Wobbly Cactus!

Jack24288 · Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:40 pm

Hello everyone. Recently I have noticed my cactus is very wobbly. I'm not quite sure what could have caused it, I water it (with a few drops of babybio) around once a month. Here's some pictures: https://imgur.com/a/6lQ2F I'm not sure if they'll be very helpful, but I thought it would be worth including them. Thanks for reading!

Edit: It's so wobbly that I even added some string you can see in the pics to try to give it a bit of support.

LoveThePlants · Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:24 am

Hi there, does your cactus get sunlight?

imafan26 · Fri Jun 23, 2017 2:47 pm

Cactus roots are fibrous and the plant is top heavy. When that happens to mine, I put the pot in a sleeve. Cut a cylinder 2 liter pop bottle and put it over the top and anchor it in the pot. Hopefully it is wide enough to fit. It will help keep the plant straight but let the light in. Repotting in a little deeper pot might help the roots go down more. It is very wet where I live so I plant in terra cotta or if I use plastic pots, I put more holes in them and I use rocks for media.

Jack24288 · Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:05 pm

LoveThePlants wrote:Hi there, does your cactus get sunlight?

Hi! Yes, it gets lots. I have it placed right next to a south facing window, which is partly why I'm so confused as to why it may have started to get wobbly. It doesn't appear to have grown at all.

Jack24288 · Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:09 pm

imafan26 wrote:Cactus roots are fibrous and the plant is top heavy. When that happens to mine, I put the pot in a sleeve. Cut a cylinder 2 liter pop bottle and put it over the top and anchor it in the pot. Hopefully it is wide enough to fit. It will help keep the plant straight but let the light in. Repotting in a little deeper pot might help the roots go down more. It is very wet where I live so I plant in terra cotta or if I use plastic pots, I put more holes in them and I use rocks for media.

Thanks for the input, I may have to try that. I have heard that cacti can become wobbly due to being top-heavy, but mine doesn't appear to have grown very much at all and it has only recently started to feel wobbly. I assumed it may be a watering issue but I am very conscious of avoiding overwatering.

If the bottle doesn't work, I will try a repot (though I have heard it's best to only repot once the roots have completely filled up the current pot). If I were to do that, would it be a good idea to have the cacti a little deeper in the soil, or does the current level seem about right?

Again, thank you for the help!