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Growing Christmas Cactus Plants: Watering, Light, Propagation, and More!
The Christmas cactus is a long-lasting holiday plant (move over, poinsettias!) that flowers in winter with colorful, tubular flowers in pink or lilac colors. Learn how to care for a Christmas cactus—how much to water this succulent, how to get a Christmas cactus to bloom, and how to propagate for a gift that will give year after year!
About Christmas Cacti
The Christmas cactus () is a popular houseplant that blooms indoors in the winter, so it’s popular at holiday time and makes a great gift, too. Unlike regular cacti, however, this is not a plant from a dry, hot, desert location. Instead, this is a succulent native to tropical rainforests, where they grow on tree branches and soak up the high humidity, dappled sunlight, and warm temperatures.
The bottom line: Don’t treat a Christmas cactus like a run-of-the-mill cactus! It’s important to water these cacti more regularly but also to be cautious of keeping them too wet. (See detailed care instructions below.)
Holiday Cactus Types
There are three main types of “holiday” cacti out there: the Easter cactus (), the Thanksgiving cactus (S. truncata), and the Christmas cactus (S. x buckleyi). For simplicity’s sake, we refer to all three species as “Christmas cactus” on this page since the care is the same. See our article on the different types of holiday cacti and how to tell them apart.
Growing
How to Care for Christmas Cacti
- Plan to water every 2 to 3 weeks, but only water when the top one-third of the soil feels dry to the touch. For example, if the plant is in 6 inches of soil, water when the top 2 inches feel dry. (Use your finger to check!)
- When the soil is sufficiently dry, soak the soil until water runs through the pot’s drainage holes. Place a tray underneath the pot to catch the water. After 10-15 minutes, discard any excess water in the tray so that the pot doesn’t sit in water.
- It’s especially important to water well while the plant is flowering.
- From spring through early fall, feed every 2 weeks with a balanced houseplant fertilizer. Feed the cactus monthly in the fall and winter to encourage successful blooming.
- Prune plants in late spring to encourage branching and more flowers. Simply cut off a few sections of each stem; the plant will branch from the wound.
- If you wish, place the cut pieces in a lightly moist potting soil—they root easily after a few weeks and make for excellent Christmas presents!
How to Get Your Christmas Cactus to Bloom
The blooms of Christmas cacti and its relatives are triggered by the cooler temperatures and longer fall nights. The three main types of holiday cacti generally bloom according to this schedule:
- Thanksgiving cacti are the earliest and longest bloomers, typically producing flowers from late fall through mid-winter.
- Christmas cacti tend to bloom from early winter to mid-winter.
- Easter cacti bloom from late winter to mid-spring.
If your cactus is NOT blooming, it may be receiving too much light or too high temperatures. Here are some tips to encourage yours to produce flowers!
- To trigger blooming, nights need to be at least 14 hours long and days between 8 to 10 hours for at least six weeks. If you have strong indoor lighting that’s on at night, you may need to cover your cactus or move it to an area that’s exposed to the natural light cycle.
- Flower buds form best when the plant is kept in temperatures between 50 and 60°F (10 and 15°C).
- You can kickstart the budding process by exposing the plant to temperatures of about 45°F (7°C) for several nights in a row.
- Make sure that you are consistent with watering while the plant is in flower. If the plant dries out too much, it may drop its buds.
- If the cactus sheds its buds one winter, don’t worry: it should bloom the following year!
Types
There are three main types of “holiday cacti” available:
- Thanksgiving cacti (Schlumbergera truncata) bloom from late fall to mid-winter and are often mislabeled as Christmas cacti.
- Christmas cacti (S. x buckleyi) bloom from early winter to mid-winter.
- Easter cacti (S. gaertneri) bloom from later winter to mid-spring.
Catherine Boeckmann
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my plant has wings on it at the base sigments. Is that wrong for the plant?
I’m scared I may have killed my cactus. It bloomed for the first time in ten+ years. But I noticed it is extremely wilted. I looked online and found that my soil was too wet and it said to repot. I did that and then saw you shouldn’t repot when blooming. Please tell me I haven’t killed it?
It’s not recommended to repot while a plant is blooming because repotting requires a lot of energy from the plant, so it will prioritize growing new roots over developing more flowers. This is a good thing, though—it’s much better to sacrifice the blooms now and allow the plant to recover. As long as you have repotted it without issue and can adjust your watering habits, your plant should be just fine!
I moved form NY to NC. In NY, I had to bring them in due to cold weather in October. Here I leave them outside on my screen porch. The blooms are fantastic. They come in for display or frost warnings, but they love screen porch.
Would helpful if you would have snow all three in your article. I have t thanksgiving one that someone threw away in trash that I’ve saved. Nice to have something pretty after garden is put to bed. ThNks
Why have my Christmas cactuses stop blooming they’re beautiful green look healthy but they just have not bloomed in the last two years I do think I have one is an Easter one
I combined the two cati I had bought, put it in a well draining pot and soil, placed it on a bed of rocks on the top shelf of a cabinet on the south facing wall. It got indirect southern light. It had lived outside all summer in zone 7. I watered it infrequently, no fertilizer. It bloomed, both cati around dec and kept blooming until april. In fact, I never follow the articles and have had excellent plants and many babies.
I'm in the UK, and my Christmas cactus has started forming buds.
It's currently in a southwest facing window, and that's the only place it gets light from.
Will it flower if I leave it there?
From what I've read online, in an ideal world, they should have around 12 hours of darkness in order to bloom as best as they can.
My hallway has much less light (but it's by no means pitch-black!).
Will the buds form better if I put it in the hallway?
Or are they still capable of forming and flowering if I leave it in the SW facing window?
Any advice would be most appreciated.
It sounds like the plant is enjoying the spot it’s already in! I wouldn’t necessarily recommend moving it. As the days get shorter, even the light coming through a SW window will be less and less—enough to trigger blooming. In fact, I keep mine in a south-facing window all year and it flowers a ton!
