I’ve been searching for a white-flowering Christmas cactus for a very long time, so I was thrilled to finally find one at an out-of-town garden center last November.
I love Christmas cactus plants because they don’t seem to care that I have a houseplant brown thumb. They’ll grow in my north windows or my south windows and they usually let me under-water or over-water them without complaint.
I already have a red one and a hot-pink one that usually bloom several times a year. The big show occurs between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the plants often bloom around Easter and in the middle of summer as well.
My new plant wasn’t as accommodating. When I brought it home it had a dozen medium-sized buds on it. Over the next two weeks every single one of those buds aborted. Even some of the foliage got soft and dropped off. I got a little concerned.
Christmas cactus plants are sensitive to drafts. I hoped my plant was just reacting to its trip from the garden center to my house in very chilly weather.
That seems to be the case because the plant hasn’t dropped any more foliage and this week I finally got to see some flowers:
