I’ve got a big old Christmas cactus – old as in I’ve had it for more than 20 years. A nice reliable plant that blooms every year. It spends its summers on my front porch, and has spent its winters on my kitchen windowsill since I moved into this house 18 years ago. It’s really too big for that spot, though, so this year I put it in the bay window in the dining room/office. I was concerned that it might not get the right light, but it seems to have forgiven me – I just noticed a bud that’s already showing a little pink, and, looking more closely, there’s another half dozen flower buds on it.
Actually my Christmas cactus is blooming like crazy - it has about 5 flowers fully out now.
They’re sort of amazing things - my mom got one at X-mas one year, kept it out for the season and then stuffed it in a cupboard with the rest of the decorations.
The following year in November she went in there to start pulling out the decorations and the damn cactus was blooming. In a cupboard. After not being watered for 11 months. I believe they’re actually alien plants. I, for one, welcome our new cactus overlords.
Actually there are a few of types of Schlumbergera. Among them are Schlumbergera x buckleyi, the true Christmas cactus, and Schlumbergera truncata, the Thanksgiving Cactus.
True Christmas cactus have segments with rounded scallops and dark pink flowers. They are almost impossible to come by these days, unless you know someone with an heirloom plant, who will provide cuttings. I suspect that is what twickster has, because they grow large and are long-lived.
Thanksgiving cactus, which tend to bloom earlier, (hence the name) have segments with points and come in a variety of colors. They bloom freely, but are fussier in the long run, tending to shed segments periodically so it is rare to have a really large old plant. Three out of four of mine decided to throw a fit this year for some reason, and drop a bunch of segments. They’ve been getting exactly the same care for five years, and were doing great, but all of a sudden they decided to act up. They are just now starting to recuperate. The fourth is going along just fine. (Of course, twicks really knows her stuff, plantwise, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if her plant turned out to be a Thanksgiving cactus, after all.)
Well apparently our Thanksgiving Cactus is blooming now. Two flowers have been open for a couple days, but there will be over a hundred. I suspected it was this type. It’s a couple inches short of three feet in diameter. With this year having gone how it did, it seems like the cactus was blooming just a couple months ago.
The friends with a greenhouse have plants taken from his mother’s plant about three years ago. I see that they are the Easter cactus. I always liked them, because they were so different.
My rep for knowing plants is way exaggerated – Monstera is only one of a dozen people I can think of of who are way more knowledgeable than I am. For instance, I had no idea that there was a separate plant called the Thanksgiving cactus.
As she guessed, though, mine is a Christmas cactus, rounded scallops and all. I’ll take a picture tomorrow – I just tried with the flash and it made it look like the plant was in a police lineup
I tend to call them “holiday cactus” or Schlumbergera, because they really don’t respect their particular holiday once they acclimate to your home. Whenever they decide to bloom is their holiday. My original “Christmas” cactus is now more of a february/march cactus. It really cheers things up in late winter.
I’ve had mine or, at least cuttings from the original, I think possibly 10-15 years, and it’s moved with me back and forth across country.
I stole a cutting from my barber’s Schlumbergera a few months ago. That one had buds on it when I stole it, and the buds are still sitting there, waiting for the cutting to root & settle in. I don’t even know what color it will be.
I used to have a Christmas Cactus that bloomed once a year around this time. My boss has a HUGE old one, that blooms at Christmas and again at Easter. Anyone heard of them blooming twice like that?
I was her nanny for 10 years and saw it bloom twice a year every year.
