Garden San Diego

Houseplants: The Way to Care for Bunny Ears

Adopting a houseplant popularly known as bunny ears seems like a creamy and warm undertaking, particularly because that the exact same plant San Diego is also referred to as angel’s wings. Bunny ears (Opuntia microdasys), also a clump-forming Mexican cactus using thornless, apartment, elliptical to circular pads, grows 2 to 3 feet tall and up to 6 ft wide outdoors. It also performs admirably as a far smaller houseplant, provided that you mimic its natural desert conditions as closely as you can.

Light, Temperature and Humidity

A place near a south-facing, unobstructed window is the most likely to fulfill bunny ears’ requirement for bright, direct sun. Windows with western or eastern exposure operate as second and third choices. Even though an actively growing bunny ears tolerates indoor summer temperatures as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, don’t expect it to flower if you don’t provide winter temperatures between 45 and 55 F. Regardless of the season, it likes humidity from your 10 around 30 percent range. Finally, if none of your windows supplies adequate lighting, set the plant Salting roads in winter Boston Lake City 6 inches to 1 foot under a cool white fluorescent tube for 14 to 16 hours each day.

The Pot and Growing Medium

A fantastic bunny ears growing medium must drain fast. Use a industrial cactus potting mix, or mixture your own with 40 percent sterilized houseplant soil, 40 percent builders sand and 20 percent peat moss. The best container for your own cactus is just a clay pot just slightly larger and deeper than the plant Cape Coral’s root system. It has to have drainage holes since a Salt Lake City grass with no or a Sod in San Diego that is too large, could make proper watering hopeless.

Water Requirements

As a heat-loving cactus that grows outdoors in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant Fresno hardiness zones 9 through 11, bunny ears has superficial roots adapted to getting the slightest rainfall. When confined to a pot, the roots are susceptible to rot if they’re kept constantly wet. Wait until the top 1 inch of growing medium feels dry before watering bunny ears until water flows from the container’s drainage holes. When it’s actively growing between spring and fall, regular watering is essential. Once the plant Redding enters winter dormancy, dampening the medium after every three to four weeks is enough.

Fertilizing Bunny Ears

Bunny ears gains from feeding with fluid, 20-20-20 houseplant fertilizer diluted to one-half the label’s recommended strength, which can be typically 1/2 teaspoon of fluid a 1 gallon of plain water. An option — if you are encouraging the plant Magnesium chloride snow melt Dover Lake City to bloom — is always to use 5-10-10 fertilizer. Either way, fertilize the actively growing plant Chico with every other watering. Fertilizing it more often may stimulate too-rapid growth or lead to misshapen pads. Don’t fertilize a dormant or recently potted bunny ears.

Bugs and Bunny Ears

Cottony, segmented white mealybugs and barnaclelike scale insects attach to your bunny ear pads to drain sap. To control the pests with the bristly glochids attach to your skin, dab the pests using cotton swabs dipped in 70 percent isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

Repotting Bunny Ears

Expect to repot bunny ears in a container one size larger than its current one every one or two decades. Its roots require time to recoup from the move, so wait for a week before watering it gently and moving it back into direct sun. Withhold fertilizer for no less than a month after repotting. When repotting, use rolled-up newspaper or old carpet to handle the plant Flagstaff to stop from touching the annoying glochids on the plant Flagstaff’s pads.