Tropicals & Tender Perennials: It's 8PM - Do you know where your buds are?, 1 by Clare_CA

Clare_CA wrote:
Candy and Ursula, you are probably right, but just to make sure that the other environmental conditions were the same, when you had your plants in the other areas, were they subjected to the same amount of light and darkness as when they were outside -- i.e., no artificial light at night? If the answer is "yes" and if they still didn't bloom as well as being outside, then I agree that winter chill is the key.

I guess the way to find out for sure is to ask someone who lives in the tropics, Zone 11 and higher -- is there higher than Zone 11? -- if they get an explosion of flowers from their Christmas cacti when the days become shorter and when their plants are left outside.

We could write to Logee's to see what they do, but they probably have a temperature controlled greenhouse. Here, it routinely dips into the low 40's during the winter, even briefly dipping into the high 30's. I do get an explosion of blooms. Poinsettias are similar in some respects, but I think they need complete darkness at night for so many hours a night for so many months to bloom in time for Christmas.

Here is my Christmas Cactus -- err, actually, I think it's a Thanksgiving Cactus -- on December 21, 2004.