Yes, I Talk to Plants: Christmas Cactus

Friday, February 3, 2012

Christmas Cactus - Update #1

I've been keeping an eye on my Christmas cactus*. As I mentioned in a previous post about the cactus, it is in desperate need of a trim.

January 3, 2012
Near the end of the first flush of flowers.

February 2, 2012

As you can see most of the flowers are gone, but if you look closely at the branches by the window you can make out the pink of some new flowers. More on that a little later....

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Although the branches are still encroaching on the sink, I have to keep the pruning snips away until it is done blooming. Which is really hard because whenever I walk past it I fixate on what branches need to go. This was quickly becoming annoying - and potentially obsessive-compulsive. If only I could mark the branches where I need to cut? String would work. No, our cat Oliver

Oliver "hiding" in the cactus jungle to watch the birds.

loves string and would either pull the string off, pull parts of the cactus off while trying to get the string off, or possibly pull the whole plant down. Can't have that. Wait, I know! Twist ties! There is a whole jar of extra twist ties in a drawer, so I chose all the green ones, cut them in two and loosely folded them over the part of the branch where I will make the cut.

Sorry this is such a jumble. It was really hard to get a
decent photo of the places where I put the twist ties.

Perfect! Now I don't have to obsessively fumble through the plant trying to remember which branches I had decided to prune out the last time I obsessively fumbled through the plant. There is another part that I couldn't mark because it so thick and can hardly see what I'm doing. That area will have to be prune after I prune the marked branches.

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Now on to the flowers. The first flush of flowers were pinched off as they wilted, but there were still multiple buds on the plant. Would they bloom too, or just wither?

Thankfully, they decided to bloom! It's tricky to see them and to get photos of them since they're against the window. The second flush isn't quite as showy as the first and a bit more scattered, but they are still a treat. Especially in February!