u/ward_fred

Found this specimen in a garden centre but can’t place the species or cultivar. It’s obviously suffered a bit being in the garden centre. Thought maybe a slim-leaved pulidonis cultivar but next to my actual pulidonis (bottom) I don’t think so.

Found this specimen in a garden centre but can’t place the species or cultivar. It’s obviously suffered a bit being in the garden centre. Thought maybe a slim-leaved pulidonis cultivar but next to my actual pulidonis (bottom) I don’t think so.

P.s. any practical way to get rid of the green algal scum on pot and top soil surface? Not super critical, just looks grim. Ziplock bag made it a bit claggy so had to harden them off early.

Is this an okay amount of bronzing on leaves, or is it burned and getting too much light. It’s outside hanging under a tree and gets dappled direct light through the tree leaves for most of the day.

Have this cactus that has not grown a millimetre basically in a couple of years, wanting help on how to get it growing/healthy again. Some info:
Used to be a very vigorous grower, putting on several inches per growing season, then suddenly stopped growing. The pot is large for the plant, yes. When I got it it was in very large pot and so had a pretty extensive root system, so I went a bit bigger on the pot. Mix is gritty, maybe 60/40 inorganic to organic mix. At the moment it gets 8+ hours of direct sun, and watering is fine. UK summer, so day temps of 20° most days. All conditions are similar or the same as it had when it was growing fine, and all my other cacti are growing healthily. No watering at all from Oct to March.
When I got it I was a bit ignorant about fertilisers so probably hit it too often with some high Nitrogen feeds, but learned since then and have been on low N feeds, sparingly. If I remember correctly I potted it up because it had stopped growing.

One of the columns has yellowed completely, but is not mushy. The plant in all is clearly alive and healthy to the point of maintenance. It shrinks when thirsty and fattens and becomes turgid when watered. So roots at least work to some degree.

Noticed some mealybugs when taking pictures, but not many, and they are currently on their way to a swift death.

Why has it stalled growing, and how to get it going again? Root issue? The apices look alive but not fresh and growing new, and the spines around them are old.