I received these as a gift. I do like cactus but not in this presentation, will they ever grow back to their proper color? I will keep them no matter what.

thanks
Anole

The new growth won't be painted (it will look "normal"), but as to if the paint will come off over time, I'm not sure.

I detest those things. Hard to say how long they will stay that way. The marketing jerks and execs that allow that trashing of plants should be shot. I do not know what the "base" of the dye used is or I might suggest something. I have never observed one closely as I am repulsed.

I don't know is blasting them gently with a water stream would work. Maybe someone can chime in.

Looks like it may be this kind, where the spines are colored, but not the body of the plant.
http://www.costafarms.com/plan...

Best to leave alone. In a few years, most will be gone. All new growth will be natural. Whatever washes away the coloring will most likely kill the plant.

I will leave them as is, I am thinking that they will grow out of this phase. It will be an experiment and I will keep all posted.
thanks for all the comments.

Anole

Stush2019 said:Best to leave alone. In a few years, most will be gone. All new growth will be natural. Whatever washes away the coloring will most likely kill the plant.

:-((

anole said:It will be an experiment and I will keep all posted.
thanks for all the comments.

Anole

Please do, and thank you! I'm curious if it's permanent or not. I'd be lying if I said the painted varieties didn't interest me at first, but by the third or fourth time I saw them in the store I was more or less over the novelty of them. Plants already come in such a beautiful range of colors that the painted varieties no longer hold much interest for me. I'm glad I didn't purchase one, but it would ease my mind to know that it doesn't harm the plants (in the same way it would ease my mind if live Christmas trees were super expensive to discourage some of the massive number of trees cut down each year).

These day, virtually all Christmas trees come from sustaining farmed tree farms where more are planted than harvested.

Indeed, by far most christmas trees are grown like any other cut-flower. During their growth they are pruned, fertilized and treated to slow their growth to get the 'perfect' christmas tree. If you see such a field you will also notice how absolutely boring perfection is!! The remainder (over here at least) are sold by the owners of natural reserves: a cheap way to get rid of as many of them as possible! The money they make is used to chop down more to keep the heather fields open which would overgrow and change to wood otherwise.
(here an impression at some randomly chosen grower: http://brinkman-nordmann.nl/fl... )

Those painted Cactus and even worse Echeveria are sold over here too. The latter are painted with glow-in-the-night paints... so do NOT look at this site if you have a weak constitution...: http://www.greencre8.nl/assort... and yes, there exist people who love this...

Ruud

Next thing you know the big box stores will start selling spray paint in the garden section for the DIY gardeners. Yes, this is too horrible to look at.

Anole

Ruud! Those are wild. My guess is the color doesn't harm the plant. If you look at the enlarged photos you can see normal offsets on several. It wouldn't take too long to get back to a natural plant via normal growth. But why? Just acquire a plastic plant and get the look without any care except the occasional dusting .

I saw them in person a few days ago at HD - they were horrid. Disgusting.

Yes they are. But the person buying them, after awhile will maybe get a chance to under stand and love them for what they are. And can get some of those colors naturally or even better, two-tone colors. We who know better find this horrid.

This one lasted about a month and then totally collapsed in the center. I had picked it up because I was curious!

Take it back and get your money back.

Too late. I tossed it!

Ursula said:This one lasted about a month and then totally collapsed in the center. I had picked it up because I was curious!

It would seem to me that for this one the way it was "painted" they likely trashed the poor plants ability to photosynthesize.

DavidLMO said:I detest those things. Hard to say how long they will stay that way. The marketing jerks and execs that allow that trashing of plants should be shot. I do not know what the "base" of the dye used is or I might suggest something. I have never observed one closely as I am repulsed.

I don't know is blasting them gently with a water stream would work. Maybe someone can chime in.

I agree water should get some paint off. If it's warm enough for cacti outside leave outside so natural rain will wash them off and give much needed sunlight as the paint blocks the leaves from photosynthesis.

Regarding the thing I posted - I thought that color was really solid, I don't think it would have come off one way or another, even washing it.