Notes from a south-facing windowsill. Cacti, succulents, and a slowly improving watering hand.
Spent the weekend repotting all nine pots. The new mix is roughly 60% pumice, 20% crushed lava, 10% coarse sand, and a pinch of real soil for trace elements. Water now runs straight through instead of pooling on the surface, and the roots I saw while unpotting were white and firm. Should have switched years ago.
From October the south window stops behaving like one: under eleven hours of daylight, and the sun sits too low to reach the shelf. Hung a small full-spectrum bar above the plants, on a timer from 7 to 19. Two weeks in, the Mammillaria has fresh white fuzz at the crown. The Haworthia, as always, does not care either way.
My Echeveria 'Perle von Nürnberg' went translucent at the base and dropped four leaves in a week. Unpotting settled it: store peat left on the roots, plus me watering on schedule anyway, and the roots had turned to mush. Beheaded the healthy top, callused it a week, and it is now rerooting in bone-dry pumice. New rule: when unsure whether to water, wait three days, then check again.
Moved the hardy ones to the kitchen window, which holds 13–15°C by the glass at night. One last soak for the cacti, then almost no water until late February. They seem to enjoy the neglect: my Echinopsis shrank a little last winter and then flowered in May, so the old forum growers may be onto something.