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How to repot cactus plants
- Dylan Turner
Published: Thursday, 15 August 2019 at 10:10 am
Prickly cacti can be tricky to repot. Follow our step-by-step guide to repotting them with ease.
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Cactus plants make the perfect, low-maintenance house plants and are perfect for a sunny windowsill. However they need repotting every few years, especially if they’re growing happily, or if they’ve become lop-sided and need straightening up. That said, their prickly nature can make this a tricky job, so you need to take care.
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Watch the practical video guide above with Kevin Smith, to find out how to do it.
You Will Need
- Free-draining compost or cactus compost
- Small plastic and terracotta pots
- Horticultural grit
- Newspaper
Step 1
Repotting cactus Espostoa melanostele
Fold up a piece of newspaper into a thick strip and wrap it around the barrel of the cactus, gripping the two ends together so they can be used to hold the plant steady.
Step 2
Repotting cactus Espostoa melanostele
Tap the cactus out of its pot and gently scrape away most of the old compost from around the rootball, but try not to disturb the roots too much.
Step 3
Filling compost around repotted cactus
Repot the plant in cactus compost, which is a gritty loam-based compost that won’t shrink when it dries out. Make sure the plant is central in the new pot and standing vertically.
Step 4
Topping off repotted cactus with grit
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Top-dress the surface of the compost with sharp grit to set off the plant and prevent it from being splashed with compost when you water it.
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