my christmas cactus
I’m one of these people that has really bad luck with plants. I seem to always kill them. My mom thinks that’s horrible, and always tries to get me to plant things. I love flowers – they’re so pretty! But I forget about them and don’t water them and they die and I feel guilty.
So my mom, in her attempt to remedy my plantless house, likes to give me plants for Christmas/birthday. She gave me one plant that I don’t know the name of, but it’s supposed to be unkillable. It was growing beautifully (there’s a picture here – it’s the one on the stand… see how full and beautiful it is?). Then, for some reason, it died. Well, almost all of it. It’s now about a third of the size it once was and I really don’t know why! I know part of the problem is that my cats like to chew on the leaves and dig in the dirt in the pot, and in my old apartment I really had a hard time finding a place to put it that offered enough light. Anyways, I figure that it’s a sign that I shouldn’t have plants if I kill the unkillable plant. (But really, it’s not completely dead… I still have it and in my naivete I am attempting to coax it back to its previous fullness.) (I really just need to plant kudzu. Now THAT’S unkillable!)
Two years ago for Christmas, my mom gave me a couple of Christmas cacti. (They’re on the floor in the picture I linked to previously.) She assured me that I would like cacti – apparently they don’t like to be watered a lot, so I could forget and it would be okay. So these past few years I’ve been trying to take good care of them.
Well this month something really amazing happened. One of them bloomed! I got three beautiful blooms and they were such a gorgeous pretty pink! The cacti are supposed to bloom at Christmas time (hence the name), but I guess these were Thanksgiving cacti. (Apparently you can adjust when they bloom by how you take care of them. Obviously, I did that on purpose. Yeah. ;-))
Anyways, I’m proud of my Christmas cactus! And I hope the other one follows suit and blooms! (Probably not this year though since there are no buds. I think it may have something to do with the several times it was knocked to the floor by my cats, and the pieces of the leaves or whatever it is that I used to find occasionally around the house.)