Nudge poinsettias and holiday cacti into bloom

Colorful poinsettias and flowering Thanksgiving or Christmas cactus fill garden centers and homes during the holiday season. If you saved your plants from last year, it is time to get started forcing them into bloom for the upcoming holidays.

Starting between late September and October 1st, cover or move your plants into a dark location for 14 hours each night. This treatment is needed to initiate the flowering in these plants. Shield them from any outdoor, street or reading lights that can delay or prevent flowering.

Uncover or move your plants back to a brightly lit location each morning. Growing the plants in a cooler location, especially at night, and keeping the soil slightly drier will help stimulate bloom. Some ex­perts believe this is all that is needed to rebloom Christmas cactus. A com­bination of the two treatments seems to give the best results.

The colorful parts of the poin­settia, often called the flowers, are modified leaves called bracts. These are the leaves that turn color after the dark treatment. The true poinsettia flower is the knobby yellow growth that appears in the center of the col­orful bracts at the tip of the stem.

Continue the dark treatment until the poinsettia bracts are fully colored or your Christmas cactus is covered with well-developed buds. Move the flowering plants to a cool loca­tion free of hot and cold drafts with bright indirect light. Continue to wa­ter thoroughly and often enough to keep the soil slightly moist while the plants are flowering. This is espe­cially important to prevent bud and flower drop on Christmas cactus.

Consistently providing the re­quired dark period is key to hav­ing flowers for the holidays. Each missed or interrupted 14-hour night delays blooming by one day. There is no need to give up after a couple of interrupted nights. Continue the dark treatment and enjoy the flowers whenever your plant blooms. Their colorful bracts and flowers are sure to brighten any winter day.

If your poinsettia fails to flower, you can still enjoy your plant this winter. Just add some faux poinsettia blooms, berry sprays or other floral décor. No one needs to know this wasn’t the plan all along.

Don’t be surprised if flowers ap­pear on your Christmas cactus at Thanksgiving. Although sold as a Christmas cactus, it may truly be a Thanksgiving cactus or a hybrid of the two. The true Christmas cactus has small segments with smooth edg­es and blooms later than the Thanks­giving cactus with toothed or jagged segments.

Fortunately, the Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus’ growing re­quirements and care are basically the same. The plants will do fine; they just bloom during different holi­days. Both are native to the tropical rain forests, not the desert, as their common name implies. Place them in bright indirect light and water thoroughly when the top few inches of soil begin to dry when they are actively growing.

Enjoy the experience as well as the results. No matter the outcome, you’ll have fun trying something new.

Melinda Myers’ website is www. MelindaMyers.com.