How are Cacti Better than other Plants

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If you are designing a landscape that is really low maintenance, you might want to know how cacti are better than other plants. This can help a great deal in choosing the right plants for your landscaping project.

Cactus plant can be grown two ways: as potted plants or in-ground plants. In both cases, they have three basic needs: food, water, and light.

Food

When you bring a cactus plant home from the lawn and garden center, it is inside a pot which may have been its home for a long, long time. Perhaps the soil is old and the nutrients have been used. If you wish to maintain the cactus as a potted plant, you should re-pot the plant and begin feeding it properly.

If you are planting the cactus plant in-ground, you'll prepare the hole by enriching the planting area with aerated soil and then feed the plant several small feedings of fertilizer per year rather than one or two large feedings. You can use time release plant food if you wish, but be certain not to use more than directed for cactus.

Since the food for a cactus plant is extracted from the soil, you want to plant your new cactus into the right mixture, whether in a pot or in-ground. The mixture can be made up of one part quality potting mix (not potting soil), one part washed sand, and one part course gravel. This ensure the plant's roots will get the air necessary and that water will not saturate the soil making it soggy and causing the roots to root.

Once planted in good soil and fed properly, the cactus will require little other maintenance.

Light

Both potted and in-ground cactus need plenty sunlight in order to thrive. Full sun to partial shade, depending on the species, is best but when moving to a new location, it should have a bit of time to adjust, so make the moves in slow increments. Taking a cactus from the garden center and sticking it in full sunlight can cause burn. However, this problems is much less than with most any other type of plant.

Water

During the growing season, cacti like regular water, however these desert plants have adapted to long periods without water. Therefore, if you are the type of gardener that gets busy and forgets to water at times, you'll love growing cactus. It takes quite a period of drought to kill most species. Don't over water cacti, instead err on the side of watering less than you think they need because of their natural adaptation.

Maintenance

When you grow cacti, you only need worry about the three necessities above. There is no pruning, no leaves to rake and rarely will you encounter insects or other pests. Cacti are simple and easy to grow even though they are rather slow growing. The fact that they are slow growing, combined with the fact that most cacti like to be a little root bound, means you won't have to re-pot every spring.

So, before you design a high maintenance garden which may be difficult to keep alive, consider cacti for your [gardening]efforts. They can provide some unusual and interesting shapes, textures and even blossoms.

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