The Variegated Thumb

This blog post marks my first update on a particular plant.  Last year I posted some information on seasonal plants and some pictures of my seasonals in bloom, including my Amaryllis and “Christmas Cactus.”  Once again, it is that time of year and my cactus is covered in tiny buds.

My Christmas cactus buds

As you can see, my cactus doesn’t look too good this year.  I sat it outside a little early in the Spring and I think it actually froze one night, but was able to hang on.

About a year ago, a friend of mine left for Ireland to live for a year or two.  She left her plants behind with me (which is fun) and her big, healthy Christmas Cactus is also blooming.  Hers looks much better than mine:

My friend's Christmas cactus in bloom

Identification

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a little about  this plant and its correct identification here.  The Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter/Holiday Cactus has been called lots of names.  And there are actually about four or five different species from the genus Schlumbergera that are labeled with this common name.  Two other genera are commonly called Name-Your-Holiday Cactus - Hatiora and Rhipsalis, both of which are less common.  Both of my plants are from the genus Schlumbergera, although I have not tried too hard to identify which species.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they are two different species, but they might be the same one.

General Care

They are very easy to care for and very easy to bring to bloom.  Last year, my wife read some information about bringing them to bloom - putting the plant in a cold room (our garage), allowing it about 12 hours sunlight, 12 hours dark, and putting a glass of water next to it to increase the humidity slightly.  It worked great.  This year I think both plants beat us to the punch, putting out buds before I remembered to put them in the garage.

During the summer I leave them both on my back porch, which receives dappled sunlight most of the day and water them infrequently - about once a week or less.

They are also very easy to propagate.  Simply pinch off a section of plant and put it in dirt.  Viola - You have a new plant!

A Christmas cactus I started

Over the last couple of months I have been working on a project at work that had me computing the angle of the sun above the horizon across the US at all times of the day. Apparently the companies that take the high resolution overhead photographs for Google Earth and other mapping utilities require that the sun be at least 30 degrees above the horizon. When I started the project, about half of the US had a solar angle lower than 30 degrees all day long. Now the entire US reaches a solar angle greater than 30 degrees each day.

Kingdom Plantae has noticed! Here are some pictures of the bloomage occurring in my house and yard.

Several flowers I didn’t get to until they had already wilted - including our crocuses.  I forgot to get a picture of our Flowering Quince bush when it was all blooms and no leaves, but here’s what it looks like today:

Our Tulip tree (saucer magnolia) is starting to get big.  Since it has a lot of branching at ground level, I have been trying to thin it out a little each year so that it will be somewhat tree-like.  I think it is coming along pretty well.  I will probably have to remove a couple more branches this year.  Here’s the gorgeous blooms:

We have 3 different color combinations of Daffodils in our back flower garden (all yellow, light yellow with dark yellow center, and white with orange tinted center).  Here’s two of them:

We planted a flowering cherry tree 2 years ago and within a couple of months we noticed something horribly wrong with it.  Even though it was really just a 6 foot tall twig, it appeared to have been struck by lightning or diseased or something.  Half of it had turned black and ceased growing.  There is a clear line running straight down it’s skinny trunk.  All new growth has come from the other half.  We’ve been debating whether to dig it up and move it to a less prominent location, since we had strategically positioned it to overhang our corner garden.  But this year it surprised us.  It has its first ever cheery blossom coming out and they look to be ready to open very soon!  Can you see them in the foreground?:

I received this flowering peach tree last year as a gift and it was covered in 2 colors of blooms when we planted it.  I’m glad to see it burst forth color again this year.  It has both magenta and light pink blooms intermixed on all the branches:

I overwintered 4 cyclamen indoors that had been very healthy all year outdoors.  They lost most of their leaves and went dormant during the winter, so I don’t know how they will do with the transition.  Here is a new cyclamen that I just planted.  It also has 2 colors blooms:

These are the amaryllis that I wrote about in my previous post.  I have had them for several years now and they rebloomed for me this year.

I also wrote in my last post about getting my Christmas cactus to rebloom.  Well, I have a friend that just moved to Ireland for a couple of years and left her plants behind with me while she’s gone.  Her Christmas (Easter?) cactus didn’t bloom at the same time as mine did, but just surprised me with some blooms in the last couple of weeks:

This one’s not really a bloom, but I was very happy to see this new little guy’s foliage coming out this year.  I just planted this Japanese Maple tree last year and I wasn’t sure that he was going to make it.

