LATE BLOOMER

I’ve had this Christmas Cactus for at least a couple of years now. The first year, I didn’t get any flowers. The next year, I got one. There may have been another year in there, I don’t exactly remember, but I do know that at one point I looked up online all the things you’re supposed to do to help your Christmas Cactus bloom for the holidays, and I followed the instructions as written, and…nothing. Or maybe that was the year with the one flower. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

And yet, I mused, I’ve seen a couple of Christmas cacti at my office that bloom wonderfully with no one doing anything in particular to help them along. So this year, I did nothing. And I didn’t get any flowers at Thanksgiving, or Christmas, but lo and behold, sometime around February…a few little buds began to appear. And then I noticed there was a bud on the end of every single stalk. And then those buds got larger and larger, and after what seemed to be weeks and weeks of waiting and waiting, those buds began to bloom. Beautiful.

So not exactly a “Christmas” cactus, but that’s fine with me. The cactus seems to be taking a cue from what’s going on just outside its window, where the days are getting longer, and the “girl trees” are putting on their pretty dresses.

As I write this now, heading into the end of March, most of the flowers have shriveled up and some have even fallen off. But that’s fine. I had several wonderful weeks of gorgeous flowers in the house. And I can only hope that next year (either for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the beginning of Spring), I’ll have flowers again.