Sunday, November 29, 2020

Cactus revisited

Last fall I wrote about my two cactus plants.

This September we decided to transplant my mother's cactus. It just didn't look like a healthy plant to me anymore. The transplant didn't help, so I threw it out. I looked it up and saw that the lifespan is 20-30 years. I gave it to my mother in 1972, so it has already beat the odds. 

The "anything but fuchsia" is still going strong, and here it is today.


Blurry but kinda cool.

15 comments:

  1. We always call that one "Christmas Cactus."

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    1. I used to until it started blooming other times of the year, and usually at holiday times!

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  2. It is always so difficult to throw out a much loved plant but you gotta do what you gotta do. Your new plant looks terrific despite the fuchsia.

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    1. Especially when it was that plant.
      I just bought one with that pink/apricot sort of color. So now I have two again!

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  3. Like Jill, I know this type of cactus by the name "Christmas Cactus", too.
    Love the wreath on your header photo!

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    1. It is so beautiful. The maker said these are a "trend" now - that partial area with no greens. I bought an indoor one last year that was like that, too. I just loved it. Had no idea it was trendy.

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  4. I'm looking forward to having more plants once we move into the house that has lots of window sills and light.

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  5. Ours just started blooming last week, just in time for Thanksgiving. Out of curiosity, how often do you water yours?

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    1. I water from the bottom, and only do it when the soil is dry down a ways. I learned that from Monty Don on Gardeners' World. He mists every day and waters only from the bottom. Made a lot of sense to me so I now do so.

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    2. So, to be clear, you add water to the tray in which the pot sits? But you don't bother misting?

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    3. I mist all my plants every day, and yes, add water to tray! At last count I have 17.

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  6. I had a great big heirloom Christmas cactus blow over when a very hard wind came through our area. It broke the old cactus all to pieces. The old Cactus grew leaves back out to fill itself in again. All of the parts that were broke off, I took sections that usually had what looked like a tiny root already starting on the leaf and put the sections into a flower pot of potting soil with about a 1/4 inch layer of sand to help hold the sections up. All of the sections took root and by the following year I had another beautiful Christmas Cactus. In the case of the type of Christmas cactus that I had, it was easy to root from the leaf sections that were about 3 or 4 leaves long. I had quite a few sections to work with, so they filled in the pot pretty well when first planted.

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