🌸 Get Your FREE August Garden Reset Guide!
Know exactly what to deadhead, cut back, prune, divide, and plant this month - with practical timing tips for U.S. growing zones.
Website
Your Email...
Get My FREE Guide
We use your personal data for interest-based advertising, as outlined in our Privacy Notice.
Consider this the ultimate test of willpower. Once you see the tiny buds, your job’s over. What’s not over (and always seems only to grow) is a list of don’ts:
Do not rotate the pot.
Do not change its location.
Do not bump the plant while dusting.
Do not open the window right next to the pot.
Do not let your cat bunny-kick it. Or sleep in it. Or use it as a scratching post.
Do not move it to the dining table for Thanksgiving dinner. Or any dinner.
Do not move it closer to the window just for a better picture.
Do not let your little cousin play with Lego in a cactus pot.
Got a shameful story of bud loss? Share your disaster with me, so other plant parents can learn from our collective restraint failures.
Save the handling for after bloom season. If you’re planning ahead, here are the signs it’s time to prune your Christmas cactus, but wait until the flowers fade.
The Holy Trinity of Bud Success
You got it. There’s nothing left to share except a few quotes from famous horticulturalists, West, “Give me light, give me light… but preferably from the East,” Mercury, “I want to break free… of anything above 65 degrees Fahrenheit (aka 18°C),” and Timberlake, “What goes around, comes around… so stop rotating the pot.”
