Hi everyone 😊 I just registered cause I'm a newbie when it comes to cacti.

I got those a few days ago, they were sent by mail in a box, it's pretty cold here (around 0 degree Celsius, so almost freezing). Maybe that was a bad time to order them? They were on the way with the delivery company for around 2 days.

They developed a weird colour since they arrived. In the beginning they had a nice juicy green, but now turned into yellow/brown/grey ish.

Also I'm not sure about the soil, is this just the small hairs from the roots, or is it mold?

What should I do?
I re-potted two of them. They seem ok, but same as the other one that is still in the small pot. I put some tee tree oil on the soil plus some liverworts extract in case it's mold.

The big pots I put two of them in, are filled with this stone stuff and fertilized cactus soil. Both made for cacti and succulents.

I keep them in my livingroom at around 25 degree Celsius and under indirect natural light from the windows.

Any suggestions how to improve their health?

Thanks a lot! 😘

Your plants are frostbitten, that should be obvious...
Lost a bunch of myrtillocacti a while back the same way.
Also, in laymans terms...ded..

Welcome!

Yeah the color change is a concern. I agree it is probably some kind of response to the cold. If they were really frozen they will start going squishy and the color with keep going further towards grey-black over the coming days

If they do not and they stay firm just slightly discolored you got lucky and you are probably just looking at what we'd call transportation/transplantation shock. Not sure what conditions they were in before being shipped, but going to consistently around freezing to 25C pretty much instantaneously is going to shock them a bit.

Right now it is not a good time to order cacti and many tender succulents because they'd either have to be shipped with a heat pack or with your fingers crossed that it does not get too cold on their trip.

I think the stuff around the roots is just fine, from what I can see it does not look like anything bad is going on there. I am sure others will chime in if they disagree with me.
Your soil looks a little rich especially if you are going to be growing these in house. You want the soil to be really fast draining and drying so more coarse rock stuff as say.

Good luck and fingers crossed these plants just got a scare and did not get frozen all the way...

The roots look fine but the tops do look frost bitten. I wouldn't have repotted immediately - one shock at a time. The soil does look wrong but the pot is enormous.

Oh wow, thank you so much for the many great answers!

Yes I think so too now, it was really a bad idea to order them in winter. I didn't think about that when I ordered them. Very bad idea.

The soil I mixed is a mix of vulcano stone and cacti soil. It looks like only that soil in the picture, cause I put them into the vulcano stone thing (the majority of the pot is filled with that) and it was a bit unstable, so I put more of the cactus soil on top of it, just to stabilise them more.

Good news. One of the cacti has a much better color today. The others are still the same. Don't look worse either.

I chose the pots so big, to make them have more space and cause I heard on YouTube from a San Pedro expert, that they grow faster if the pot is a bit oversized. But maybe that's not true?

I have another question: when should I give them water for the first time? I didn't so far, just the liverworts extract has some water in it. I used very little, to make it not too much water. If the thing on the roots is not mold, then I can stop using that I guess. Also thanks for that advice. 😊

I will keep you guys updated on the color. Thank you all so much! :)

Another question:

emax said:Oh wow, thank you so much for the many great answers!

Good news. One of the cacti has a much better color today. The others are still the same. Don't look worse either.

I chose the pots so big, to make them have more space and cause I heard on YouTube from a San Pedro expert, that they grow faster if the pot is a bit oversized. But maybe that's not true?


Another question:

Keep monitoring them for a month. Sometimes it takes a while for the frostbite damage to set in.
Also, a horrendously bad idea to overpot cacti....in cold areas. You want their roots compact and strong to be able to endure winters.
In a general rule cacti like to be underpotted most of the time.

I agree with Stefan's points. Unfortunately you will not know for a little while if any of the cacti are fine. The one with better color is of course an encouraging sign and the fact that the roots looked OK is also encouraging, but you will have to be patient.
The problem with putting cacti in a very large pot in environments that are not hot and dry most of the time is that the soil takes too long to dry out after watering and that is an ideal situation for rot to set in. Right now I would leave them and not water them for a good while, Stefan's suggested month sounds about right. If they have frost damage that is still to show water is not going to help with that, it will probably just make it worse.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions 😊👍
I maybe forgot to mention, I keep them indoors and will always keep them indoors (apartment without balcony or garden). So they don't really have winter hibernation and it's never getting cold for them ever again.

emax said:Thanks for your comments and suggestions 😊👍
I maybe forgot to mention, I keep them indoors and will always keep them indoors (apartment without balcony or garden). So they don't really have winter hibernation and it's never getting cold for them ever again.

Keep them dry. Best keep em dry in a cooler area of the apartment, very close to windows.