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Today we will look into some important Dos and Donts on Growing Pencil Cactus – like its care tips and propagation. Will try to make this video as short and to the point as possible, focusing only on the important points to remember in successfully growing this plant.
The Pencil Cactus is a beautiful succulent plant belonging to the Euphorbia family. The Botanical name is Euphorbia tirucalli. Its also known as aveloz, firestick plant, Indian tree spurge, naked lady, pencil tree and so on.
It is a beautiful ornamental houseplant and gives an interesting look because the stems are slender and look like branching pencils with no obvious leaves. Actually tiny leaves appear initially and then fall off.
Pencil Cactus is actually not a cactus. Cactus is a misnomer and its actually a succulent plant. If you want to learn basic of succulents and cacti, I have a separate playlist on succulents and cacti.
It is also called as Milk-bush because of the milky sap or the juice it secretes when its cut or damaged. So, Be careful while handling this plant, because this sap is toxic and can sometimes cause anaphylactic reactions – that means acute allergic reactions.
Care Tips of pencil cactus plant: Actually pencil cactus needs very little care.
- It’s a succulent plant and needs very little water like once a week in summer and only if the top 1 – 2 inches of soil is completely dry. In winter , that’s in its dormant period, it hardly needs any watering.
- The soil must be a well draining soil or you can also use a succulent and cactus potting mix. You can check out one such best formula from my videos linked in description. The container must have lot of drainage holes to drain out excess moisture. Also Make sure you change the potting mix to a well draining succulent mix once you bring home this plant from nursery.
- Sunlight: This needs full sunlight and warmer temperatures for best growth.
- Fertilizer: It’s a succulent and needs very little feeding. You can add only about 10 percent compost in potting mix while repotting or add some compost on top soil once in 3 to 6 months and its optional.
Propagation of pencil cactus:
Pencil
cactus is very easy to propagate with cuttings. Actually this plant you are
seeing here is grown from a cutting from this huge mother plant. Just insert a
cutting into a clean sandy soil or cocopeat and its roots very easily in about
2 to 3 weeks even without using any rooting hormone. You can optionally use a rooting hormone if
you have.
But remember to allow the stem cutting to dry and form callous to seal the end
so that fungus or bacterial attack is sealed off. This happens when you
leave the cutting to dry in shade for 1 or 2 days, before inserting into soil. This is very important basic
step for growing any succulent from cutting. For
beginners, Callous is something like a scab which forms on the wound very much
similar to human wound healing. This seals off the rest of the stem from
infection and helps prevent rot.
After you insert the cutting, leave it in shade or indirect light for about a 1 to 2 months or until good new growth or shooting commences.
