We know how important it is to clean the dust from the house from time to time for our health, but when it comes to doing the same for the plants… things change, which is a very mistake. serious because it can cause them many problems. Cacti, being plant beings that they are, breathe through the pores that, in their case, they have throughout their fleshy body.
They lack leaves -except the Pereskia, which have them-, so that the vital function of breathing and carrying out photosynthesis falls to this stem, which, in general, is well protected by thorns. What happens is that when dirt or specks of dust fall on it, we will have to remove it, but How to clean a cactus without hurting yourself?
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How to clean healthy cacti?
You might be wondering how to clean a cactus with thorns without hurting yourself, because of course we’re not talking about a monstera-like plant that only has leaves and those are harmless to the touch. But the truth is that it is not something extremely complicated; in fact, we will only need a small brush. This should normally be kept dry, but there are those who moisten it with a little rain or distilled water.
I personally recommend using it dry, at least for a first pass and removing the bulk of dust and/or dirt it may have. But wow, what It is not necessary to moisten it unless a stain of paint has fallen on it, for example and it is still liquid (i.e. it has not yet dried).
Once you have the brush, simply with great care and patience you must clean the cactus. For safety, it is worth wearing gloves, because it may happen that at some point you have to hold the plant to carry out thorough cleaning.
How to clean a cactus with the plague?
Sometimes you have to clean the cactus, not because it is dirty, but because a pest like scale insects affects it. In such cases, we will have to give it a “conscientious” cleaning, passing the brush well in all its parts in order to leave it very clean. But in addition, it will be necessary to apply an insecticide that will definitively eliminate the pest, because often cleaning alone will not make it disappear since the eggs and/or larvae can still remain in the soil.
So to make sure our factory will get by, it is strongly recommended to treat it with diatomaceous earth. It is a very effective ecological insecticide against various pests, such as scale insects or aphids, among others. The mode of application is as follows:
- First, we will moisten the cactus with rain or distilled water.
- And then we’ll pour diatomaceous earth on it.
It is important that we distribute the product throughout the plant, ensuring that it is only a thin layer, otherwise the cure would end up being worse than the disease. And it is that, the thicker this layer is, the more difficulty it will have in breathing, which is why it is so important to spread the diatomaceous earth well.
At the end, What we are going to do is take the brush, pass it through the cactus and thus remove the product that remains.. If it falls on the ground, perfect, because as I said, there may be eggs or larvae in it and the insecticide will eliminate them; but if not, we’ll pick it up and throw it down.
How do you remove water stains from succulents?
Can water stains be removed? Well, the truth is that it depends. If these stains come from very hard (alkaline) water, it will be difficult to. In fact, the only thing to do is to remove the excess lime, which is why these surely white spots appeared.
And how is it done? The truth is that I read that they can be removed with milk, but I think that makes it worse, because If you clean a plant with milk – whatever it is – what you get is that over time it gets filled with dust. And it is that the milk when it dries is a bit sticky, and of course the grains of dust that fall on it stay there.
For this reason, I recommend cleaning cacti (or any other succulent) with distilled or rainwater. And if what you want is to remove these stains from the pot, you can also use a brush soaked in distilled water or rain, but taking care not to damage the plant.
So you can keep your cactus or other types of succulents very clean.