A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 ??blooming x-mas cactus???

i noticed today that i have a few blooms on my x-mas cactus it starts blooming around thanksgiving,although this year it was octoer,and it has been known to have a few blooms near easter. i think it's confused. and i have noticed as of late that some of it's branches are dropping off

My mom had a Christmas cactus that seemed to always bloom around T'giving. I was really surprised when I looked in a houseplant book, and in it was what they called a Thanksgiving cactus -- it looked just like hers that was called Xmas cactus. Hmmm! Guess it just likes holidays, any holiday Jane

Hi Phoenix,

My landlord has one that was doing that too this year. He repotted his and took some and put it in a second pot. I have no idea how since I don't own one and never have. But his plant is back to acting normal.

I read an ed hume article that said leaf drop and even joints is natural after blooming it's a kind of rest period for the plant. I don't know if this is of any help.

The article also stated that a healthy plant might bloom several times a year.

Booth of my christmas cactuses have a few blooms on them. They only have a few of them though. Connie

have you ever heard of "Christmas in July"? I have a cactus that blooms every July without fail. I guess I should be thankful it blooms at all

mine just finished "blooming" if you can call 3 blooms blooming... but, since it is the first bloom since i potted it up, i'm not complaining...

thank you all for your replies
i LOVE this plant it was my mother's mother's mother's.....and so on . very old(i like to call it ancient(SP)and with the degree of leaf/branch loss i was a little worried i may need to re-pot it. it's been in this same terra cotta pot (1'-1&1/2' tall and maybe 2'around) ever since i can remember. thanx again

I bought one of these in full bloom back in late November...I had to have it because the blooms were white and I had never seen one with white flowers.

Since, it has bloomed continually about every 6 weeks. I am keeping it outside (gotta love FL for some things I suppose), hanging from a tree so it gets dappled sunlight. I water 3 times a week and feed every other week and it continues to bloom.

I haven't had much luck with Christmas cactus myself. I tried multiple things to get them to thrive without luck. I did a lot of research on it too. The blooming is triggered according to the plants photo-period; amount of light it gets during the day. I think the correct photo-period is 6 hours to get blooms

Hence, if you do nothing special, you can expect the cactus to bloom twice a year. Around which holiday depends on they type of lighting your cactus is getting. If you can simulate the correct amount of light, you can get it to bloom more than twice a year. GiraffeMSW is proof of that. The dappled sun is probably enough to simulate the proper photo period.

Again, the photo-period stuff is what I read. My success has not been that great.

That does make a bit of sense. My plant hangs on the shadier side of the tree, but still gets the dappled light.

I checked on it this afternoon, as this thread made me think of it. I know it was in bllom two months ago when a friend brought over a sago palm because she commented on it...it has 6 new blossoms about to open now.

I'm not moving it...ever!