The thing that I want to get out is that while I may have a green thumb (largely due to luck), I’m not a plant nor garden expert. You can plainly see that if you ever saw my Christmas cactus. Sure, it’s alive and blooms once or twice a year. BUT it’s not exactly thriving. Most of its leaves have a pinkish tinge to them. They’ve been like that many years. It’s only recently I really took notice and wondered why.
My investigation led me to several websites. They all agree that the Christmas cactus need more water than the ordinary run of the mill succulent. It does not like exposure to direct sunlight. I was guilty on both accounts. I seldom water it to a point where the soil was cracked and separating from the edges of the pot. It sitting in the west window through all the seasons. No wonder it was sunburnt! Being root bound didn’t help either. How was it suppose to get its proper nutrients? Not that I ever fertilize it. It’s a wonder how it survived all these years.
Finally knowing all this, it still took a couple of months before I gave it some TLC. I’m a slow and cautious mover. However careful I was, I discovered that there is no way you can repot a plant without making a bit of mess. What’s a little bit of dirt, eh? It matters quite a bit when you don’t like it here, there and on the floor and hate cleaning it up. I’m a bit of a whiner and lazy bone. I hate picking up after myself.
Now that it’s all done, I wonder why it was so hard to do. Starting was the hardest thing. But once you got the cactus out of the pot, you can’t just leave it. You have to do the proper thing – loosen up the root ball, trim off the excess and plant it proper like in a new pot of rich soil, water it with the right mix of fertilizer. So here it is, right after and then a few days after. The leaves are a bit greener, or is that me wishful thinking?
Anyhow, it is a positive experience overcoming my inertia. Make a move, any move. Works for writing, too. One, two, three. GO!
