HOLIDAY CACTI CARE

 

Christmas Cactus (Sabine at Pixabay)

Holiday Cacti Care

Holiday Cacti are indoor ornamental plants that flower from early November and through the holiday season in December. They add bright spots of color indoors and work well in containers and hanging baskets. There are many choices for flowers with colors from white, red, lavender, pink, and salmon-orange. They are non-toxic and can be safely displayed in homes with pets and children. With proper care, a holiday cactus will reward you with beautiful blooms year after year, adding a festive touch to your home during the holiday season.

Thanksgiving Cacti (Schlumbergera truncata)

Christmas Cacti (Schlumbergera × buckleyi)
Easter Cacti (Hatiora gaertneri)

Thanksgiving cactus (left) has pointed margins. Christmas cactus (center) has scalloped margins. Easter cactus (right) has rounded margins. Photo: Ken Johnson, University of Illinois Extension.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Cacti

Light: These cacti are short-day plants (days shorter, nights longer). They need 12-14 hours of uninterrupted darkness per day to set buds for flowering. Flower buds will not set if the darkness is interrupted for 2 or more hours. Once flower buds have been set, day/night length will not affect flowering. Place your plant in an area of bright, indirect light.

After temperatures warm up in the spring, plants can be set outside in light shade. Too much light can sunburn the plants.

Temperature: These plants prefer temperatures between 60-70°F with 68° during the day and a slightly cooler 60°F at night as optimum. Keep them away from drafts and heating vents.

Watering:  Test the top of the soil for dryness. Water from the top down, wetting the potting soil thoroughly. While budding and flowering keep the soil evenly moist but avoid overwatering. If conditions dry out too much while in flower, the buds or flowers will drop off prematurely. Be sure there is proper drainage to prevent root rot.

Humidity: Holiday cacti appreciate humidity, and bathrooms are a popular spot for containers.. You can increase humidity by misting the plant.

Fertilization: Feed your cactus monthly during the growing season (spring and summer) with a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer. Reduce feeding during the fall and winter.

Flowering: To encourage blooms, provide a period of darkness (12-14 hours) each day for about six weeks starting in the fall. This mimics the natural shortening of days and stimulates flower buds to form.

After Bloom Care: Once flowering ends, plants can be pruned to encourage new growth and maintain shape. Move the plant to a cooler area and water less frequently.

Thanksgiving and Christmas cacti can rebloom with proper care. After blooming let the spent flowers fall off or gently remove them. After blooming, water less frequently.

These plants can be easily propagated. For information on propagation go to the Penn State Extension: Holiday Cacti Care site (https://extension.psu.edu/holiday-cacti-care)

NO BLOOMS?

Holiday cacti are short-day plants and need at least 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Darkness means no artificial light from indoor sources and even nearby streetlights. To ensure the plant is in darkness while it is setting flower buds, cover the whole plant with a box or dark cloth allowing for ventilation.

To avoid premature bud drop, don't move holiday cacti to a new location until the first flowers start to open. Any sudden change in environmental conditions can cause flower buds to drop off.  Once the first flowers begin to open they can be moved.

Temperature may also cause flowers to fail. They need to stay in the range of 60°F to 65°F at night and no more than 70°F during the day.  The Easter cactus differs from other holiday cacti primarily in its season of bloom. Plants bloom from March through May with pink or red flowers. It occasionally blooms again in early fall. The stem segments of Easter cacti are smoother than the other holiday cacti, with 4-6 slight ripples along their edges, and brownish hair-like bristles at their tips.

Easter Cacti

The Easter cactus differs from other holiday cacti primarily in its season of bloom. Plants bloom from March through May with pink or red flowers. It occasionally blooms again in early fall. The stem segments of Easter cacti are smoother than the other holiday cacti, with 4-6 slight ripples along their edges, and brownish hair-like bristles at their tips.

It has a more regimented temperature and light requirement to produce blooms.  During the short days of fall plants require temperatures of 60-70°F for 3-4 weeks followed by temperatures of 47-55°F for 4-6 weeks. After this short day and cooling requirement have been met, plants should be grown under longer days in a room with a temperature of 60-70°F.  This complicated series of day-length and temperature requirements can sometimes happen naturally through the winter months to allow for bloom in spring.  However, if these conditions and timing are not met, the Easter cactus will not likely flower.

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                                              HERB SAMPLER Second Edition

Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more as the winter holidays approach – hostess gifts, housewarming and holiday presents.

Copies available locally at the Hip Gypsy Emporium in Duffield. 

The Second Edition Herb Sampler (2019) is available through Amazon. 

Just click this link to find it. 

I Write: The Umbrella Man

At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. 

The prompt for October 2025 was Broken Things.

The Umbrella Man

He came around our small mill town neighborhood riding on an old bicycle, the large black seat worn through at the back to the yellow lining. On the front was a large basket filled with tools of one sort or another and on the back was a shelf that reached out over the back fender. Hanging from both sides of the shelf were two bulky leather saddlebags with large buckles. And on the shelf was a tall metal basket filled with a variety of things – maybe a jar of miscellaneoeus keys, a roll of rubber strips, a bundle of metal rods and wooden dowels, or some unidentifiable object.

It was Carl, the umbrella man, a tinker by another name. His claim to fame was fixing broken umbrellas but he fixed a lot of other things, too.

It seemed that whenever he was around for the week, boxes of broken things would appear on doorsteps or at the end of a sidewalk.

Carl could be found sitting on the ground, cross-legged, fiddling with things from a box. You could see him rifling through the objects in his baskets, grabbing a screwdriver, or disappearing on his bike to bring back something that would let him fix whatever he was working on.

Whether is was a repaired doll chair, a restrung bow, or a small tin construction crane, he would leave it on the door step and not ask for payment.

Often we would see a neighbor running after him to offer payment and he did not refuse the offering.

GARDEN AND LIFE NOTES - MY AD-FREE BLOG

 

GARDEN  AND  LIFE  NOTES

Did you know I have an AD-FREE blog? 

https://gardenandlifenotes.blogspot.com/

It is a combination of gardening information and some of my writing. Stories can be a mix of truth and fiction, other just fiction or just reporting facts or observations.

GARDENING AND NATURE INFORMATION

If you click around on the blog you will find lots of articles about gardening. If you see my name at the bottom with a "MG" after it, it will be an article for the Master Gardener program. I just put them here as we don't have a blog or anywhere to put them on the internet to share.

I WRITE -  You can search in the upper right box for I Write

At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes a poem.

Leave comments if so inclined but no punctuation comments as I am not a fan of the Oxford comma. And, after all, it is MY writing.

HERB SAMPLER BOOK

https://www.amazon.com/Herb-Sampler-Second-Carol-Kagan/dp/1482067463

You can also read about my published book Herb Sampler here. If you know me, I can sell you an autographed copy in person for less than Amazon charges. But I still get royalties from Amazon if you buy there but not enough to bump me up tax brackets.

~    ~     ~     ~

                                              HERB SAMPLER Second Edition

Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more as the winter holidays approach – hostess gifts, housewarming and holiday presents.

Copies available locally at the Hip Gypsy Emporium in Duffield. 

The Second Edition Herb Sampler (2019) is available through Amazon. 

Just click this link to find it.