Gardening Methods

Growing Prickly Pear Cactus In Mississippi?

I am moving in my first house and want to grow prickly pear cactus in the two flower beds. Will this cactus flower and grow fruit in the Mississippi weather? Do I need to dig the flower beds out and buy some sandy cactus soil and my local garden store?

Don’t plant them in the ground… They WILL NOT GROW.

You need to put them in pots with Cactus Soil… I.E. Soil with lots of sand in it.

They sell cactus soil at home depot.

Since you will have to move the cactus inside in the winter, don’t use rocks for drainage, use non-biodegradable packing peanuts used for shipping fragile objects in the bottom instead. It keeps the pots “Light” so you can move them with ease.

Cactus have very shallow root structures and do not need deep deep pots. If you can only get ‘normal’ depth pots, pot them in this order:

1. Take a piece of cotton string and thread it out the hole of the pot and hang the rest over the top of the pot.

2. A sheet or two of news paper right in the bottom of the pot to stop sand from leaking, punching the string through the newspaper.

2. Packing peanuts 1/3 of the way up the pot, keeping the string towards the middle.

3. A sheet or two of newspaper, punching a hole for the string.

4. Cactus soil half way up the remaining space of the pot, keeping the string towards the middle.

5. Cactus, move the string to wards the side so it doesn’t touch the roots of the cactus.

6. Fill the pot with the rest of the soil, snip the string off flush with the soil.

Water them in to make sure the soil is compacted then do not water again until the soil is DDRRYY! I would recommend getting one of those “Water Globes” so that you can water directly to the roots and not from the top of the soil.

NEVER water plants from the top! That allows mold, fungus, and weeds to grow.

Always water from the saucer of the pot. That is why there is a string… It acts like a wick to draw the water to the roots.

Top the soil off with decorative gravel so that no weeds or spores can grow in the pot.

Get a grow light for wintering the plants indoors. You can use the kind that are made for lizard tanks but any grow light will do. The heat from the grow light and the direct stimulation will keep them happy all winter long.

I’m not sure how much or how often to feed them… I would ask the people at Home Depot when you buy the cactus soil.

I have kept small cactus alive for a couple of years now here in Chicago… Just DO NOT over water them…

With cactus, it is ALWAYS better to under water than to over because it will rot out the root system and base… It will just turn to mush if you over water.

You can, literally, get away with once every two or three months between waterings…

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