Christmas Cactus
Schlumbergera x buckleyi
also called schlumbergera
Buds set on cool autumn nights and drop if the plant is disturbed — decide where it lives before the season starts.
- Type
- Houseplant · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Bright indirect light, the whole year round.
- Watering
- Moderate watering, tailing off through autumn.
- Feeding
- Feed every two weeks from spring to early autumn.
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Flowering
- December
- Pruning
- Pinch off a few stem segments once flowering is over.
- Jan–Mar Dormancy
- Mar–Dec Spring Growth
- Dec–Dec Flowering
- Jan–Jan Flowering
- Plant spacing
- 15.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 15.7 in
- Between rows
- 19.7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Aerial roots: it does not root in soil at all
- Spread
- 16–24 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
In the wild these roots grip bark and take water and air straight from the atmosphere, and they suffocate in potting compost. Bark, moss, or a mount with nothing around it is the right footing; a pot of soil is what kills them.
A forest cactus that grows in the leaf litter caught in tree forks, not in the desert. It wants an open, bark-rich compost, a small pot and steady moisture, which is the opposite of what a desert cactus asks for.
The habit is Christmas Cactus’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Confirmed safe
We say a plant is safe only where a named poison-control reference names that exact species and records it as non-toxic to both cats and dogs. Most plants are on nobody’s list, and their absence here is not a judgement about them. This is a record of what those references say, not veterinary advice, and it cannot account for your own animal, the quantity eaten, or a plant treated with anything.
The ASPCA prints an older name for the same Christmas cactus we file as Schlumbergera x buckleyi.
- Mealybugs Mealybugs at the stem joints and segment bases
- Scale insects Scale insects along the stems
- Root & crown rot Root rot brought on by heavy watering or poor drainage
- Buds dropping after a swing in temperature or a change of position
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly Syrphidae
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Mealybugs
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
Green-leaved houseplants, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com