Getting Your Thanksgiving Cactus to Bloom

I have discovered the secret to getting my Thanksgiving Cactus to bloom!

I had just about given up on getting my cactus to bloom. For two or three years in a row it never bloomed.

I wanted to give them away.

I wanted to put them in a yard sale. (I used to have two - one small and one large)

My husband wouldn't let me, even though I suspected he was partly the reason they never bloomed.

Why did I suspect he was part of the reason?

I had researched online about how to make them bloom. I tried doing what they said, but they like coolness and they like darkness.

My husband likes a warm house in the winter and he leaves lights on at night. I was fighting an uphill battle.

Well, last year I put my cactus on the front porch for the summer and I kept it there until the nights started getting a little too cool for comfort. I didn't want it to freeze. I brought it inside the garage and placed it on our chest type freezer until I had somewhere to put it in the house.

Well, after a few weeks I noticed red buds developing on the tips of the plant! More and more buds developed and they started turning into flowers.  Yeah!

I brought it in the house and it bloomed beautifully.

I did the same this year and it is in full bloom again.

The garage gave it the environment it longed for -- cool and dark.

 

I used to think it was a Christmas Cactus, but it has convinced me that it is a Thanksgiving Cactus. Either way, they are beautiful!

Do you have one?

Does it always bloom for you?

 

My Thanksgiving Cactus is Blooming

I have had a holiday cactus plant for a number of years. I've always called it a Christmas Cactus, but after a little research on the internet, I've concluded that it is a Thanksgiving Cactus. Here is a link you can go to and check out if yours is a Christmas or Thanksgiving plant.

I've threatened to get rid of them for a while now,  because they haven't bloomed for a number of years. But my husband wouldn't let me.

In fact, this past spring one of my plants lost a lot of its limbs. Large sections of it just fell off and I thought the entire plant was going to die. I put both my plants out on the front porch and hoped for the best.

Thankfully, the leaves stopped dropping off and they seemed to like being outside on the porch.

I've concluded what I had been doing wrong.
I was taking too good a care of them.
For one thing, I think I was watering them too much. I tend to forget to water my plants that I have on the porch, so that was good for them.

We kept them out on the porch until we felt the nights were getting too cold for them to be outside. Instead of bringing them in the house, I brought them inside and put them in the garage. I placed them on top of our old chest freezer we had out there and kind of forgot about them.

Lo and behold, my husband called me one Wednesday when I was down at the Senior Center where I volunteer (My cousin and I do crafts on Wednesday), and said, "Guess what? Our cactus plants are going to have flowers!" Well, I didn't believe him until I came home and saw them for myself.

The first picture is the one that almost died. 

As you can see they are full of blooms!

I left them in the garage for a while and brought them in one at a time to see if the shock of bringing them into a heated house would make the blooms drop or not. We keep our house fairly warm in the winter.

So far they are both doing fine.

So my advice for getting them to bloom is keeping them in a cool and dark place. Apparently our unheated garage was the perfect place for them to thrive. Cool and dark all night.

Now I know what to do every year.

Quit taking such good care of them!

Keep them cool and in the dark and don't over water them.

Do you have a holiday cactus? Which one do you have? Does yours bloom?

Christmas Cactus - Suggestions?

Christmas Cactus plants are so pretty!

Especially when in bloom.
Mine never bloomed last year.

Any suggestions? I need something to brighten my holidays.
Someone told me to not water them after November 1st.
Do I need to transplant the large one into a larger flowerpot or will that hurt it at this late date?

I need your help. Any Suggestions?

Posted by Janet F. Smart on Writing in the Blackberry Patch