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 These plants need 14 hours of uninterrupted
darkness each night to set flowers for the winter holidays. Starting
between late September and October 1st, cover or move your plants
into a dark location each night. Shield them from any outdoor,
street or reading lights that can delay or prevent flowering.
Uncover or move your plants back to a brightly lit location each
morning. Growing the plants in a cooler location, especially at
night, and keeping the soil slightly drier will help stimulate
bloom. Some experts believe this is all that is needed to rebloom
Christmas cactus. A combination of the two treatments seems to give
the best results.
The colorful parts of the poinsettia are the bracts, often called
the flowers. These are leaves that turn color after the dark
treatment. The true poinsettia flower is the knobby yellow growth
that appears in the center of the colorful bracts at the tip of
stem.
Continue the dark treatment until the poinsettia bracts are fully
colored or your Christmas cactus is covered with well-developed
buds. Move the flowering plants to a cool, bright location free of
hot and cold drafts. Continue to water thoroughly and often enough
to keep the soil slightly moist while the plants are flowering. This
is especially important to prevent bud and flower drop on Christmas
cactus.
Consistently providing the required dark period is key to having
flowers for the holidays. Each missed or interrupted 14-hour night
delays blooming by one day. There is no need to give up after a
couple of interrupted nights. Just enjoy the event when your
poinsettia does bloom. Their colorful bracts are sure to brighten
any winter day.
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If your poinsettia fails to flower, you can still
enjoy your plant this winter. Just add some faux poinsettia blooms,
berry sprays or other floral décor. No one needs to know this wasn’t
the plan all along.
Don’t be surprised if flowers appear on your Christmas cactus at
Thanksgiving. Although sold as a Christmas cactus, it may truly be a
Thanksgiving cactus or a hybrid of the two. The true Christmas
cactus has small segments with smooth edges and blooms later than
the Thanksgiving cactus with toothed or jagged segments.
Fortunately, the Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus’ growing
requirements and care are basically the same. The plants will do
fine; they just bloom during different holidays. Both are native to
the tropical rain forests, not the desert, as their common name
implies. They both prefer bright light, high humidity, and a
thorough watering when the top few inches of soil begin to dry when
they are actively growing.
Enjoy the experience as well as the results. As with any gardening
endeavor, the fun is in trying something new.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including
the recently released Midwest Gardener’s Handbook, 2nd Edition and
Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow
Anything” instant video and DVD series and the nationally syndicated
Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and
contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and her website is
www.MelindaMyers.com.
[Photo courtesy of MelindaMyers.com] |
