Page 146 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2024

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story by Gaye Winter
One of the loveliest blooming plants during the winter months is the Christmas Cactus. It is also referred to as Holiday Cactus and the Crab Cactus. A holiday cactus is a great gift because it re-blooms beautifully every year! They are also a nice addition to holiday décor. If you have any gardeners in your life, a Christmas Cactus is the perfect gift for them.
The Christmas Cactus blooms from Christmas to March. They are perennials that can be various colors including pink, white, purple, orange, or red. The plant originated in the Brazilian rainforest, so it can be found in cool and humid as well as shaded environments.
Caring for the holiday cactus is easy. If you want to keep your cactus inside, it will thrive with indirect light and cool areas away from air vents. Christmas cacti also grow well outside in the shade, usually in pots. You can also grow all varieties of
this cactus any time of the year indoors
as a houseplant until the summer when you can replant or move it outdoors. To help with the humidity, you can mist the plant or place a tray with pebbles or rocks underneath the pot.
It is easy to overwater cacti. Try to keep the soil moist, but be careful when watering. Proper drainage with a coarse soil and sharp sand help to prevent root rot. There is a cactus soil mix that is available at your garden store. Soggy soil can attract pests to your plant. If this happens, remove the pests with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.
Once buds set, the cactus needs 55°F to 65°F and 13 hours of darkness every night for the blooms to open. Soon flowers will appear. When this happens, you can move the plant to a bright location and resume care as normal.
To encourage more stems, grow your Christmas cactus where it has room
to drape, or you can always plant it as
a hanging plant. Clay or terracotta pots are the best as they are porous and keep water from plants that can be harmed by overwatering.
Propagating Christmas Cactus
After a cactus has finished blooming, taking cuttings from it will result in more blooms for the future. A Christmas cactus is best propagated from stem cuttings.
There are several ways to do this, but the easiest way is to root the stems in water before planting them in the soil. After you take the cutting from the plant, then put the cut end in 1 to 2 inches of water, in a window with indirect light. After several weeks, the stems should have roots at least 1 or 2 inches long and are ready to plant in potting soil.
Repotting Christmas Cactus
The Christmas Cactus does not like to be repotted and is often rootbound. If you decide it does need a larger pot, then wait until the blooming season ends and the flowers have wilted in early spring. Since these cacti are tropical, they do not tolerate frost and cold well. They prefer no lower than the 60s for night time lows. Freezing temperatures can kill the plants.
Make sure you bring the plant indoors before the first frost and you should begin to see buds forming by October.
Remember that a Christmas Cactus
can live for 20 -30 years if taken care of properly. Even if it stops blooming it may not be dead, so do not dispose of it. They are beautiful with or without blooms.
146 | December 2024
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
Gaye Winter, Ph.D., teaches English at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and is a member of Biloxi Garden Club. Reach her at gaye.winter@mgccc.edu.