vi: Sage Advice
Christmas Cacti Callum Halstead I’m sure many of us will remember Christmas Cacti from our childhoods. At one time or another, our parents or grandparents will doubtless have had a brightly coloured specimen growing at home— for some reason usually displayed in the window of the downstairs loo, leaves tinged red from too much sun. Then, for some reason, towards the end of the twentieth century, these little plants fell out of fashion. As we all retreat inside during these darker months of the year, I thought it would be timely to revisit these fine old houseplants to see what we’ve all been missing. To that end, I paid a visit to my good friend and Schlumbergera collector, Gunnar Ovstebo. Originally from Norway, Gunnar now lives in Edinburgh where he works at the Royal Botanic Gardens, caring for the glasshouse collections. In his spare time, he collects and breeds Schlumbergera, proving to anyone fortunate enough to see his spectacular collection that this once popular but now slightly overlooked genus is more than overdue a revival.
plant in his family home and taking cuttings to grow on felt as important as the continuation of any other family tradition. Even after amassing a collection of hundreds of different varieties of Schlumbergera, it is still the plants grown from these cuttings that remain the most important to him, and to which he feels the most enduring attachment.
The first thing I like to do whenever I visit Gunnar’s home is to stand at the foot of his tenement stairwell and look up. Spiralling up to the skylight in the roof above me, overhanging the banisters and thriving in the cool conditions, are tier upon tier of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Cacti. Walking up the stairs, it’s easy to imagine I’m rising into the canopy of the Brazilian cloud forests where Schlumbergera are naturally found. It can take quite some time to get to the top; not because it’s a particularly tall building, but because it’s impossible not to stop to marvel at all the different shapes and colours of these spectacular plants. With each flight, the display grows more dense, luscious, and verdant.
The Christmas Cactus, as it is known, is the product of two species of Schlumbergera (S. russelliana and S. truncata), and the resulting hybrid is known as S. x buckleyi. Despite their name, these plants tend to flower early in the new year in the UK, usually through January into February. If you think you already have a Christmas Cactus but have been left scratching your head after it has finished flowering long before the start of December, it could be that what you actually have is an Autumn or Thanksgiving Cactus. These tend to have more S. truncata in their breeding, so start flowering a little earlier in the season. A good way to tell what’s what is to look at the margins of the ‘leaves’ (they are actually modified stems, called phylloclades). Thanksgiving Cacti tend to show more toothed margins, while those of Christmas Cacti tend to be more rounded. You might also see plants being sold as Easter Cactus. Although these are closely related, they belong to a different genus altogether— Rhipsalidopsis. Quite the latest thing in the world of Schlumbergera is a sub-group of crosses, known as ‘Queens’. These are a cross between S. truncata and another species called S. orssichiana and sport flowers that are considerably bigger, bolder and even more fabulous than any of the other varieties mentioned here. In some cases, they have more than one flowering season, too.
Gunnar started growing Christmas Cacti after he was given a cutting from his mother’s plant, which had originally been handed down from his grandmother. He had grown up with this
Interestingly, the colour pigments found in Schlumbergera flowers are the same as those found in Beetroot (Beta vulgaris), which is why they inhabit the hotter end of the colour
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