Even without roots, a cactus can be grafted with a Christmas cactus; pay attention to these points for fast survival and early shaping

Xiao Qi

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A flower friend asked me to answer whether a rootless cactus can survive being grafted with a Christmas cactus. The answer is yes, it can survive. But there are a few preconditions.

The cactus must be thick and sturdy; you cannot use a very small, very thin cactus for grafting. If the cactus is too thin or too small, after grafting its nutrients will not be enough to last until it grows roots, and it will dry up and shrivel, causing the cactus not to grow roots and the graft to fail.

The grafted Christmas cactus should not have too many leaves; too many is not good for its survival. It easily consumes nutrients excessively, causing the cactus's leaves to shrivel, which is not good for rooting; that is, the cactus's nutrients are not enough to supply too many Christmas cactus leaves for healing and growth. In the middle, some leaves may drop. It may also cause the cactus to wither and die, unable to grow roots, leading to graft failure.

After grafting and survival like this, the Christmas cactus will grow relatively slowly in the early stage. Because the cactus has to go through a process of growing roots; only after its roots grow out and fully develop can it have extra nutrients to supply the Christmas cactus's growth. Compared with a cactus that has roots, this process is much slower.

If you want to use a rootless cactus for grafting with high survival and fast growth, we can choose to graft after the Christmas cactus has finished blooming, that is, in spring, because after the Christmas cactus finishes blooming it has a dormant period of about one month. At this time, after it has finished blooming, we cut off its leaves and select thick, sturdy Christmas cactus segments to graft onto the rootless cactus. Wait until the wound of the cut cactus has healed almost completely. By then the wounds of both the grafted Christmas cactus and the cactus have also completely healed. We can plant the cactus directly; the cactus has no dormant period in this season. So the cactus can directly grow roots while the Christmas cactus recovers its leaves during dormancy; the two do not conflict. The Christmas cactus consumes relatively few nutrients during recovery, and when the Christmas cactus's dormant period is over and it resumes growth, the cactus's root system has also grown well. This can increase the survival rate.

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