Colorful Potted Plants for Christmas / Holiday Season

May 1, 2009 at 3:49 am · Filed under Holiday Plants, Winter Care

We are all familiar with the ubiquitous poinsettia in its mainly red or white forms. Newer selections are larger bracted and come in additional forms and colors, cream, pinks, bicolors, splashed patterns and crinkled bracts.
Why not try something a little different like the wonderful Christmas cactus selections.
Here you will find easy care pot plants that can live for many years and privde seasonal blooms by the hundreds if well grown. You get hanging flowers of purple, whites, reds, rose, pinks, cream-golds. Jointed stems form an arching plant. Those same jointed stems can be severed from the mother plant and put into soil and will grow into new plants so you can increase your plant. These tropical cacti make wonderful presents and are truly breath taking when grown on to some size. They can be given as family hierlooms or passed from family member to the next generation. As a matter of fact, before there was much hybridizing done with this group, that was the only way to get plants… You had to know someone with a plant and they had to give you a slip of theirs to start one of your own.
In nature, these plants come from the tropics and grow on the mossy branches of trees like many orchids and bromeliads. They are epiphytes, growing on the branches of trees, but not harming the host plant.
They like a well draining soil mix, good diffuse light and some seasonal change in temperature. Freezing cold will kill them, so protect them when severe frost comes. They make wonderful easy care house plants. a missed watering will slightly shrivel the branches, but the plump up again when watered. The time of bud set is crucial in the sense that the plant should not be moved to a very different environment at that time or else you may cause it to abort the young flower buds. Being consistent in care will give the best conditions for setting buds and a profuse bloom.
A little fertilizer will promote better growth and enhance bloom. Any fertilizer will do alright, just use it very sparingly and water it in well.
The plants can spend the majority of the time outdoors from spring to fall, early winter. Just avoid frosty periods. They like a dappled sun location or high shade if placed outdoors. Many people just leave them inside all the time and they will bloom nicely if they get some good light or sunshine (not severe hot sun!)
An individual hybridizer produced several hundred named forms so that the once limited color range has broadened considerably. Many shades of purple, lavender, pink, rose, red, whites, and cream-gold now can be found. the plants will have jointed stems with either scalloped edges or soft tipped pointed edges to those stems. The pointed edge forms are sometimes called ‘crab’ cactus.
Botanically these are known/marketed as either Schlumbergera or Zygocactus.

Another easy care plant for the holiday season are Amaryllis hybrids (Hippeastrum spp. and cvs.) These are large bulbs which can be timed to bloom almost to the day. The flowers are huge(to 10″ ) and can come in shades of reds (the very dark ones are truly spectacular), pinks, whites, creamy yellows, bicolors(usually red and whites), and petals striped. Additionally, there are doubles and smaller flowered forms which produce more stalks of blooms.
These bulbs usually produce one thick flower stalk, good culture will yield two stalks, but the small flowered forms will give up to 5-6 stalks from several clustered bulbs in the same pot. Often, but not always, the foliage comes either with the blooms or shortly after the flowers fade. Wide straplike foliage with rounded tips emerge fromt ehe large bulbs.
Good drainage, a warm bright-sunny location and regular watering are all that is needed. A fit of fertilizer will give better growth and help in making food for next year’s bloom. These bulbs can increase over time and then you can have several pots in bloom eventually.
The bulbs should be allowed to go dormant at some point when the foliage yellows. Just let the bulb go completely dry and rest them for several months. You can actually time the bloom by initiating watering once again. It can take about 6 weeks to bloom after a dormant period. Time and experience will tell you what your conditions give to get the approximate timing of flowering for a special date.

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