nan to the rescue once again (Christmas Cactus)

Member Name: barbie84

Product:	Christmas Cactus
Date:	11/03/08 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great flowers

Disadvantages: none

Christmas cactuses are lovely house plants which produce a lovely flower from early december to late january.

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.

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.

Summary: a briliant house plant