With cacti, sand and a bowl, you can conjure up a mini desert landscape in no time. A great idea to give as a gift and as a decorative eye-catcher on the windowsill. These instructions explain how to do it.
How do I plant a bowl with cacti?
To plant cacti in a bowl, you need a suitable bowl, cacti, seramis or expanded clay, cactus soil, quartz sand and decorative items. Follow the step-by-step instructions in the article for optimal results.
Material list
The following list of materials would serve as inspiration for planting a bowl creatively and individually. Pretty decorative items give the spiky plant community the special flair of a desert. There are no limits to imaginative ideas here.
- Several small cacti
- White bowl with a diameter of 30 cm and more
- Seramis or expanded clay as drainage
- Succulent or cactus soil
- Lime-free quartz sand
- Decorative items: stones, model figures (e.g. sheep, camels, elephants, lions)
- Thornproof Gloves
Please place the soil used in the oven in a kettle without a lid at 150 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. In this way, any germs and pathogens are killed. Please clean the plant bowl and decorative items with hot water.
Step-by-step planting instructions
By equipping the bowl with 3 different substrate layers, you create an ideal living environment and a lifelike desert landscape for the cacti. How to do it correctly:
- Pour seramis or expanded clay about 2-3 cm high on the bottom of the bowl
- Spread the sterilized and cooled cactus soil over it
- The height of the soil layer corresponds to three quarters of the height of the root balls
- Put on thorn-proof gloves (€15.00 at Amazon)
- Unpotting and planting the cacti
- Press the substrate lightly around the root balls with a spoon
- Place stones between the cacti as decoration
Finally, sprinkle the quartz sand. If you cut off a corner of the bag, the fine material can be distributed precisely. The cactus bowl is given the finishing touches with mini figures. You can stick these in the sand or fix them to the decorative stones with superglue. At the end, spray the cacti with a fine mist of lime-free water. The desert beauties are watered for the first time after a week, when they have recovered from the stress of planting.
Tip
Bird sand is completely unsuitable as a substrate component for cacti. The lime it contains drives the pH value into the alkaline range, which the succulents cannot tolerate. You should also leave building sand aside if you want to plant cacti in sand. Please only use the lime-free quartz sand recommended in these instructions.
