Cactus SOS
This is my Ladyfinger Cactus. It came into my life on a hot August day several years ago, out of a desire to participate in a friend's impulse purchase experience: she discovered a most stylist hat to wear out into the hot summer sun, and I found a tiny cactus with little yellow flowers.
The cactus’ immediate experience in its new home was a traumatic one. Within 3 minutes of arrival - and just after it had been given a place on a sunny window sill - it promptly toppled over.
I learned two things about cactus spines that day: while they are tiny , they hurt a lot; and they are not easily removed (my fingers were irritated and itchy for days). Unprepared and without a gardening glove or a rubber glove, I smushed it back into its tiny pot with a roll of paper towels. It looked fine.
And it was fine for several years, sitting in its tiny pot, gathering dust, catching some sun, and sprouting the occassional flower.
The cactus had come unlabelled, and without instructions. So, for two years, I had no idea what it was, or how to care for it. In hindsight, it is unsurprising that, while a concept clothing store would happily sell cacti, they would be far less concerned about their aftercare.
You can imagine my elation when Google Image finally returned a search result of something that actually looked like my cactus. I even labelled its pot so that I would not forget. Now, am I 100% certain that it is, in fact, a Ladyfinger Cactus? No, but Google Image match says it is close enough, and that is good enough for me.
My Ladyfinger Cactus has been resolutely patient and resilient in spite of my clumsy (mostly hands-off) attempts at nurturing it. I watered it from time to time, I picked dust off it from time to time, but mostly, I left it alone a lot.
There would be a second fall off yet another window sill, which at the time, seemed
catastrophic cactustrophic (get it?!).
For the record, it was, as ever - fine.
It seems that my Ladyfinger Cactus might have finally run out of luck. Ironically, perhaps due to my paying it some (more) attention .
How do I know? Because 9 months after repotting it into a slightly larger pot, I discovered that it can be picked straight back up again.
Now, you know me - I am no arborist, but I am fairly certain that that is not supposed to happen.
I do not know how it got to this state. Perhaps I had overwatered it, or perhaps I had damaged it somehow during repotting. I may never know.
A friend reached out with an offer to try to revive it, and managed to detach the root from the cactus almost immediately. We were very sure that that was definitely not supposed to happen*
Perhaps in an effort to alleviate my distress, she put both the root and the cactus plant back on the soil and soaked the pot with water. ‘We’ll see’, she said of this clear Hail May attempt, “Sometimes, the roots grow back”.
I am not one to ignore what is staring me in the face: a detached cactus is probably a very dead cactus. But I have also seen how resilient this cactus has been. So, part of me does wonder if, despite the general brownness of the cactus, the wrinkling of the base, and you know, the rootlessness - that it might just be Just Fine.
* in a regular, alive plant