by Gina Compton

Created on: June 15, 2008

Christmas cactuses are lovely house plants which produce a lovely flower from early december to late january.They will offer a nice touch of colour to any room during the festive season and are very easy to care for.

The flowers on these cactuses differ in colour on different plants but each plant has only one colour of flower on them. The colours are usually yellow, pink, purple or white all of which look equally as beautiful as the other.

my nan has always had these in her bathroom and they flower every year. She brought me two of them 3 years ago when they were in flower and they looked lovely, one purple and one white.
I keep them on my livingroom window sill so that they get lots of light and water them as soon as the soil in the top of the pot feels dry as they are not very good at tolerating drout like other cactuses.
I have a soil/ sand mix in my pot with good drainage holes in the bottom.
All of the above i have done the same as nan does with hers but mine didnt flower the year after and my nans did, i couldnt understand this untill nan asked me where i had moved them to, moved them i didnt know i had to.

Silly me, my christmas cactus didnt flower because i had got to put them somewhere cooler and with more hours of darkness to stimulate a winter for them before they would flower.

Last year i moved them into the kitchen at the end of september as the dark nights began and to my shock at the begining of december they began to bloom, i was so happy, i thought they never would but i had lovely flowers from early december right through untill the end of january. I have now moved them back into the living room for the summer and hopefully i will get flowers again next year.

Christmas cactuses are a very hardy plant that will survive for many years even with a owner like me who forgets to water them on odd occasions. they look fantastic when in flower but do look a little dull when they are not, they attract a lot of dust to there leaves so will need to be cleaned regularly to keep them loking nice aswell.during the summer months you could put your christmas cactus out in the green house if you wanted to to give it a lot more light than in the house but it is not capable of withstanding very cold temperatures or frosts so dont put it in the greenhouse untill the risk of frost has passed and remember to bring it back into the house before the first frosts of winter begin.

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