#weeklyplant — Public Fediverse posts

#WeeklyPlant Week 31

There’s an hashtag going over on Mastodon where each week, from Monday to Sunday, people share a plant photo tagged with #WeeklyPlant. You don’t need a garden, nor an house plant to participate. Saw a weed on a wall on your way to work? Share a photo with the hashtag and the number of the week and you’re in. You also don’t need to talk about the plant, just the photo will suffice. But if you want to use this as an excuse to learn something new every week, go ahead.

I’m starting with this schlumbergera, also known as Christmas Cactus, because they flower around then. But don’t get fooled, unlike cacti, they like humidity (perfect for bathrooms), and don’t do well with strong sunlight, nor very high temperatures. In Autumn (Europe), in the months before flowering season, you can move them to a cooler and more darker place to stimulate buds formation. When they appear, you can move it back to its original place.

If you want to propagate it, choose three leaves in Y form and pinch them at the arrow in the photo. Taking these cuts in the Spring will also encourage the plant to get more stems and thus more flowers.

Leave it for a day or two so it dries a little bit and then plant it, pushing the bottom into no more than 1 cm in a well draining small pot with compost. Once the roots are formed, you can move it to another vase.

#ChristmasCactus #HousePlants #Nature #Plants #Schlumbergera #WeeklyPlant