I have two questions: first off, I have a small barrel cactus (still a baby) that I keep at my office. It has developed hard, light-coloured spots on it. I tried to look up this problem, and the only similar issue I found was 'scales', but scales were described as coming off very easily, like by scratching them off with a fingernail, and these hard spots do not come off easily at all - I wanted to get one off to see if anything was inside it, and I actually had to cut it out. The spots do not penetrate very deeply into the flesh, and they are (for now anyway) only growing on the sides, not the top where the new growth is. What are these spots? Secondly, my cacti have all been growing this weird light-yellowish fuzzy stuff. It seems to be more prominent at the tops of the cacti and particularly around the spikes. I looked this up as well, and the only problem I found was mealybugs, but this stuff isn't stringy like the stuff mealybugs leave. This stuff looks more like dandruff. It has grown on all three cacti (one is a barrel, one is tall and skinny and twisting at the base, and one is sort of the shape of a kiwi with spikes emerging from an acne-like surface). They are all babies, bought from Wal-Mart in what I'm sure was unpasteurized soil. Please help! I've already had a succulent and a shamrock die, and I will be really sad if my cacti die too.

10/30/20071:15:29 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment

Plant Questions

You might want to take the cactus to a nursery and let them have a look, it sounds like you may have had a soil borne fungus to attack the plants. Depending on what is found out with a visual inspection you may want to change your planting medium and not water as much. Sorry I could not have been any more help.