Jungle cacti.
Two words that we don't often put together when it comes to houseplants,
but this guy right here, Rhipsalis is a jungle cactus.
It's native to Central and Southern America.
It has these really cool tendrils that can grow up to 20 feet in the wild and
there are over 35 species of this around the world,
so how do we actually care for it?
That's what we're learning about in today's video lighting.
Rhipsalis is native again to Central and South America.
It grows in the understory of jungles. It's an epiphytic plant.
It does not really need a whole lot of soil to thrive.
That is a good clue as to how to care for it.
That means that it's not going to want a ton of direct light.
I don't want to put it in a south facing window just right up against the window
because then it'll get direct sunlight during the middle part of the day,
which it really doesn't prefer. It can handle early morning,
evening direct sun, but I would highly recommend placing it.
Let's say if it was in this room,
I would probably end up placing it somewhere about here.
It's never going to get direct sun from my east facing window,
but it's going to be provided enough to thrive.
Now I will say Rhipsalis is a plant that can handle neglect.
You could put it in low light for a while and it'd be okay,
but every now and then what I'd rather do is kind of throw it under some grow
lights, give it a bit of a recharge,
allow all these nice tendrils to photosynthesize and really get a lot of energy
and then maybe move it back to my lower light area.
If you really don't have a good spot to put it. Okay, let's talk soil.
A thing that a lot of people will make the mistake of is anytime they hear the
word cactus, they immediately think cactus mix.
Remember this is a jungle cactus. It's an epiphyte.
It does not require a whole lot of soil,
so you kind of want to think very similar to an orchid style mix.
This is a specialized Rhipsalis soil mix that comes from the same place.
They got the plant from Josh's Frogs, which I really love,
but this one basically has potting soil. You need some organic matter.
It has growstones, which are a hybrid glass type of pumice.
It's a recycled product made from glass and then orchid bark and a little bit of
coconut coir. So if you want it to mix your own, that's what you would do.
But you can see the texture of this is very, very loose.
It doesn't want to sit in water and that's why either making your own mix or
buying a premade mix is a good call for Rhipsalis.
As we do some Rhipsalis re-potting here.
There's a couple of other things to talk about when it comes to the care of this
plant. First of all, you'll notice I am using a Rhipsalis mix,
so you've got these larger pieces which helps for drainage,
but I'm also using a terracotta pot. Now I like terracotta for many reasons,
not just for Rhipsalis, but specifically for something like Rhipsalis.
It's nice because of how infrequently they like to be watered and how sensitive
are to being overwatered.
That's where terracotta for me really kind of wins the battle because
terracotta, unlike many pots will evaporate out of the sides as well.
It's a porous material,
so we just gently placed it right in there and we are going to make sure that we
kind of cover it all up. Now this is a vigorous grower.
Like I said in the wild 20 feet long. These tendrils can get to,
of course it's going to be constrained by the size of your pot.
I wouldn't stress out too much that you're going to have some crazy Rhipsalis.
Then again, who knows you very well might. Now when it comes to watering,
like I said, once a week is a good rule of thumb,
but the better rule of thumb is number one to watch my container watering guide,
which I have up in the upper right hand corner,
but number two is to make sure that the soil is completely dry.
This is, again, it is a jungle cacti, so it wants somewhat moist soil.
It doesn't need to be bone bone dry when you water it in,
but it it's not going to want to sit in standing water at all.
So as we potted up, first of all,
it's nice to water in just because we are going to be removing some of those air
pockets, helping it settle a little bit. Second of all,
I need to hydrate all that extra soil that I've got,
so I've just got it nicely potted up and we're in a really good spot now for our
Rhipsalis.
Now that our Rhipsalis is potted up,
let's talk about just a few more things as far as repotting fertilizing and some
problems you might run into.
First of all repotting you'll notice I did a pretty big size up here.
That's okay. This is going to be the pots in for years to come, you know, 12,
18, 24 months till I need to rpot again,
I'm guessing probably more than the 24 side for this plant because I did pot it
up so much. Now when it comes to watering,
you'll notice another little sign when you see these tendrils start to kind of
pucker up and look like a wrinkly finger that's been in the hot tub too long.
That's a really good sign that it needs water.
So if you're looking for that clear visual sign, that's the one to look for.
Finally, you'll notice I didn't fertilize here.
That's because this has potting soil in it, which has organic matter.
So I don't need to fertilize too much.
If you have an existing Rhipsalis and you want to fertilize spring through fall
is the time to do it once a month with a 50% diluted cactus fertilizer is the
way to go. And then finally,
what about a couple of different problems that you might run into?
The most notable problem will be if the tendrils are falling off,
that's usually from too little light or over-watering cause over-watering can of
course create root rot. But provided you have that right soil,
you're probably not gonna run into that.
So it could be the fact that it's just not getting enough light.
So you may want to locate it in a better area.
And then I might also suggest that you rotate the pot from time to time and kind
of train the tendrils to grow in the way that you want.
So I've got three main ones coming out here.
I may decide to kind of organize them in a way that spreads them out nice and
even, or maybe if I want to focus them in a certain area,
then I can go ahead and do that. That's Rhipsalis everyone at jungle cactus,
highly recommend you check it out. I got mine from Josh's Frogs.
Like I mentioned,
link will be in the description below as well as a pinned comment with a little
discount code for you guys. But until next time,
explore the world of jungle cacti. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.