Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Thanksgiving Cactus












Happy Thanksgiving Day to my blog buddies south of the border. Look what I "bloomed" for you in honour of the day. A Thanksgiving Cactus flower.

Uhm, okay...well, it is actually a Christmas Cactus.... but I have not a clue as to what to do with this plant to make it flower.









My sister has the green thumb....close to emerald it is so green. Two weeks ago, I looked at this little sprig of green (that I think I got last year about this time) and was going to ask her for explicit directions on what I should do to make it bloom for Christmas. She has several of them and it seems to me there are always dozens of blooms on them... all the time.... Well, whenever I go there...there are blooms.... so I imagine in my own head that she has blooms all the time....or at least, whenever she wants. She can make plants DO things....and with ease it seems...

But, then I promptly forgot that I was going to ask... that happens a lot these days.... so, a few days later when I noticed this...I was shocked.











Look...a tiny pink bud! ... then, another one... it happened so quickly. The first one bloomed and after 3 days of what I thought was probably full...it even looks more beautiful; with tiny fibre optic looking stamens... or whatever they are ...til... now it looks like this. It chose this day to do the full bloom. The second one has not made much progress... and the tiny little pale buds on the ends of three of the other stems? well, those little guys may not make it. But, I will give it a bit of fertilizer and see what happens. Maybe some new buds will form.... who knows? perhaps by Christmas? ...a few more will sprout?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats, V.

Looks lovely, indeed. Now, if you are patient, and don't carry the plant around too much, it should give you a few more blooms. It likes lots of light at this time, not too much water, and a small amount fertilizer.
Vik

BumbleVee said...

Oh, alright....I'll put it down then. How'd you know I was carrying it around anyway? you got a camera set up over here?
okay... gotcha...lots of light..not too much water..small amount of fertilizer and quit babying it by carrying it... ..ah ha!

Vee said...

Mine is blooming now, too. It's been out on the deck all summer until about a month ago. We don't water it at all for the month of October and then start watering and fertilizing in November. It always starts budding then. One can continue to water and fertilize as long as there are buds. When they stop, stop fertilizing and slow down on the watering.

Thanks for your help with the photo image. The Picturetrail suggestion is the one that worked!

BumbleVee said...

tx Vee for extra info on the cactus... glad to see you got the picture in place.

this is my patch said...

Hi Vee, thanks so much for taking time to visit my blog. Maybe follow my hints for more flowers next Thanksgiving, although by your lovely colourful photos they look just fine to me and look very healthy plants. x

MightyMom said...

he also likes to be "pot bound" so whatever you do, don't repot him now that he's big enough in his pot to bloom!