It’s the mix and the watering, Rob, which has recently been much discussed. The secret to no rot is no secret.

-brown rot(mushy). This is avoidable. This is the typcal root rot, resulting in a discolored soft stem, and disgusting goey tissue. The answer to this is pretty much the obvious.

- rot spot holes. May or may not spread, but the plant could survive them, as long as its kept healthy . Best amputate and add cinnamon or coffee.

-echinopsis black rot. I dont know how to treat this. It occurs mostly on echinopsis plants, mostly near the apex. Black colored areas. The result is damaged tissue...and cease of growth.

-dry rot/shriveling. The cactus becomes a dry husk. Affects mainly parodia, but may affect echinopsis as well. Dont know why this happens, or how, but its mainly a winter thing. Cleaning the roots properly is your best bet.

- scale rot. This one affects epiphytes, occurs during severe weather conditions. If the case is severe, plant stops growing, and it spreads. This one is under "best avoid".

- shrivel rot(schlumbergera, rhipsalis, hatiora). This one may be watering and stress related. Happens mostly during season change, or post blooming. It appears in the forms of veiny , anorexic feeble looking stems. Once it occurs, your best bet is to propagate healthy tissue. Watering, may in fact, worsen the condition.

- a unique case is sinocrassula yunansis. It suffers from a type of dry rot,(stem drying out, leaves rotting , etc). but the reason is unknown, because it happens at random(strong sun, too much water, stress etc). I find the plant problematic to grow.

-sempervivum indoor rot. Ive been vocal about how this plant doesnt belong indoors. Mostly it happens after heavy etiolation, or instant shriveling...

- sunburn rot. Tissue starts rotting after sunburn. Avoid severe sunburns, and avoid wetting the burnt area.

- graft rot. Poor grafts lead to scion infections.

- hylocereus/selenicereus rot. Dont know what causes this, but some stems have the tendency to turn yellow and mushy. The cause may be high heat +strong sun and a lot of water.

-frost rot. Youll see spots of discolored tissue, near the apex most often. Its from frozen tissue..so i dont need to explain further.

- weakness rot. Happens on plants that have been infested by bugs for too long. Plants turns yellow, looks weak and soft. Becomes very susceptible to all kinds of fungal related disease. Solution: clean infestations as soon as they appear/as soon as you notice them. And be thorough. A special variant is rot from a damaged center. This will cripple the plant first, stopping growth. It rots later on. Barrel types are vulnerable to this.

All the various ways of rotting, as far as i can remember.

Rob, that’s terrible! Well, of course the potting mix is important, but I’m sure you know that, and don’t overpot. One thing I do to guard against too wet and rotting is use clay pots.

Well do remember that everyone kills plants Rob... especially new ones AND especially box store plants. Half are dying before you buy them.

If a new plant makes it a year and then dies I consider it all my fault :)

Yep, every plant is an experiment, but I still want less to rot on me. I brewed up a soilless mix, 60% pumice/40% chicken grit and potted up 5 of my finest plants purchased this year. The rest of the plants will get repotted in the next weeks.

You guys have to understand, for years, when a plant died, I replaced it, when it got mealies I killed them. I am learning alot about how to care for these buggers and keep them for a long time.

Over the weekend and today, I have repotted about 15 of my cacti. I tossed out 2 as the roots were gone and there was a hollow going up the inside of the plant. 3 had few if not nothing for roots, the rest had copious roots. Interesting that the best roots were in bonsai pots.Im very glad to have figured this out, maybe I will have better survival.

Rob, Last year I lost some plants to rot due to our over abundance rain fall we got. I could have saved them but just wasn't too able last year. Too much bringing in and out. I didn't have a sheltered place to put them. It did weed out the weaker ones for me. Sad that the weaker ones are the most expensive ones. I use a very gritty mix on them.

Some notes from repotting: Clay pots had moist soils and extensive roots adhered to the pot, Plastic and glazed pots had soaked soils and root rot.
Guess which pot I'm going to use?

Rob I was a big dummy last Nov. & let a Lowe's lady sucker me into buying 10 cacti @ $.25/ea. They looked good but were in baked on, hydrophobic peat, so I watered them, kept them inside at about 60F in bbright South . A cinnamon cactus (opuntia) wilted overnight w/ rot after being watered, so I repotted the rest immediately (fearing repot risk in Nov. trumps certain death in wet store soil). One by one they have been dying off in that soilless mix & I do everything recommended on here by the "experts", as far as care. I took a couple out if their pots & roots still haven't really grown much since l.y., even with them having been outside in sun since late April. I lost another the other day. That'll teach me that a good deal is NOT always a good deal. My point is, I agree w/ the previous statement from Gabby that sometimes, its not you, but the lack of care they received in the big box store & despite how well you treat them, the damage has already been dine & they cannot recover from it.

Darn 'experts'!

My secret to cactus success is simple, I forget about them for months and no water. They seem to love being neglected. Any pot, any soil, just no water. Sort of like being in the desert.

Forget to add, that is my inside plants. Outside is different. We get too much water during our last summer and looks like this one as well.

I do that each year from October to May. All ensconced in their polyethele tent. I call it winter.

It is my understanding that some cacti DO need water in winter- those being epiphytes, echinopsis , ferocactus/echinocactus (less with lobivia), melocactus and SOME species of parodia.

Mams, gymnos, rebutia, eriosyce, astrophytum, copiapoa(dont have any to veryfy), stenocactus, thelocactus, matucana do need that dry period. Not absolute, but monthly with small amounts.

Euphorbias also benefit from sparse watering(but no less than twice a month, like the other cacti).

My agave seems to be the most hardest to judge. Must have some but not much. Same with sanserieria.

Stefan, do you water cold plants? Or do you keep echinopsis and friends warm?

Tossed out all my plastic pots, glazed are over to Goodwill tomorrow Its only bonsai, or clay pots for this kid..

I kept them in about 15 ish degrees C " heated room. With old drafty windows...

Like i said, only lost 3 parodias and 1 lobivia. All of which might not have even been processed properly...

And you had flowering from that?

Most excellent. I had gymnos when the word on the street said they will bloom wintering at room temperature.

My question is should I pot up all my succulents (Aloe, Haworthia, Adromishchus) in my gritty mix? I have no problems with them dying of root rot or anything.

Not really. Most of mine were in their default peat, or some low quality mix. I had haworthia blooming on a regular basis. Gave them away though. Some aloes too.

Even have the atttenuata in flower spike as we speak(i kept that one)....

Some aloes bloomed as well, but mostly small species...

Crassulaceae (echeverias) also bloomed a lot. A few sedums and crassulas as well.

But now, i have more semps blooming outside. They like the shadier, cooler balcony better...

Stefan, Are you the same Stefan on 'All things Plants'? I'm the same Stush there.

" 'All things Plants' "...? Im on agavevile(very recently) and on garden.org..

I am not affiliated with either the youtube chanel , or any content related to it...

I used to be on cactiguide, but the people there are snobbish jerks.

I do recall seeing your name on garden.org..

Is that what you call "all things plants"? I know its somehow linked to garden web(after looking it up), but thats it.

Yes that's it. It used to be called 'All Things Plants' once.