Holiday Cactus Care and Tips From Expert Plant Man

The holidays are often associated with particular plants like poinsettia, siklamen, and evergreen wreaths. Joining me is Lori Watson of Mill Creek greenhouses to talk about my favorite group of holiday plants the holiday cactus. Lori obviously these are particularly interesting to me but I understand you have an affinity for holiday cactus as well. Yes, I always have a special memory of Olivia Ragsdale, and Charles Weisinger who is now retired but grew Christmas cactuses around the Columbia area one at the farmers market and one at his farm in Chapin. neat memories that's what I love about plants and this particular plant is one that I gave my grandmother about ten years ago. So I love that I can continue to watch it grow and flower each year and it will be a memory that I hope to have for many years to come. True and it doesn't look like a ten-year-old plant. It's aging gracefully. Yes, and you have a plant that belongs to family members as well. Yes, my mother in law this is her beautiful cactus right there. How neat well we should probably let our viewers know that we are taping this at the end of November so if that's important to as we look at how the plants are actually appearing today and try to talk about holiday cactus and you mentioned Christmas cactus and it can be very confusing to a consumer and I believe actually everything pictured here is a Thanksgiving cactus. Right. So we'll try to explain a little bit about the difference they are all in the genus Schlumbergera lets hope

I got that Latin correct and that what we know about the stem segments and when we're looking at a thanksgiving cactus we can tell by. The leaves of the stems. That's right. And then the thorns look or like the holly leaf. It looks like a holly leaf. So its serrated edges, yes and so most of what I see everything that's pictured here has those serrations on the margins of the stem segments or the fellow clads and it doesn't matter what color it happens to be there's an assortment of both and these are pretty easy plants to grow originally native to Brazil in rain forest areas I don't think when people think of cactus they probably imagine arid deserts. Right. Right. That is an interesting thing to that they're they liked sort of their moisture and humidity that surrounds on more than just something that's full sun and arid. And that's right so they grow as epiphytes which is incredible to me so I think of an epiphyte as an orchid it is growing just on something not with its roots down in the soil like we think of most plants. And so I think that's why these can be a little bit tricky to grow in that they do want the water because they come from those moist areas but they don't want to be waterlogged. They don't want to have those wet feet right. Now what I always people ask me is how do you get them to flower? Well, they like cooler temperatures and long nights. That's right. Yes, that photoperiod is really critical in an indoor setting now left outdoors like you said in temperatures about fifty degrees they will flower regardless of light or dark conditions but I'm about you I don't like fifty degrees in my house. No, I don't. That's way too cold. So in a household setting there going to be looking for about fourteen hours of darkness. which is is what would be occurring around that thanksgiving time. Right. But it can sometimes be interrupted by the light that we have in our house. Just our natural light so a closet. You certainly know I have my thanksgiving cactus is in my dining room and then I have one in my bathroom as well and so they're not generally affected by lighting outside of the normal daylight hours but if you do have it say in a living room where you might be having a light on until eleven or twelve o'clock at night and you want to ensure that you get flowers. You can put it in a closet so it gets that you know fourteen hours of the dark period to trigger those. Now once it gets once it starts to flower get those buds then it doesn't matter. It's all set to go and you can take it out don't have to worry about the dark anymore.

Right. You might want to watch a little bit on the watering because the buds will start to drop if it gets too wet. That's right. It can be a little finicky. Just in the flowering period otherwise, during the year, they're just wonderful. They really are and propagation is easy to which is great as were mentioning memory so you know I would be very sad if this plant if something happened to it. So I could take some stem cuttings and I could propagate and then even if this one passed away. I would still have those segments to continue on. Yes, and it seems fairly easy even just for a child to show them how a leaf and stem node would root. That right. just really neat. Just within several weeks, you would almost have a new leaf showing. Yes and so we're recording this and at the end of November so it's really wouldn't be the appropriate time to DO propagation that would be more springtime. Spring early summer because they're just like any other plant they like the winter dormancy a little bit that there that's not their active time of growing. So and then a little fertilizer early summer just up to about maybe August but then I was sort of finish with the fertilizing then before the bloom period. You know I kind of neglect my house plants and I'll tell you that this plant has never been fertilized and it's doing just fine. It looks beautiful. It really does it now it needs to be reported they tend to do kind of an okay or prefer to have sort of a little bit of root bond setting but this one is probably overdone. When would be the best time to report and. They're active growing season yeah well that warmer conditions outside and they love to be outside. Yes as long as you remember they can't take the bright direct sun. Correct they didn't be like under a dogwood pine tree that doesn't get a lot of hot suns. So getting some filtered light and we need to make sure that we bring it in before it gets probably below fifty would you say because otherwise then you're going to suffer some yeah cold damage you learned that the hard way. We have quite an assortment of color here today and that's you know something that's attractive about holiday cactus they can go with anything. They really can with any decor of your Christmas decorations just the colors festive. Yeah I mean there is red there's hot pink there's light pink there's peach there's white I mean surely you can find somewhere in your house that it can fit in. Yes. If folks would like to know more about holiday cactus what's the best way to get in touch with you. Were on Leesburg Road in Columbia. Mill Creek greenhouses. We have a Facebook page and a web page. Sounds like that where there's a will there's away. there is yeah. No matter whether it's a thanksgiving cactus a Christmas cactus its sure to add beauty and activities to your holidays season.