A home, a yard, a never-ending adventure

A home, a yard, a never-ending adventure

Christmas Cactus Then and Now

By Published On: December 7th, 20201.1 min readCategories: Photos
Last Updated: December 30, 2020

A year ago this week I was short-cutting through the garden section of my local Lowes when I ran across a rack of little 4″ Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii) all marked down to $1 and slated for the dumpster that evening. Other than being unmarked and a little abused, they looked fine, so I grabbed a dozen and gave all but one to friends and family over the holidays.

The one I kept joined some of my other plants under the skylight in the family room and proceeded to happily grow throughout the year. A couple of weeks ago it started to show signs of flowering, but it wasn’t until yesterday morning that it decided to start the show.

And boom! There it was, half a dozen lipstick red flowers giving the Christmas decor around it a run for its money. Better yet, as the flowers have opened, they’ve revealed a candy-stripe pink and white interior, stamens on translucent pink filaments and capped with bright white anthers.

Flower of a Schlumbergera bridgesii

If you look at flower from the top, it’s almost as if the stamens are casting light back on the petals like a pink lampshade. That’s interesting because the flowers are downward-facing so the only way to see this is in nature would be from below.
#natureisawesome

2 Comments

  1. […] noticed the Christmas cactus I picked up for a dollar a couple of years ago was blooming in the sun room yesterday, so I decided to take a […]

  2. […] in 2019 I rescued a baby Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii) from a trash bin at my local big box garden center. At the time it was a […]

Have a comment or question? Share it with us! ↓

Share This Story on Your Social Media →

About the Author

author avatar
Sage Osterfeld
I’m just a guy with nearly an acre of dirt, a nice little mid-century ranch house and a near-perfect climate. But in my mind I’m a landscaper survivalist craftsman chef naturalist with a barbeque the size of a VW and my own cable TV show. I like to write about the stuff I build, grow and see here at Sage's Acre.

You Might Also Like These

Go to Top