cGautreaux1287 wrote:Hi! I have a baby prickly pear (only three pads!) that is about 2' tall that keeps falling over from the base.
It gets tons of sunlight and I water it about every two weeks (or when the soil dries out).
You're watering it too often. This kind are normally very easy to grow. They can do better with one watering a month, but, that depends on having a pot and soil that are suitable.
cGautreaux1287 wrote:I don't have a green thumb and I'm new to the cactus game, but this seems odd.
I've read that they sometimes fall over to spread out and make room for other pads, but I feel like what mine is doing isn't healthy. All of the pads feel hearty and thick, none of them feel/ look wilted.
Can anyone give me some insight?? Also, I'm not familiar with cactus jargon yet, so if you could explain in the simplest of terms that would be most helpful
!
Your pot looks smooth which is not helpful. You should move your plant to a porous, clay pot. One that is not glazed or painted.
You should also replace the soil with a dry one. Either buy a prepared, cacti and succulent soil or, prepare your own. There are different ways of doing it, but, the simplest is to mix equal parts of peat with coarse, large grain sand. You could add other things to it, like gravel or perlite.
If the plant does not improve, you can cut off a healthy pad at its joint and grow it as a cutting, in a suitable pot and soil.
