On 20/6/08 22:08, in article , "K"
wrote:

Sacha writes

*Please* tell me how to look after my Christmas cactus! I do water it from
time to time and at present, it's putting on healthy looking shoots at the
tips. But the flowering performance is abysmal round about Christmas time!

I haven't a clue! By trial and error, I have mine in an east window,
standing on a tray of gravel so I can keep a moist atmosphere round the
plants without letting the soil get soggy (if I don't do this, then they
keep shedding branchlets) and water once a week, using weak fertiliser
during the summer. They are steadily increasing in size and flower
abundantly, two of them earlier in the year and the third (which is the
one that has conventional bell shaped flowers not the strange affairs of
zygocactus) has just finished flowering now. But it goes dead against
all I've read about them

I have 3 in 9cm pots in one 'cache pot', so I'll put gravel in that and try
that treatment plus the weak feed. I used to know someone who had one the
size of a small shrub but - most unkindly IMO - she would never tell anyone
how she looked after it. Thanks for that, Kay - nothing venture, nothing
gain!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
(new website online but not completed - shop to come and some mild tweaking
to do!)