Christmas Cactus is an Easy to Grow Houseplant

Were you lucky enough to get a flowering Christmas cactus as a gift for the holidays? Or maybe you gave in to temptation and bought one when you saw all of those irresistible flowers. After all, the Christmas cactus is a stunning houseplant when it's in full bloom. Now maybe you're wondering if you should toss it out with the poinsettias you bought, too. A houseplant as striking as a Christmas cactus can't be easy to grow, right?

Ah, but it is easy. This tropical cactus only looks difficult. The Christmas cactus is easy to grow and incredibly hardy. Even if mine never bloomed again, I would still love it for the bright green, pendulous and segmented leaves. But it does bloom every year with little effort. It's also easy to propagate and share with friends. So pick a color (or two) that you love from the large selection of colors available. The Christmas cactus puts on a show in bright shades of pinks, reds, purples, oranges, corals, yellow and whites.

The Christmas cactus is in the genus Schlumbergera which is part of the Cactaceae family. They can usually be found for sale at home improvement stores, garden centers or the floral department in grocery stores. The house plant is usually sold to coincide with each hybrid's bloom time such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and even Easter. That's because different hybrids of Schlumbergera bloom anywhere from early fall through spring.

It really is difficult to tell the various hybrids apart by the minute differences in rounded or pointed leaf shapes. But just for curiosity sake, the actual Christmas cactus which is usually sold for the holidays is Schlumbergera x buckleyi and the Thanksgiving variety is Schlumbergera x truncata. Then of course, as growers will do, they cross and re-cross and double-cross (you get the picture) until the hybrids are plentiful and we sometimes aren't sure what we have anymore. But we know we like them!

So no matter which Schlumbergera you have, it's a tender perennial or tropical houseplant depending on where you live. Since I live in a zone colder than USDA Zone 9a to USDA 11, my little Christmas cactus is a houseplant. It's a very reliable and uncomplicated one that has been with me for more than 20 years. I just can't remember how much longer than 20 because I'm not as young as I used to be either. It blooms for me each year without much ado. How's that for faithful?

To further prove that it doesn't matter one iota whether you have the true Christmas cactus or some other hybrid, mine changes its bloom time with environmental conditions anyway. Those times have varied anywhere from fall through early spring. My dear old Schlumbergera in the photograph usually blooms around Christmas time. But it has been known to bloom in early fall as well as early spring. I'm sure there was a reason for its change in behavior. It might have been moved to a new location. It might have needed to be repotted or possibly I had just repotted it. I hate to admit that it's possible I took the poor thing for granted and neglected it. Whatever the case was for those years, my Christmas cactus lived up to its name again this year. It was right on cue for Christmas.

Soil & Water

Don't scrimp on cheap potting soil. I admit to being a bargain shopper, but not with potting soil. Those cheap bags of heavy potting soil will kill your plants. Use a good quality potting soil especially for indoor/outdoor container plants. It doesn't need to be soil specially formulated for cacti plants. A soil for indoor container houseplants has plenty of peat moss and perlite or vermiculite which givesyour Christmas cactus sufficient drainage.

They need more water than most cacti, but don't let them stay soggy. Allow the soil to dry out between waterings. It can even survive a little negligent watering. The time to water faithfully is when the plant begins forming buds. Don't let it get bone-dry repeatedly or it will drop the buds. I usually water mine once weekly when it's in bloom and during hot weather. After it finishes blooming in the winter though, I usually water once every 2 weeks.

Light

Give it bright light from a sunny window. My Christmas cactus sits on a shelf beside a sunny south window but I've had in locations with less light. If you decide to put the Christmas cactus outdoors for the summer, put it in shade only. Direct sunlight will scorch the leaves.

Fertilizer

Christmas cacti are not heavy feeders so they really don't require much fertilizer at all. It's fine to fertilize every other month with a balanced fertilizer. I've always used a 20-20-20 fertilizer on all of my plants for as long as I can remember. If you're over zealous with fertilizing, then limit it to one time each month, but certainly don't feed it every time you water. I've actually gone much longer without fertilizing by just adding a little fresh potting soil.

Flowers

I've heard that Christmas cactus should have 11 to 12 hours of total darkness each night very similar to the poinsettia's needs. This has never been true from my own experience. My old faithful has never been in total darkness at night. It is in my bathroom and I do turn on lights in my bathroom at night and previously it was in my bedroom. I suppose the shorter days of autumn and winter produce enough hours of darkness for my Christmas cactus to bloom. Cool nights are also important to promote flowers and my house meets this requirement in winter. I keep my heat around 65 degrees when I sleep due to my own need for cool nights. If given the right conditions, the plant will usually flower from 2 to 5 weeks.

Propagation

Christmas cactus is easy to propagate by leaf cuttings. Each leaf segment will root if you simply stick them in soil. It really is that simple. The leaves will send out roots on either end of each leaf segment. I've accidently broken leaves off of my plant. I just stick them back in the soil at the base of the plant and they root without any effort on my part. An even better alternative is to share them with a friend. It doesn't get much easier than that