Hatiora Rosea

Day 238: I call it my "Swedish Christmas Cactus," and that's about as far from fact as you can get in a name. Hatiora rosea blooms in late spring and while it is technically a cactus, it is also an epiphyte/lithophyte (i.e., it grows on trees or rocks, drawing nutrients from decaying plant material which is washed down to it by rainwater). Why "Swedish?" The slip from which this blooming beauty grew was given to me forty years ago by a Swedish friend.

For years, I struggled to bring it into bloom with never a bud being set, my frustration magnified by the fact that Christine's was covered in flowers every year. I have to admit that at the time, I had no clue as to its growing requirements, but with no reward coming to me for my pains, I finally relegated it to the window of my sewing room where I seldom remembered to water it. That was how I discovered that it liked an abundance of sun and being ignored. When it put up a single bloom, I was thrilled, but I over-reacted and put it back with the more "active" plants. The next year, it gave me nothing. I chalked the previous success up to fortuituous circumstance, and Hatiora was again relegated to sewing-room purdah. However, when it repeated its previous performance the following year, I began making a connection. I left it there and made no alterations to the way I handled the plant, and from that point on, it has bloomed for me unfailingly.

These days, it lives in my craft room, and just a few days ago, I discovered that it had come into lavish flower while I wasn't looking. I've moved it to the living room for now, but when the last of the flowers drops, I'll put it back on the shelf and reinstitute my practice of scientifically ignoring it until next season.