Remember these four points for growing Christmas cactus, and new shoots and flower buds will keep emerging, blooming more and more every year

The Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) gets its name because its leaves look like crab claws, and it can bloom dozens or even hundreds of flowers at once, striking, beautiful and vivid. There are some little tricks to growing Christmas cactus. If you want it to grow fast, keep pushing out new shoots and keep opening buds, you need to do well in these points,As long as you grasp these four points, it will grow faster, keep producing new shoots and bloom more:

Watering, because it likes a relatively dry environment and is fairly drought-tolerant. When watering, you must wait until the soil in the pot is dry, then water thoroughly all at once. Never give half-hearted watering. And you must not water too frequently either, which would cause waterlogging.

If, when watering your Christmas cactus, the water struggles to seep down, it means the potting soil has become compacted and needs to be replaced with new soil. The best soil for growing Christmas cactus is garden soil plus coal cinders, or leaf mold plus garden soil plus coarse sand, etc.

Fertilizing, the Christmas cactus normally does not need much fertilizing and can still grow normally, but after blooming it has consumed a lot of nutrients, so it needs suitable fertilizing to encourage new shoots to emerge. You can apply a nitrogen-containing fertilizer, a small amount each time, once every half month, placing it as far from the roots as possible to avoid burning the roots.

Or use a little slow-release fertilizer, rotted cake fertilizer water, etc. That is enough to meet the nutrients the Christmas cactus needs for growth and blooming.

Sunlight, the Christmas cactus can normally receive plenty of sunlight, especially in spring in March, April and May. As long as the temperature is within 30 degrees, it can be put in the sun freely, which helps more new shoots grow. In summer it should be placed in a semi-shaded environment, which makes its leaf color look even better, tender and green.

Spring and autumn are the peak growing seasons, so you must make the most of these growth stages. You can keep the potted Christmas cactus indoors for a few days, then take it out to the terrace to grow in the open air for about three days, alternating positions and environments this way, and it will grow more luxuriant with more flower buds.

Temperature, the suitable growing temperature for Christmas cactus is around 20 degrees. Keeping it in this temperature range makes it especially easy to grow new leaves and produce flower buds.

If you have pruned Christmas cactus branches, do not forget to stick them in a pot as cuttings, so you can grow more pots of blooming Christmas cacti.

Grow your Christmas cactus this way: water when the potting soil is dry, fertilize lightly, plus suitable sunlight and temperature, and the Christmas cactus will grow vigorously, with new leaves and flower buds growing nonstop.

Christmas cactus flowers blooming into a waterfall.