Musing Minds

2 Comments

• At 2008.03.20 06:57, Venomous Kate said:
  

  I have a Christmas cactus left here by the previous homeowner that I’ve managed to keep alive for 3 years now. (I usually kill house plants.) But the darned thing hasn’t bloomed in over a year.

  Any suggestions what I might be doing wrong?

  Venomous Kate’s last blog post..Word Fugue: The Sunny Day Edition

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• At 2008.03.20 08:45, kimsch said:
  

  Actually, I do. The Christmas Cactus is a not a cactus, but a tropical succulent. In the wild it gets a good dose of darkness every night as fall progresses. In homes though, we keep the lights on long after the sun goes to bed.

  The way to get your Christmas Cactus to bloom for Christmas is to put it in a closet that stays fairly dark most of the day (linen closets are good for that - you may not even go into it daily, but if you do it’s for a few minutes at a time).

  Put it in the closet between October 1st and October 15th. Leave it there until you see some budding at the ends of the leaves. There is no need to water the plant while it’s in the closet.

  This should only take a couple of weeks. If it takes longer, you can water. If it takes longer than 4-6 weeks it may not be your year, or you could get an Easter Cactus like I did!

  I put both plants in the closet at the same time. When the bigger plant began budding, I took them both out.

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