Last year around this time I was putting up Christmas decorations because my parents were coming to visit and spend the week of Thanksgiving with me and my sister. I had just purchased my first home a year prior and was so excited to show off my accomplishment. In the past years my parents have had huge Christmas displays in the front and side yard. I wanted them to see how much I wanted to carry on that tradition. Well this last visit home, they surprised me by giving me a few of their yard decorations.
So, one day while shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, I bought two Christmas cacti to use as decorations and to give as gifts to Mom and my sister. This was to say thank you for allowing me to host my first family Thanksgiving and trusting me to make Mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese. Let’s say that I nailed the macaroni and cheese but failed to give my mom and sister the plants before they left that Thursday afternoon.
The plants sat in the living room for months before I repotted them. Soon after I began to notice these gnats flying about the house. I traced the fungal gnats back to the cactus. That will be a post for next week. I placed the two pots on the potting table underneath the carport and pretty much forgot about them. I would water them every so often. About a month ago, I was potting some pansies to place in the front yard and decided to move the cacti to the front porch as well.
While watering the ferns, I noticed that one of the cacti was starting to form flower buds. Once some of the buds were fully opened I posted a picture to Facebook with the caption as follows. … a sign that Christmas is almost here. Legend has it that when the Christmas cactus starts to bloom, it’s time to start pulling the decorations from the attic. You don’t want to go against legends. After a few likes and comments, it was pointed out that I have a Thanksgiving cactus and not a Christmas cactus. This explains why it was in the store in early November. Needless to say, I am not alone in confusing the two and there is no shortage of people on Facebook to quickly point out your mistake.
Apparently, there are three holiday cacti that can be identified from their leaves. These include the Thanksgiving cactus, Christmas cactus, and the Easter Cactus.
Because people are posting their cactus to Facebook I have seen the leaf structures enough to make a positive identification. The image above and the description that follows comes from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in Linn County. “The Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumgera truncata) has very pointed and claw shaped projections on the edges of the leaf. The Christmas cactus (Schlumgera bridgesti) has leaf projections which are more scalloped or tear drop shaped. The Easter cactus (Rhipsalidopsis gaertnerrii) has very rounded edges which are centralized on the leaf.”
Just last week before I went home to South Carolina to visit mom, she called and asked me about her Christmas cactus. I told her that I had repotted them and that one of the Thanksgiving cacti is on top of the pie safe cabinet blooming but the other one isn’t. She got the one that wasn’t blooming and also kept my pot.
