Potting Tips for Torch Cactus

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Potting cactus can be tricky since you don’t want to touch them. It is instinctual to reach out and cradle a plant in the middle of re-potting it but you can not do that with cactus unless you want a handful of stickers. So when working with cactus you have to slow down and think things through a little bit more than you would with a regular plant. In this blog post I am going to show you how I completed the recent task of re-potting two of our torch cactus. Over the years we have come up with a few tricks that help us take care of these wonderful yet untouchable plants.

Before you begin to work with any cactus, I would recommend purchasing a good pair of tweezers and a pen light. No matter how careful you are, somehow you will get stickers somewhere on you, or your clothes or shoes. The tweezers help remove the sticker and the pen light really helps me locate the sticker.

Next, you will need to purchase the pot and potting soil you will use for your cacti. I decided on 12″ terracotta pots and Miracle-Gro Cactus, Palm and Citrus garden soil. I chose terracotta pots for a few different reasons. Firstly, cactus need to dry out between watering and the terracotta does not retain the moisture like a glazed or plastic pot would. Secondly, I chose these terracotta pots because they are wider at the top, narrower at the bottom and smooth on the inside. This makes a huge difference for re-potting later on. If you have a pot that is wider in the middle, narrower at the top or has a rounded rim you will most likely be forced to break the pot when the time comes to re-pot your plant because those types of pots do not allow the plant and soil to slide out. The pots I chose will make re-potting later on much easier.

The two cacti that need re-potting have been in their current pots for a couple of years and it is time to give them an upgrade. The first cactus I re-potted was potted in an old plastic hanging pot. It was the only pot I had at the time and it is past time for a new pot with some fresh soil. The next cactus I will be re-potting is currently in a smaller terracotta pot and it is time for it to have a bigger pot and I want to try not breaking the terracotta pot.

The cactus I am working with today should be fairly easy cactus wise for a few different reasons. Firstly, the torch cactus grow upright. This will make it easier for me to maneuver my hands around the cactus and pots while hopefully not getting poked by the stickers. Speaking of stickers, the next nice thing about working with a torch cactus is that their stickers are the Goldilocks of the cactus world. Their stickers are not too big and not too small. The big stickers can be very wicked and difficult to work around and the little stickers break loose easily, fly around and land everywhere. The torch cactus stickers are medium sized and stay on the plant making working with them much more enjoyable.

Here are the tools that I used to help me with re-potting these cacti:

From left to right: tongs, an old paint brush, a different set of tongs, garden trowel, an old kitchen knife, a seedling dibber.

Re-Potting a Torch Cactus From a Plastic Pot

Poor plant needs a clean-up before re-potting.

Using old kitchen tongs help clean up the bigger debris.

This handy little tool came in a seed starting tool kit. It is plastic and has a rounded tip and after some googling I have figured out its proper name is a seedling dibber. It is very useful to get between the cactus and knock the debris loose without damaging the cactus.

All cleaned up and ready for its new pot. As you can tell this is a very old plastic pot. I used what I had on hand at the time and this pot is definitely not ideal for cactus. The plus side to this pot is that it is wider at the top, rounded on the bottom and plastic so the cactus should pop out pretty easily.

I got my terracotta pot prepped with the Miracle-Gro cactus soil and I like to add a few scoops of native soil and mix it together. Our native soil is very sandy with little to no clay but I feel it still adds a little extra nutrients.

I have my soils mixed completely and measured out the depth of the cactus. I don’t think it will be a problem with this cactus but with some cactus you only have one shot of moving it over to the new pot and if you have too much or too little soil, moving the cactus back out is a major pain. So making sure the new soil is as close to the correct level as possible could save some headaches later on.

I like to have a piece of cardboard handy. This gives something to hold on to the cactus if you need to. The cardboard can help you maneuver and balance the cactus. This time I didn’t end up using it much but it was nice to have it handy just in case. You have probably noticed how dry the soil is. I have not watered in a while because I thought the dry soil might hold together making it easier for re-potting.

