The most beautiful cactus blooms like a peacock spreading its tail, with looks no less stunning than a lotus, easy to grow and well worth getting

Introduction

Green potted plants are essential decorative touches for home life; they beautify the room and also lift the spirits and cultivate the mind. Keeping some flowers and plants at home brings many benefits. "Huasheng Potted Plant Diary, Issue 1055" introduces you to a very beautiful cactus.

Today's Featured Plant

In your impression, cacti are always bare, covered in spines, and rarely bloom, right? Actually, that is not the case. There are many plants in the cactus family, and quite a few species do bloom, such as the famous "a fleeting glimpse" epiphyllum, which is a kind of cactus, though it blooms only once a year and for just a few hours each time, as if fleeting in an instant. The flower in the picture above is called the Dutchman's pipe cactus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum hybrid, commonly known as queen of the night cactus relative), with even more beautiful flowers and more frequent blooming.

Dutchman's Pipe Cactus

The Dutchman's pipe cactus is a close sister of the epiphyllum, also called the false epiphyllum; the two have very similar flowers and are often confused. The Dutchman's pipe cactus has richer flower colors, including purple-red, bright red, pink, carmine, yellow, white, and blue-purple. The flowers are medium to large, emerging from the areoles on both sides of the stem segments, trumpet-shaped, with double or semi-double tepals, and the petals are neatly arranged, like a peacock spreading its tail, resembling a lotus, hence the name; it is also called peacock orchid.

Blooms in Summer

The Dutchman's pipe cactus generally blooms in summer, opening during the day and closing at night (the opposite of the epiphyllum and dragon fruit). A single flower lasts only a few days, but its strong point is the large number of flowers; a mature plant can open several at once, with multiple stems blooming together. Its flowers are delicate and graceful, brightly colored, and also give off a subtle, rich fragrance, with ornamental value no less than that of the lotus. These past few days I have seen many friends sharing theirs, and it is very pleasing to the eye.

Easy Care

The Dutchman's pipe cactus is a cactus with extremely strong vitality. It tolerates poor soil and can be grown even in nutrient-scarce soil. It is drought-tolerant and essentially a succulent plant (succulent), with thick leaves that store water, so watering once every ten days to half a month is no problem. Its drawback is that it is not cold-tolerant. In China, except for the South China region, it must spend the winter indoors everywhere else, so in China it is mainly grown as a potted plant.

Worth Getting

There is another drawback: like the Christmas cactus, the Dutchman's pipe cactus grows slowly and often needs to be grafted onto other cacti to achieve faster growth. After grafting, with the rootstock providing nutrients, it grows very quickly and blooms more and earlier. Grafting varieties with different flower colors onto the same rootstock can even produce a spectacular display of flowers in many colors. Grafting is very simple, with a high survival rate, making it a flower well worth getting.