Description
Trichocereus hybrids are very easy to grow and cold tolerant,as low as -5/-12°C (or less depending on clone). They need a fertile, well drained soil mix. Water the plants well and allow them to dry before watering again. This cultivars seem to do better with a little more water than most cacti. In fact, their cultivation requirements are really more like ‘normal’ plants than most other cacti. During the growing season fertilize them monthly with a balanced fertilizer
Sun Exposure: Outside filtered sun, but during hot summers the cactus are subject to sun burning (Especially variegated specimens), so grow them in half-shade. Inside they need bright light, and some direct sun. During winter months, put them in a cool luminous place and encourage them to enter winter dormancy by withholding water and fertiliser over the winter, as they will etiolate, or become thin, due to lower levels of light. They are susceptible to fungal diseases if overwatered, but are not nearly as sensitive as many other cacti, especially in warm weather. They tend characteristically towards black rotted spots unless watering is moderate and only in hot weather. If kept damp through cold periods, they will invariably suffer.
This plants produces large amounts of growth each year if kept well fed and watered throughout the warmest months, particularly if they have been acclimatised to accept full sun.
Propagation: By cutting, but unpredictably with a relative frequency some variegated seedlings appear among the plants of hybrid origin, it seems that the hybridization between species and cultivars encourages the production of variegated specimens.
Origin and Habitat
Garden origin (Nursery produced cultivar)
Cultivation and Propagation
Variegated cacti are regarded as choice and difficult in cultivation, but despite that many of them are relatively easy to grow. But be aware that they cannot tolerate prolonged exposure to direct sun light (especially during the hottest summer days), so grow them in half-shade or under filtered sun. They are sometime seen as grafted plants, but some of this colourful plants (those with some chlorophyll) are able to grow on their own roots and are priced by collectors.
Soil: Use mineral well-permeable substratum with little organic matter (peat, humus).
Watering: Water sparingly from March till October, and keep perfectly dry in winter, at temperatures from 5 to 15 degrees centigrade. (In general these plants are more tender and cannot endure freezing temperatures). In the rest period no high atmospheric humidity!!
Propagation: By seeds, grafting or cutting. Because the variegation is due to the presence of two kinds of plant tissue, propagating the plant must be by a vegetative method of propagation that preserves both types of tissue in relation to each other. A most common way way to cultivate this partially de-coloured cultivars is to graft them onto another cactus which has chlorophyll and which will provide sugar to the mutant scion. The chlorophyll containing bottom part of the graft, called the stock, can be any number of different columnar cactus species.
Remarks: Seeds from variegated parents often give raise to some variegated seedlings too.