crazy cactus

over the years, i have been given several "christmas" cactus plants.  you've seen them in the stores covered in their colorful blooms.  the blooms last for a few weeks and then all you have is a funky looking plant.  for the truly ambitious house plant gardener, you can attempt forcing the blooms every holiday season or you can do what i did.  put the plant outside in a sunny location for the summer and just let it grow.  then wait for the days to shorten and the night time temperatures hit about 50.  when the forecasts start calling for these cool nights and the overnight temps are dropping in to the 40's, you should see the plant start to set flower buds.

once the plant has developed buds, move it inside to a bright location, no direct sunlight, where the temperature is a constant of about 70 and wait for the show to begin.

when i moved my plant inside in mid-october, it had many more blooms than last year.  

it had so many blooms that were growing rapidly that we thought it would be

in full flower for halloween.  

this is a closeup of some of the blooms.  this is actually the second time this year

that the plant has flowered.  when we first put it outside in the spring, we had

a cold snap that forced me to bring it back inside.  this was around easter and the 

warm weather outside followed by sudden cold weather with shorter days forced a few

blooms, but nothing like the number you see in this photo.

the plant is now in full bloom as you can see.  (thanks for the photo tanner!)

even though the plant had a rough summer, it lost a large section to some sort

of ailment, the number of blooms is impressive.  some of these plants bloom at 

christmas and others bloom for thanksgiving, like this one.  hopefully, it

will still have some blooms for the holiday.