloning, but beyond that it will just stop progress. Four to six months is barely enough time for a plant to recover from being cut in half, much less grow significantly.

What I've done the last few years is plant in plastic pots with big drain holes and plant the whole damn pot in the ground, then stop watering them in sept and bring inside by october. Some roots go out the bottom. My plants are at least getting bigger this way despite being dormant from late-sept through april.

This year I had too many duplicates and more new plants so I bare rooted a bunch of scop and PC dups and planted them next to their potted brethren as an experiment. Plan is to dig up in fall and those I keep will be stored bare root in empty pots over winter. It'll be a while before I have the results in.

Tricky bit with USDA zones is they are an average. 5b may average to lows of -10°F but that doesnt mean it IS the low. It could be 0° or -20°F

I'm zone 7a, thats listed as 0°F, this last winter my actual low was 12° and a few years ago it was -12°F (-24.5°C) :lol:

So just because someone might report that their terscheckii survived a -10 night, that doent mean its 5a safe.

I'm toying with breeding for colder temps but I hope to be moved to some place far warmer before any real progress could be made (which could be anything from 20 to 160 years).

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I have one type of Trichocereus that survived two winters in the unheated greenhouse in germany. One was a record winter with minus 20 and this year was the second one which was down to minus 15. Its a hybrid i pulled off ebay and it looks a bit like a Santaensis.

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The plants I have grown outdoors grow so much better than my indoor plants... I'm an avid gardener and move plants around a lot so the work aspect doesn't bother me, i just don't want to put them into shock... maybe if there is a way to contain the rootball to an extent? maybe some kind of netting? I could hibernate them in my garage. I'm trying this out with a couple ugly torches I have to see how it does. I'll report back in a year ;)

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I have a 32sqm greenhouse and its fantastic but I need more space for more cacti… Ill put them outside in big pots, what I have been thinking (because an other greenhouse is expensive) is to put a white plastic bag as a cactus condom in each pot, between jan/feb this way water/snow will stay away from them.Min temps I expect are -10C in an extrem , normal mins. are -5. Inside the greenhouse the growth cycle continues...

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Hello

I live in the opposite climate of what you describe.

I suggest you skip the bridgesii for outdoor experiements, but do experiment with scopulicola and fat pachanois

I have been thinking about growing trichs outdoors for a long time. I am located in north Europe and I am searching for Scopulicola. Been looking for it forever, but it's just not available up here. Would you be interested in trading a cutting or something?

fucking fuckers

excuse the rave. I am drinkin beers. again.

Mythos? I love that beer.

Edited by Quixote

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I have another idea that might work and be simpler. Instead of moving the plants in/out every year, and instead of building shelters against the rain, might it be possible to just plant the cactus in an enormous pot? That way, it would be able to grow an extensive root network, which would make it possible for it to grow stronger and maybe even flower.

You would still have trouble moving the heavy pot in and out of the house, but it would be less trouble than if you also had to dig up/replant the cactus.If you found a huge pot with two handles, you might ask a friend to help lifting it.

Then there's the problem of having too much damp soil sitting around doing nothing, before the cactus grows a large root system. Now, this might be solved by installing some kind of tube-watering device, where the water just goes down to the area closest to the cactus, so you wouldn't water the whole thing from above.

Anybody tried something like this?

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