The tulips we planted in the backyard have bloomed a couple of weeks sooner each year than those in the front yard.  I will have to post again when our tulip-filled front flower bed is in bloom.  Here is the first of our backyard tulips:

We bought another azalea this year.  The price was irresistible ($2.48)!  Hopefully the ones we planted last year will bloom again for us.  They might need some fertilizer encouragement.  Here’s our new one:

I was suprised to see these tiny blooms on my little leopard lily (an indoor plant).  The blooms actually have little purple stamens coming out of the white flowers.  I couldn’t pick up the detail with my camera though.

I will post more blooms as they arrive.  I expect to have a BUNCH of tulips, some daylilies, irises and who knows what else!

There are lots of seasons to the year, many holidays and celebrations. And for just about every one of them, there is a traditional plant that is put out on display or given as a gift. Easter has the Easter Cactus and it’s own lily.  The palm tree is especially symbolic during the Lenten season. Christmas has Poinsettias, as well as Amaryllis and Christmas Cactus. Gardenias are a common winter plant now, as are the tiny, trimmed rosemary shrubs that look like miniature Christmas trees. Now most people that receive plants as gifts receive them in a blooming state. Once they have finished their elegant display, the plant is tossed into the trash. There are some people whose thumbs are too green to do such a wreched thing, though. These people hold on to their Poinsettia, watching all of the leaves turn yellow and fall off, wondering what they’re doing wrong. The hold onto it for 11 months, keeping it just barely alive, hoping that those tiny leaves that started appearing in November just might grow into lucious, velvety red ones like it had last year. And some of them might get lucky. I would like to share with you the 2 successful experiences I have had with saving seasonal plants-

The Amaryllis I have now had one Amaryllis bulb for 3 years and it just opened from the tip of it’s bloom shaft for the third time, revealing two buds. I have had another Amaryllis bulb for 2 years and it will soon open. I have been given a range of advice on how to keep these bulbs from year to year. I took the easiest set of instructions - and it hasn’t failed me yet. I just keep watering it year round, about once a week, less when I forget about it. It’s a really interesting plant. Throughout the year it seems to keep starting over, growing long leaves that immediately topple downwards, often breaking off, usually dying within a month. The whole plant seems to burst forth life, then die back to the bulb, many times throughout the year. Last year, it’s blooming stalk appeared in late spring and was blooming on my front porch (in full sun) in May and June. This year, the bloom stalks mysteriously appeared at the beginnning of February and it looks to plan it’s show of colors for the first week of March. I have wondered about the mechanism that tells the bulb it’s time to bloom. Many people let the bulb dry out and go dormant in the fall, and then the increased watering and increased sunshine in January is supposed to help force the bulb to bloom. Others suggest letting the plant get a little nip of cold (maybe in the garage) for the fall and winter to help force dormancy. Most people have noted that their following years of blooms do not match the first year in brilliance and size. I have noticed this with mine. It is often recommended to repot them from the tiny pot they originally came in, especially as you see the bulb growing too large for the pot. Repotting and fertilization will probably help to combat the problem of wimpy incandescence. Anyway, have fun with these. They’re pretty easy to get to rebloom.

Christmas or Easter Cactus As far as I can tell, these two are pretty much the same plant, just forced to bloom at different times of the year. This one I have had for 2 years, having gotten it to rebloom in the only repeat season since I got it. It requires a little more effort, but it still pretty easy. This plant requires little water throughout the year. When you got it, covered in red, pink or magenta blooms you probably barely paid any attention to the structure of the plant itself. Shortly after the blooms fall off the plant may look fairly sickly. I just keep this plant on my back porch throughout the summer (in part shade/part sun), watering about once a week. The plant produced new growth, but the cacti petals seemed rather thin and unhealthy. My wife really wanted to get the plant to bloom again and so she read up on what to do around November. We had been keeping the plant in the house at a comfortable temperature and we moved it into the garage window with the goal of being in about 50*F. The other goal was to have near complete darkness for 12 hours and bright light for the other 12 hours each day. Of course, if you really want to simulate this you could try covering the plant 12 hours or sticking it in a cool closet, then putting it in the brightest sun location you can find for the other 12 hours. But then you have to remember to do something twice a day. Our plan was much more realistic for us. The other bit of instruction we were given was to put a glass of water next to the pot, to increase the local humidity around the plant. Voila! About a week later the plant was covered in buds. We rotated the plant every couple days so that the sun was shared. In mid-December we brought the plant indoors and watered it. Very soon the buds started opening and we enjoyed a month of beautiful flowers again. I was really hesistant about this one (even though I had kept it alive throughout the year). But the little bit of effort we put in to this plant paid off tenfold. It is great to see it covered in blooms again.