A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Christmas Cactus changed flowering season

I have a 30-year-old Christmas cactus, which has always been very healthy. When I was younger it used to have a lot of flowers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now it flowers a little before Thanksgiving,again before Easter, and sometimes a flower or two in late spring. I really don't mind the more frequent flowering seasons as long as it is healthy for the plant. However I would like to have more flowers at each blooming season. My mother tried the light control method one Fall season by putting it in and out of the closet, but she said it almost killed the plant. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Yours is a problem that a lot of people would love to have!

Older holiday cacti often bloom several times each year. There is probably not much you can do to change this natural tendency short of using growth retardants and other chemicals that profesional grower use to bring their plants into bloom right on time.

When I married my husband, he had at least twenty christmas cacti. We put them outside for the summer and in the fall, before frost, i repotted them all, dividing the plants into probably forty plants (oh my). i mixed two parts vermiculite to one part soil. I lightly feed once a month with a liquid fertilizer. the first few months, the plants didn't do much. A few of the larger ones flowered over the winter. This past year they started flowering when i brought them in the house for the winter. I have had continuous flowers since. A plant seems to take a break for a few weeks then starts again. Lots of flowers too. How long has it been since your catcus was repotted?

Also, do you fertilize it?