There’s all sorts of articles on the internet about how to make your christmas/thanksgiving/easter cactus bloom when you want it to bloom. Most of them boil down to “put it in a cool and dark room and ignore it for a few months then bring it out”. That always gets me a dead plant, so I’d given up.
However one of the things that came out of me being repeatedly indisposed due to surgery was the discover that its WAY easier than that to make it bloom on command.
Just forget to water it for about two weeks.
Seriously, its that easy. Don’t water it for two weeks, and then give it a good soaking.
Poof! Bright pink flowers!
I’ve been so delighted by the discovery that I went out and bought a peachy/orange colored one. Its still a fairly small plant, but hopefully in a few months it’ll be big enough for me to do the same and I’ll have BOTH blooming!
That is interesting. I keep my Thanksgiving cactus watered on a weekly basis. Honestly, I’ve never thought of trying to make it bloom again, so never even looked it up. Last year it bloomed a 2nd time, at Easter but I don’t know why. It has always been in my south facing window and I’ve literally never fertilized it (or given it new/additional soil). Although it is possible I forgot to water it, it’s not likely since it sits next to another plant that needs water at least twice per week. IDK, I prefer to think that it was magic 🙂
Hey, whatever works!
I mean, I wasn’t trying to make it bloom. It just got neglected, along with the rest of the plants lol. I was worried I’d killed it, cause it was bone dry and limp. Tried it deliberately when I had the nose surgery, and sure enough, flowers! Though I didn’t let it dry out nearly as far that time!
Additional thought. What if, instead of failing to water it, you’d watered it twice a week (with the other plant) instead of once a week, for a couple weeks?