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Let’s begin with the positives.
The Christmas cactus has never bloomed better.
It has doubled or tripled the number of blooms it had in comparison to last year. This is because I followed the advice of my readers and have been summering it outdoors for the last two years. It’s pretty certain to be a Christmas cactus because it has no points on the leaves.
The poinsettia that my friend gave to me is flourishing.
You may not think it’s easy to keep poinsettias happy. They do not like drafts. They also dislike drafts. You won’t like the taste if you leave the wrapper on for too long They start poisoning themselves by releasing ethylene gas. They prefer moist soil, but not too much moisture because it can cause root rot. I’m happy that the poinsettia is happy.
My clivia has bloomed!
It’s too early for the clivias to bloom. It’s in a cool, dark room I don’t frequent so I don’t water it very often. It has one of those long-stemmed glass globes that I filled with water. The water level in the globe has not dropped for weeks. I don’t know if that means that the clivia does not need water right now, or if the glass globe thingy isn’t working. It worked for my mother before she gave me the plant. The clivia You can learn more about it here. blooming.
My Wintersun paperwhites are off to a good start.
The first flower had a soft fragrance and was beautiful. I could see buds that were swollen and promised many more blooms.
Instead of blooming, buds were blasted.
This is exactly what it appears to be–the buds turn brown, papery and dry. This is what happened The last time I grew tazetta Paperwhites indoors . The last time I purchased paperwhites was also Wintersun.
What went wrong?
Answer: I’m not sure. Here are some things I am considering.
Could it be a variety? I would have selected a different variety if I knew I’d grown ‘Wintersun” before.
Last time, I didn’t use the alcohol-and-water method. Many people use this method, but their buds do not blast.
Brent and Becky’s Bulbs claim that the buds will explode when the paperwhites get too warm. The bulbs in my kitchen get hot, but they were positioned right next to an old-fashioned single-pane window. I assumed that the bulbs would be cooler.
Two years ago, I didn’t force paperwhites because I was discouraged by the bud-blasting. Then I bought another two dozen to grow this winter. They blew up. I was going to plant some by Thanksgiving.
I planted my second batch of bulbs-hopefully to bloom around Christmas-individually in these humorous mugs.
This batch of ice packs is on my desk. It’s pushed against a non-used door that has one uninsulated glass pane. My desk is further away from the woodstove that the kitchen so it’s already cooler. These bulbs grow slower than those before, but the one in the middle grew faster, had a pretty flower and then blew up.
Waaaaaaah.
Maybe I am not good at estimating the amount of water that these bulbs need in containers without drains. Maybe I’m adding too much or not enough water-or alternately doing both.
I have some bulbs that I want to pot up in potting dirt in a container with drainage. This container is round and therefore more difficult to position in a place that will receive enough light. I’ll have to find a good spot. I’ll let you know when I succeed in getting these paperwhites to bloom. You’ll hear about it again if I have bud blast, because I love sympathy.
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