As the holidays approach I'm seeing more and more of the showy Christmas cactus. These tropical houseplants are fun and easy to grow. Though they grow in a similar environment to orchids, the Christmas cactus doesn't require as much care as the orchid in order to produce its flowers. It's an ideal container gardening plant as it can live quite easily inside.
A long living plant, some Christmas cactus plants have even been passed on beyond one generation indeed lasting hundreds of years. To insure lots of flowering of these plants, it's important to remember a couple of tips on light, temperature and amount of watering.
Christmas cactus likes darkness at night, so place the plant where it receives total darkness at night and indirect sunlight by day.Professional growers encourage these plants to blossom for the holidays by putting them in darkness for up to 3/4 of the day. A tropical plant originally from the Brazilian mountains, where warm sunny days mixed with cool nights the Christmas cactus requires humidity to successfully grow and blossom.
It's a good idea to place the plant pot on top of a humidity tray (gravel on a saucer filled halfway with water). Even though the plant likes humidity it does not like wet feet. Over watering is a cause of the flower buds dropping off the plant. The Christmas cactus flowers best when pot bound.
Want to create more plants? Break off a segment of the plant, dip in rooting hormone and place in potting soil. In about 2-3 weeks your new cutting should be nicely rooted.
As it's easy to grow and care for, the Christmas cactus is particularly well suited to adaptive gardening and enabled gardening. Consider this a plant to add to your inside plant collection for adaptive gardening enjoyment.
All in a gardener's day,
Photo courtesy of Emmanuelm
