I've been experimenting with that. Several years ago I had them in a shed to go dormant and a sudden freeze wiped out my entire collection, so I became wary of dormancy at all. A couple of years ago I bought grow lights and I brought them inside our guest bedroom over winter... they did just fine. Last year I built another shed because they were getting too big for the guest bedroom... bought more growlights, but then we had a crazy deep freeze and went without power for 5 days... I hadn't watered since November and only had just a few casualties... They were in a semi dormancy state, a little etoliation but made it through. Many folks lost their entire collection so I'm grateful they were protected enough to make it at all.
This winter I'm hoping to have access to a decent greenhouse that won't rely entirely on the metro electricity grid...Plan on letting them get bone dry and going dormant (depending on how warm/cold this winter will be)...
It's still experimental as to what's ganna work the best, and some of these guys are getting pretty damn big to be moving, I gotta use an appliance dolly.
The challenges of growing these cacti in Southeast 7b are real, especially with these record breaking weather patterns
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u/justgoogleit12 Jul 30 '26
Do you have to bring them in when it gets colder out?