We know how important it is to clean the house dust from time to time for our health, but when it comes to doing the same for plants... things change, something that is a very serious mistake since it can cause them many problems. Cacti, as 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 do have-, so that the vital function of both breathing and carrying out photosynthesis falls on that stem, which, in general, is well protected with thorns. What happens is that when dirt or dust specks fall on them, we will have to remove it, but How to clean a cactus without hurting ourselves?
How do you clean healthy cacti?
You may be wondering how to clean a cactus with thorns without hurting yourself, because of course, we are not talking about a monstera-like plant that only has leaves and these are harmless to the touch. But the truth is that it is not something that is extremely complicated; in fact, we are only going to need a small brush brush. This normally has to be kept dry, but there are those who moisten it with a little rain or distilled water.
I personally recommend that it be used dry, at least to make a first pass and remove the large part of dust and/or dirt that it may have. But wow, what It is not necessary to moisten it unless a paint stain has fallen on it, for example and it is still liquid (that is, it has not dried yet).
Once you have the brush, simply with great care and patience you have to clean the cactus. For safety, it is worth wearing gloves, since it may happen that at some point you have to hold the plant to do a thorough cleaning.
How to clean a cactus with plague?
Sometimes you have to clean the cactus, not because it is dirty, but because something is affecting it. plague like mealybugs In these cases, we will have to give it a "conscientious" cleaning, passing the brush well through all its parts in order to leave it very clean. But in addition, it will be necessary to apply an insecticide that will permanently eliminate the pest, since often cleaning alone will not make it disappear since eggs and/or larvae can always remain in the soil.
So, to make sure that our plant is going to pull through, it is highly recommended to treat it with diatomaceous earth (you can get it here). This is a very effective ecological insecticide against various pests, such as mealybugs or aphids, among others. The application mode is as follows:
- First, we will moisten the cactus with rain or distilled water.
- And then we'll pour the diatomaceous earth on top.
It is important that we spread the product throughout the plant, ensuring that it is only a thin layer, since otherwise the remedy would end up being worse than the disease. And it is that, the thicker this layer is, the more difficulties it will have to breathe, that is why it is so important to spread the diatomaceous earth well.
By the end, What we will do is take the brush, pass it through the cactus and thus remove the product that is left over.. If it falls on the ground, perfect, since as I said, there may be eggs or larvae in it and the insecticide will eliminate them; but if that is not the case, we will take it and throw it on the ground.
How to 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 that can be done is to remove the excess limescale, which is why those spots that are surely white have appeared.
And how is that done? The truth is that I have read that they can be removed with milk, but I think that this is making things worse, since If you clean a plant with milk -whatever it is-, what you get is that over time it fills up with dust. And it is that the milk when it dries is somewhat sticky, and of course, the specks of dust that fall on it stay there.
For this reason, I recommend cleaning cacti (or any other succulent) with distilled or rain water. And if what you want is to remove those stains from the pot, you can also use a brush moistened with distilled or rain water, but taking care not to damage the plant.
Thus, you can keep your cactus or other types of succulents very clean.