In 2005 the year we bought our house, one of Cara's friends gave her a Christmas gift. a plant called a Christmas Cactus, or Zygocactus truncatus. It's a plant that blooms only when the it gets cold, i.e. in the winter i.e. around Christmas. The plant was flowering when we got it in 2005, but there was no flower in 2006. We doubted that we would ever see it flower again, since flower shops routinely use hormones to make flowers bloom in the store which sometimes ruins the plant for any future flower's. So we were very excited when we saw our first flower in 2007. I didn't get around to taking a photo until the flower was on it's way to the grave so it's a bit droopy, but this was our holiday flower in 2007.
And in 2008 we were greeted with another flower.
Finally the end of my story, this year we have had one blossom already and another 2 that might bloom here soon. Here's my photos from this year.
I love christmas cacti- it still surprises me that such a ordinary looking plant can come up with a color that brilliant. My grandma has one that started as a little shoot back in the mid-1970s and is now explosively taking over the corner of their dining room. Those puppies just get bigger with time, and the flowers are all over the place this time of year. It's the gift that keeps on giving. :)
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