New here! 👋 I am in quite a pickle with my fairy castle cactus 😞 I've had this cactus for maybe 15 years now (it started out as one spindle and I didn't know at the time it was a fairy castle cactus since there was the single piece instead of the clusters). Anyway, these photos were taken 1 month apart exactly (the droopy picture is most recent obviously).
I decided to repot her in mid April since she had been in the same soil for about 8 years and desperately needed it but now she is so unhappy! I let her soil dry out completely then I repotted her into a new unglazed terracotta pot and gave a heavy water but then she started to wilt within maybe two weeks of that. Note that I lightly watered her maybe once or twice between October and April and she was kept indoors in moderate light.
So even though it would cause more stress I opted to take her back out of that soil and let her sit out for a day to dry and removed as much soil from the roots before putting her back into her original pot with an even grittier mix.
For those 8 years she's been in 50% cactus mix and 50% perlite but it did seem like it was holding a bit too much water when I made the same mixture this time around (her old mix wasn't holding any water or nutrition for that matter because of its age). I pruned a few squishy brown roots away but there weren't many that looked bad and her roots seemed good for the most part.
Now she's in around 25% cactus mix, 50% perlite, and 25% sand. I have not watered her since moving her into this new mix and it is 100% bone dry. I'm afraid to water her. She does have new growth down inside where her stalks are spreading open as well as a few aerial roots. Her stalks aren't squishy at all just weak and yellow on the inside but I'm not sure if they are yellow just because light never reached the inner parts before. Is this just stress doing this or something else?? 😠when should I water her? Thank you!!