Knowing how to treat your Christmas cactus after blooming means you can continue to enjoy its beautiful flowers every year.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to save your Schlumbergera buckleyi (aka December cactus) after the holidays, and share my tips for keeping it healthy long-term.
From deadheading the flowers to fertilizing, watering, and more, here’s how to ensure your Christmas cactus flourishes after it’s done blooming.
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Contrary to popular belief, you can indeed keep your Schlumbergera buckleyi after it has bloomed.
In fact, if you give your plant the proper aftercare it will continue to thrive and may reward you with even more blooms next year.
Once your Christmas cactus has lost all of its blooms, you should let it take a brief rest. Allow the soil to dry out more during this time and keep the plant away from bright light.
You’ll start to see new growth about a month or so later. When this happens, it’s time to give it more light and resume your regular care routine.
Related Post: How To Care For Your Christmas Cactus
To ensure the health of your December cactus as the flowers begin to fade and after it’s done blooming, there are a few simple steps you’ll need to take.
These include removing the spent flowers, keeping your plant out of bright light, giving it less water, and delaying fertilizing. Let’s explore each step in more detail.
As the blooms start to fade and shrivel, you can either let them drop off naturally or deadhead them by pinching or cutting them off.
Either way is fine and won’t affect future blooming, but I prefer deadheading mine.
Removing the spent flowers keeps your Christmas cactus looking attractive, and – as a bonus – I find it sometimes encourages more buds to open.
After all of
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