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Time to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas Cactus’

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I have two cactus like plants. One is a Thanksgiving Cactus and the other is of the same species, Schlumbergera, and is known as a Christmas Cactus.

christmas cactus

General care for plants of the Schlumbergera species is to give them moderate to bright light in the Spring and Summer months. Lighting depends upon exactly which species you own.

I’ve found that these cactus can burn in direct bright sunlight so I generally put mine outside in the summer time in an area where they only get bright direct sunlight for a couple of hours. The rest of the lighting they receive is usually fairly bright but not direct.

Come mid-September this year I moved my two cactus’ to my enclosed front porch. The porch faces north so the light levels are very low from September through to April or so.

Generally, to get these plants to flower when they are supposed to flower you should put them in a cool dark place from Mid September through October and barely water them if at all during that time. At the end of October you can bring them out of the darkness and place them in a fairly bright area of your home and water them as you normally would.

Occasionally fertilizing the plants through summer and a weak dose of fertilizer shortly after you bring them out of dormancy might help them to flower as well.

I experimented a bit this year.

You see, my Thanksgiving Cactus is about 6 years old and it’s always been a fairly good flower producer. My Christmas Cactus on the other hand, which is treated almost exactly the same as the Thanksgiving Cactus, is rather stingy when it comes to flowering.

When my mother died in 2004 my sister and I each took one of the 50+ year old Christmas Cactus. We knew one flowered better than the other. Guess which one my sister got? She just has to look at it and it flowers! I’m so jealous!

This year instead of bringing the cactus’ to the cool dark basement in Mid-September I put them in the enclosed front porch as I said early. Their lighting was diminished and they got the benefit of the cool late summer nights while on the porch.

It was only two weeks ago when outside night time temperatures were starting to come close to zero or lower that I brought them inside to the dark basement.

Checking on them today in the basement I noticed that both cactus have tiny flower buds on the tips of their thick succulent leaves. It looks like my experiment might have worked!

Now I do have to confess that I made a real rookie move that I should have known not to do.

The Christmas cactus is old and as a result it’s HUGE. Like 3+ feet in diameter. How can you bring that into the living room or kitchen and place it somewhere where it won’t be disturbed and where it will bloom prettily?

Christmas Cactus

I trimmed it! I really should have waited until the plant finished blooming before I trimmed off the newer growth. By trimming it before it flowered I might have destroyed it’s ability to bloom this year. Oh well … it’s not like I’m used to that Cactus blooming much anyway.

Of course I only trimmed a little bit off the edges. It’s still more than two feet in diameter. If you’d like to trim your Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus’ wait until they’ve finished blooming and then only trim a little bit of the soft newer green growth from the tips. Do not trim back to the older woody growth as that could damage the plant. Also, never trim too much off of any plant at one time as that could send it into shock.

I’ll let you know if the Christmas cactus blooms well, poorly or barely at all this year as a result of my experiment and my too early trimming!

I’ve brought both plants up and put them on tables or stands in my living room dining room and upon close inspections both have a fair number of buds. Perhaps the Christmas Cactus will bloom well, if early, this year?






Living green can save you money

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As a follow up to the post I wrote about whether the Live Earth concert would make a difference in the way people live I thought I’d write about one of the comments on the Go Smell the Flowers site that inspired my post in the first place.

One of the posters seemed to believe that changing over to a green life style would cost a lot of money and might discourage people from making such changes.

Well as someone who has changed her own life style over the years to live in a greener manner I can tell you that a green lifestyle can actually save you money.

Sure the energy efficient light bulbs cost more, but they last four or more times longer than regular light bulbs and barely make a blip on your energy bill so you’ll end up saving money by using them. Plus, if you’re a little bit afraid of heights like I am you won’t have to stand on chairs, step stools or ladders as often to change bulbs.

We compost our food scraps and then use the compost. We also add grass clippings, a small amount of paper product and leaves collected in the autumn to keep our compost going then we use the compost on our garden each spring. The compost is rich in nutrients and acts as a natural fertilizer for our garden.

Growing your own food is cheaper and less fattening than buying processed food or even veggies and fruit that have been transported from the other side of the country. The fruit and veggies that you’ll grow will be full of nutrients and fresher than those you can purchase in a store, plus the act of gardening is good exercise.

If you have a small space you can grow veggies in window box planters – whether they are mounted in a window area or not. If you compost you can use the compost that you’ve made on your own to fertilize your home grown veggies. Once you purchase your initial materials the cost of growing your own food is very low.

Hanging your clothes outside on a line to dry in the sun is cheaper than running the dryer and your clothes smell fresher. Our dryer is very old and uses a lot of energy – we save a ton of money by not using it very often.

Walking, or biking more often is good for you and doesn’t cost you a cent.

Taking public transport is cheaper than paying for gas and insurance for your car and has a lower C02 footprint.

Buying a re-usable bag to bring to the grocery store has an initial cost, but if you shop at a store that charges 5 cents per plastic bag you’ll save money in the long run and keep plastic bags out of landfills.

The law says we must recycle here in Toronto – at least if you are a home owner. The city provides the various recycling containers that we use so it doesn’t cost us any money to perform this task.

If you convert your house to an alternative power source it will be expensive, but in the research I’ve done on this I’ve learned that many homes in my city that have converted actually make surplus energy and the local energy company ends up buying it back from them. So in the long run that saves money or possibly even makes you money.

All of what I’ve mentioned above can save you money and I don’t find them difficult to do at all.

Do you have any more tips or ideas?

Replacement parts for lawn mowers and outdoor equipment

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So how are you lawn mowers holding up now that summer is here and the grass is growing?

Many of the new lawn mowers that you can buy these days have many parts don’t they? Some come with all the accessories that you could possibly need and others have accessories that you can purchase separately.

I’m bringing this up because I wanted to tell you about an online store called Mow Part. They sell lawn mower parts. All kinds of lawn mower and outdoor equipment parts.

I actually wish I knew of Mow Part about two months ago. We had an old trimmer of my parents and last year the part that holds the trimmer line cracked rendering the trimmer unusable. We’d already had some trouble finding the type of trimmer line that worked in that old trimmer too. Now I know that if I’d visited Mow Part I probably could have replaced the trimmer part and even found the correct trimmer line for it too. Believe me – I would have purchased a year or two’s worth of trimmer line!

I think this store carries pretty much everything you could possibly need for your lawn mower or other outdoor yard related accessories. They carry tires or wheels, chute covers, trimmer parts, snowblower parts, filters, repair manuals, carburetor parts, fertilizer spreader parts, and the list goes on and on.

If you have outdoor equipment bookmark this website. At some point in the future you might need replacement parts for your mower and now you’ll know exactly where to find it.

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