Christmas Flowers!

Obviously in winter there is little happening in the world of gardening, but not nothing!

In the summer my coworker asked if I wanted a spare Christmas Cactus she had.

Ok, class, what do you say when you're offered a free plant?
Let's all say it together now, boys and girls:

Um, YES!

So home I trot, the proud mama of a Christmas Cactus which I know nothing about other than don't overwater it...?

'Round abouts October I (or in all probability, my husband) remember that you actually have to do something with this plant if it's going to bloom in the winter. Great.

I look it up and realize that what you're supposed to do should have started in September - off to a great start - and it involves dehydrating it, storing it in a cool place, with just the right humidity level, leaving it in the dark, but not too dark, but only overnight and then boiling toads under the full moon and sprinkling the plant with that liquid mixed with droplets of your blood and essence of...yeah, anyway...basically a process that didn't bode well for this accidental gardener.

Stop watering? Check. That is the one step I notoriously succeed at.

And put it in a dark-ish place...apparently it needs some light, but not directly and absolutely under no circumstances should it have any light overnight!

Ok, a thirsty, vampire Christmas Cactus. Check.

I moved it to our lower level where it's cooler (but, like 62, not 50 with less than 40% humidity or whatever they say it's supposed to be) and at least we keep the shades closed all day down there. So I figured, what the heck, it's better than upstairs in full light, so we'll just see.

And see we did!

Right around Christmas-time it DID start blooming!! I was amazed!!

It was sooooo beautiful! A wonderful pop of color with so much deadness around outside (well, sort of...that'll be a later post).

So my conclusion in this whole craziness is not that I did everything right, but in fact that most articles and care instructions are meant to scare away people who hate plants and be a self-esteem booster to those who love plants, but suck at them. "Yay! Look! I did it right! I'm so good! Go me!"

And then there's me, who knows myself well enough to realize it's all a hoax and that Christmas Cacti apparently just bloom beautifully all by themselves (with a tiny human effort, perhaps!).