I also had some tongs close by. I decided to work on the ground because I am short and the garden table was just a little too high for me for this project and I wanted lots of room around me to work.

I gently tapped around the sides of the pot and slowly tipped the cactus on its side.

I tapped and pushed the bottom of the pot and it released the cactus perfectly.

Next I was able to slowly wiggle the pot free.

Now it is ready for me to carefully pick it up and gently place it in its new pot.

This is the moment where you hold your breath and hope it all stays together.

It worked! As you have noticed, I am not wearing gloves. I don’t like wearing gloves in general unless I really have to. When working with cactus the gloves just end up full of stickers and need to be tossed so I have just gotten used to being really careful and using my tweezers when I need to.

Time to finish re-potting. In the bucket I have some garden soil mixed with native soil for the back filling.

The tongs help push the soil down. Don’t worry about being messy with the soil. The cactus easily cleans up at the end.

The seedling dibber works really well for moving the soil around and cleaning up the cactus.

An old stiff paint brush actually works the best for cleaning the cactus at this point.

All done! This re-potting was a success and uneventful. I hope this cactus will be happier in a bigger pot with fresh soil. It does look a little sad right now but I think that is because we have had a really cold winter and I keep this cactus on our front porch with no additional cover. In the spring I will give it a little fertilizer and it should be back to being happy.

Re-Potting a Torch Cactus From a Terracotta Pot

The next torch cactus I needed to re-pot was in a terracotta pot. Most of the time when re-potting from a terracotta pot you are just going to have to break the pot to get the cactus out. If you need to do this just simply take a hammer and hit the side of the pot and remove the broken pieces from around the cactus. But I was curious if I could get the cactus out of the pot without breaking it and my plan worked. Here is what I did…

This is the next cactus I re-potted and of course it needs to be cleaned up first. I used the same methods as I discussed on the first cactus.

All cleaned up and ready to be re-potted.

I know this looks really weird. I am not frustrated and stabbing the cactus. We have an old kitchen knife that we have been using for other various garage projects and I decided to treat this cactus kind of like a cake and loosen the soil around the edges of the pot. I ran the knife all around the edges to loosen the soil from the sides of the pot.

Next, I carefully laid the pot of cactus on its side.

Then with the help of the tongs I was able to gently wiggle the cactus, pull up and pop the cactus out of the pot. I think having the soil dry really helped. What also really helped is that the pot was narrower at the bottom, wider at the top, smooth on the inside and the rim was not rounded.

That actually went a lot easier then I expected it to.

I was able to gently pick up the cactus.

And I was able to carefully place it in its new pot.

This went really well. Now I just need to back fill and I used the same cactus soil mixed with a few scoops of native soil.

But it cleaned up really nice using the old paint brush and seedling dibber.

Project complete and hopefully the torch cactus will enjoy their new pots and a soil refresh!

Here is a complete list of everything I used for today’s garden task:

Tweezerman tweezers (paid link)
Energizer LED pocket pen flashlight (paid link)
Miracle-Gro Garden Soil for Cactus, Palm & Citrus (paid link)
2 – 12″ round terracotta pots
Kitchen tongs
An old kitchen knife
Garden trowel
An old paint brush
Seedling dibber (paid link) I could only find the dibber’s in a set.

I hope this post has offered a few helpful tips on re-potting torch cactus. Give growing torch cactus a try if you have not already. They are a very rewarding plant to own that provide beautiful flowers in the spring in a variety of colors.

Both of the torch cacti I re-potted are this beautiful creamy, yellowish white. Torch cactus also have red, pink and yellow blossoms.

Happy desert gardening and good luck re-potting your plants!

Joy Simper has a full time job as a home schooling stay at home mom. She is the one that holds the house and yard together and keeps the kids in line. She enjoys gardening, including seed starting and propagating plants.

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