How did the roots look on the plant you inspected?

What sort of potting mix are you using?

Josh

Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas...what about Passover, Chanukah, Ramadan and Kwanzaa?

Those names need to be changed :-)

x

I'm pretty new to Easter cacti, but not the other two.

My guess would be whenever sections start dropping off I'd unpot it & check the roots. It's usually a drainage problem, the mix hardened off & the water is running down the inside of the pot. Or a rootball hardened just around the roots somehow preventing moisture from getting fully into the branches.

Sorry, but unpot, unpot, unpot,

X, you naughty boy you, Succot cactus? Come on now, the person's asking for help.

Thanks for the responses. The roots of the plants whose leaves are falling off are very healthy. I grow in a mixture of 50% peat mixed with 50% peat. I use this mixture for good drainage and for the roots to get air. The leaves don't fall off of the Easter cactus that are red. The other colors seem to be affected, especially the ones that will bloom white. I repotted a couple of them and the repotting seemed to help. Again, thanks for your responses.

Wait, pls. come back, let's look a that again pls. -- you wrote:

"I grow in a mixture of 50% peat mixed with 50% peat. I use this mixture for good drainage and for the roots to get air. "

You must have meant to say something else. Pls. clarify???

Thanks, I meant to say 50% peat moss and 50% perlite.

Hello from Gadsden! I agree that repotting is probably going to help, but I think part of the problem is this terrible heat wave we are having. These cacti are not used to this severe heat - they are jungle cacti where it's steamy but they do not get dry, triple digit temperatures like we have had the last 6 weeks! Once we start cooling down, they should start getting happier. I am keping my CCs in complete shade and watering frequently, so far they are OK.

By the way, I use a high quality potting soil (Fafard brand) with pea gravel for my epiphytic cacti.

Sorry, I'm an anti-peat person as I grow succulents.

I've seen too many peat-based problems to use it. This includes 2 Easter cacti I got several months ago. Ultimately, I had to change out of their peaty mix as their rootballs had hardened off. I delayed doing so to 1 plant & it suffered for it. Finally, the 2nd one's coming back now too after I changed its mix after all.

I'd suggest a mix of 1/3 Av mix (light & fluffy), 1/3 perlite or pumice & maybe 1/3 bark mix. This assures fast drainage. Since I've repotted mine into this, they are much happier. Even in the dog days of August here in NYC w/ the High Nineties for several weeks & resultant more frequent watering.

Thanks a million for all of your helpful replies. I'm going to ask you guys what do you think about this? I used to grow and raise orchids. I grew them for years but I eventually got bored with them. I now grow holiday cacti for the most part. I still have a couple of orchids but I devote most of my attention to growing the holiday cacti. I have tons of aliflor from my orchid growing days and I grew many orchids using the semi hydro. method. I don't want to grow my holiday cacti using s/h. I was just wondering if you think it would be a good potting medium for my holiday cacti if used alone? Again, thanks for your responses.

Again, thanks for the help. Since my CC are doing great, I'm leaving them alone. Well, I struct gold today. I went into my garage to clean out my storage room. While I was getting rid of some unneeded junk, I came upon an unopened ten pound bag of Aussie Gold. I forgot all about it because I started putting my orchids on mounts before I gave them away. The Aussie Gold is the fine type and it produced strong roots for my orchids when I used it. I went and repotted all of my Easter Cacti in the Aussie Gold. You guys were right about the root system. The roots on every plant were tight and compacted in the mix. I immediately got the old mix off of the roots and into Aussie Gold went the plants. The great thing about AG is that you can never over water. I'll keep you informed on how the plants responded to the AG in the coming weeks. Thanks again for all of your help.