When is the best time to graft a Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) onto a cactus?
When is the right time to graft a Christmas cactus?
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A Christmas cactus can be grafted as long as the temperature is above 15°C. But the best grafting season is spring. In spring, just as the weather warms up again, the Christmas cactus begins to resume growth. If you graft in this season, once its wound has healed it will start growing, and it can grow for several months; by summer it will go dormant, and in autumn it can grow again for a while and then flower directly. Grafting in spring lets it grow enough leaves, and it can also achieve the effect of blooming.
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Some flower growers say that grafting in autumn is also fine, and that autumn grafting can also survive, and survives very easily too. But after grafting in autumn, there is a period from grafting to surviving; once it has survived and the wound has healed, and it has plenty of nutrients, just as it begins to grow new leaves it immediately enters the flowering season of the Christmas cactus, that is, it is about to bloom. Just after grafting, once its cambium has healed well, before it has grown leaves it will bloom directly; the flowers will be few, and the overall shape will not look good. If the graft has not healed completely, it will also cause severe depletion of nutrients and the leaves will wilt. Because autumn gradually brings shorter daylight, the Christmas cactus will naturally bloom. It will not grow; the leaves will directly produce buds and bloom, which is what this means.
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As for the grafting methods for Christmas cactus, Xiao Qi has talked about them many times. As long as the cambium of the Christmas cactus is aligned with the cambium of the rootstock, it is fine. The videos on Xiao Qi's homepage explain the methods for grafting Christmas cactus onto Pereskia, grafting Christmas cactus onto Schlumbergera truncata, and grafting Christmas cactus onto cactus and ball cactus, as well as how to distinguish their cambium layers. You can go and take a look; I will not go into detail one by one here.
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