I’ve had this plant for over 3 years and have in the past spread it into two. Suddenly both plants, about half of them are leaning and browning. I recently repotted them with cactus soil, more drainage holes, and rocks in the bottom (how they’ve always been potted). Any ideas what I’m doing wrong or how to save them?
More pictures to explain
How recently have you repotted it? I’m sad to say that from my experience, these guys can absolutely betray you after a repot, especially in the colder months, if you remotely fool with their roots. Because they’re epiphytic, the most common way I’ve seen them go through shock is for them to start killing the leaves off by detaching themselves from the roots, but the other way is for their leaves to start looking shriveled like the ones you’ve pictured. It can be a gradual form of shock too, starting with one branch detaching itself from its roots and slowly spreading to the rest of the branches. I understand that you’re saying you’ve repotted it before and had it for some time, and repotted it in the same way, but it definitely looks like it’s going through shock or root rot. The other possibility could be shock from any exposure to the cold, especially after a recent repot, but I have a feeling the repot is what triggered it. You likely won’t be able to save the plant by the base and its roots, so I would carefully twist off any remaining healthy stems and leaves that you can and try to propagate them before they continue the shock pattern.
1 like If you’ve never propagated these before, each leaf segment can propagate, so you can either keep them as branches or a bunch of individual leaves. I’ve found they’re the most successful at branches with 2-3 leaf segments. Carefully twist the leaves off the base of the plant, and give them a few hours to callous over. You could leave them overnight to callous too. Once they’ve had a chance to callous a little, dip their ends in some rooting hormone powder and place the cuttings into a small pot with cactus mix or straight perlite (wear a mask when using straight perlite. You don’t want to inhale any dust particles from perlite), and bottom-water the plant by placing the pot in a small bowl with water so the water can be absorbed from the bottom up. Hope this helps. I’m very sorry about your cactus 😔 but hopefully you’ll be able to salvage some of it.
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