Here’s a quick two-minute guide on Taking Care of Your Christmas Cactus for the holiday season, so it stays healthy and blooms for long!
Taking Care of Your Christmas Cactus is important to make sure it blooms during holiday time. With this quick guide, you will be able to do it without any problems!
Learn all about making Christmas Cactus bloom around Christmas here
Taking Care of Your Christmas Cactus
1. Use a Correct Size Pot
Make sure that you are not growing the plant in an overly large pot. Christmas cactus does best when kept in a slightly root-bound state. Your pot should be just an inch or two or, in another way, only one size bigger than the plant’s rootball.
2. Maintain the Right Temperature
Do not let the temperature drop below 60 F (15 C) in the day, and keep the plant at a spot with a range above 55 F (12 C) at night. Generally, a temperature around 65-70 F (18-22 C) is good for the plant.
3. Provide Right Amount of Light
Keep the plant in bright indirect light. Gentle morning sunlight for 2-4 hours daily also supports it. Avoid exposing it to the harsh afternoon sunlight. Also, keep the plant away from windowpanes, A/C, and heating vents.
Sudden changes in the light exposure promote bud drop!
4. Take Care of Its Watering Needs
Overwatering the plant in winters will cease flowering, and lack of water will make the leaves wilt and encourage flowers to fall. Water regularly to keep the soil evenly moist slightly but in a way that topsoil becomes a bit dry between watering spells.
5. Humidity is Important
While taking care of your Christmas cactus, it is important that you understand it’s an epiphytic plant that belongs to the rainforests of Brazil, which is why it doesn’t like dry air.
Maintain 50-60% humidity to promote flowering and good growth. Keep the pot on a saucer with pebbles and halfway water. The water will then evaporate, making the micro atmosphere around it humid.
6. Maintain Darkness to Promote Flowering
From mid-September, keep it in the darkness of 14-16 hours (or at least 12 hours) and 8-9 hours of bright indirect sunlight (no harsh direct sunlight) for at least 4-6 weeks or until the buds appear.
Even after it flowers, it is better to provide it a dark night, cutting all the artificial lights around it after the evening. This measure promotes a long-lasting blooming period.
7. Fertilize it Right
Feed your cactus with a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer like 20-20-20 or 20-10-20. Use a weak dose (half or one-quarter of the recommended strength), once in 2-4 weeks, from March to October (or up to November).
This will strengthen the roots and overall growth of the plant.
These tips are so great. It’s how I manage my Xmas Cactus. Much obliged for an extraordinary enlightening web journal.
I was given a cactus plant that bloom for a while but now has since stopped. The leaves droop on one side of the pot I did not know about the humidity level watering tips and such. Does it need to be repotted since I’ve had it for about 6 months? Should the plant be repotted and watered from the bottom?
I have a Christmas cactus that is 22 years old…She flowers faithfully..I have had her in a huge pot since I got her from a friend…I am so afraid to repot her..My plant is 2 feet high and same around…How and when do I repot this beauty