Thanksgiving Cactus 🌵Care and Propagation - With Satisfying Updates!

I think this is also a pretty good plant to give to people. It's pretty beginner friendly. They're also super fun to propagate. And you don't need even a pair of scissors. Twist and pluck them off like this. So you just leave it in there, like so. And they do give you that jungle vibe. And they just put out these cute tiny, tiny little hands that expand in size. Hey you guys, my name is Sean and I'm a houseplant enthusiast from Jakarta, Indonesia. Here to share with you the care and propagation of the Schlumbergera. This is actually known as a Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus. I have one in my hand and this one is actually not doing so well. But there's ones outside that is doing so incredibly well. They're almost blooming. It is not really blooming in Christmas But as you can see from the plants outside, they do so well in well-draining soil and like just a because it is now mid-January. little bit of soil because they're true epiphytes. And also another one is living in terracotta pot. Now this one here, I just un-potted it and my gosh, it looks so wet and over watered. And also this particular plant was living under a large monstera leaf, so it wasn't getting too much light. So the quick care tips for these guys that one, they are a jungle cacti, which means that they kind of are a succulent that is adapted to live in the tropical world and they are true epiphytes so they love to be up on trees and things like that so bright bright indirect light they like to live in very little media almost no media you want to keep them in a very very well draining potting medium or if your potting medium retains a lot of water you do want to back off with watering mine gets rained on and hosed down daily just like the rest of my plants so i do need to amend the care for this and maybe this would do better in terracotta pot and also in a brighter spot. You should fertilize them just like you do with most of your other houseplants. I give this a general purpose fertilizer with balanced NPK ratio especially if you want to see the blooms. But something tells me that this plant needs more than a high nitrogen because they have a lot of structures in the leaves so they might benefit from just a balanced NPK ratio. Then these guys are not particularly pest-prone, so you don't have to go hard on pest control, but you do want to give them preventative if you have it in your plant care. And these guys actually do flower around once a year, and they have pretty nice blooms. In my opinion, this is actually a very, very underrated plant. They are actually very, very beautiful. They give you that instant tropical jungle vibe, and they're also super fun to propagate, which I'm about to show you right now. Now, this might actually become one of my easier propagation videos because There's not much to it. First of all, I'm going to take this pot and I'm going to fill it up with my potting media. Check out my potting media episode if you want to see what it's made out of. I ferment my media so that this has some nutrients, has a lot of benefits in it, but you don't have to replicate it. Actually, this plant will do well in most potting mix. And you don't need even a pair of scissors because for me I think they do really well when you just pluck them off. Twist and pluck them off like this. Now this is the top cutting here and I prefer to put top cuttings directly in water so we're going to be doing a bit of water propagation. Oh that's too much water. Let me take some out. So you just leave it in there like so. This is a perfect height of the water. Now I'm going to take off a few more cuttings. You don't have to put all the top cuttings in water, I just usually feel like they are the ones that will give you the most viable plants. So I would normally just save the best spot for the top cuttings. And then later on you do want to put these cuttings in a brightly lit spot because they are still photosynthesizing so they will need that bit of light to push out new roots and new growth. There you go. They're all like falling over. This may not be the right vessel for it, but it's gonna do well once I stop tilting it around. But they look something like this. Okay, next I'm gonna put some directly into soil so you know that they can be done in different ways. And the way that they grow is that they will put out roots from underneath. As you can see here, this one might have a little bit of roots already, advantageous roots. And then it'll put out some new shoots from the side here. This is a plant that's actually very, very cheap. And brought me a lot of joy throughout the years. It's a very common plant. I wouldn't be surprised if you can find it in your garden center, in your area. I think this is also a pretty good plant to give to people. It's pretty beginner friendly and I love when they put out a new growth. You can see here when they put out a new growth, the new baby leaf is like super tiny, they look like crab claws and then they expand in size to get big. One other thing I forgot to mention in the care portion is that if you want these guys to produce like those very succulent-like leaves, that's thicker because this is actually quite thin, you need to underwater them a little bit. This is going to encourage them to take in extra water during the times of need so that they will pump up so that they can actually use that water. But if you give them constant water like this one did, one, the roots are going to be rotten. They don't need to put out a ton of roots because they're just getting so much water as it is. Number two, they don't need to store that water because they are constantly drowned with water. So if you want just beautiful stubby leaves that is chubby that you see on Instagram. Definitely underwater them a little bit and then these guys also come variegated just so you know and the variegated is beautiful. I have one outside but the variegation isn't really that beautiful so if you want to find variegated specimen you can also propagate them this way. All right I'm gonna update you in a few months time. All right, welcome to a one month's update. Look at this guy here. It's put out like a lot of roots into the water, but not a lot has happened to the new growth yet. Sorry, there are like stickers in the way, but I think you can see from here that some roots have formed. And then the one that's directly into spotting media, How cute is that? It's put out these little hands, and this is what I really like about the jungle cacti. They grow really, really beautiful with these new vines, and then they explode when they are ready. Now to take this out randomly I think that this is actually ready to be transferred into a potting media. Actually for one month this is quite a lot of root so I'm gonna do that. Hey guys welcome to a two months update. So these guys are actually doing really well and this one I'm gonna do a test where I just take the top. See it's like well rooted into the pot. So this is actually going to be doing just fine. Now I don't see much growth here except these tiny teeny little hands here. And that is actually very classic because for plants that are propagated in water and then transplanted into the potting media, it's expending all its energy to produce roots and for its roots to turn into soil roots. So it's not going to invest in a lot of energy to grow new leaves, but I do see something coming out of here. And for this other one, it is actually doing fairly well. As you can see new, I keep saying hands, but the new leaves have emerged. And I just want to let you guys know, some of you may want this plant to bloom at some point because they do bloom very beautifully and of course, that is never the point in my channel. I've never grown plants for their blooms. It's actually a very complicated way for it to bloom in its longer night cycles, in its cooler air. And of course, you don't want to move it to a different environment the minute the buds appear because the buds are very sensitive. So there's all these cool ways in case you just want to go the extra mile. But for me, I just love propagating these plants. I enjoy them for the leaves. They are quite beautiful and the variegated does look much better in my opinion. So I do enjoy having this plant around. I've had this for like, I don't know, five or six years. This is one of the first plants that I got in the beginning of my journey. And every time I travel to different plant shows and I see different varieties of them, some of them are stubbier, some of them are bred for like bigger flowers. because people are in fact breeding them for certain traits of them. So I've seen some beautiful varieties of these out in the market. And they're fairly easy to care for. As I mentioned earlier, they don't need much humidity, they're very forgiving, and they do give you that jungle vibe. And they just put out these cute tiny tiny little hands that expand in size. So just excited about this plant. Let me know in the comment down below what you think of this plant. Do you have one of these? Will you get one of these after seeing this video? And I want to thank you guys for sticking around to the very end. For those of you who want to support the channel financially for a cup of coffee a month, You can join my Patreon at patreon.com slash SeanFromOnlyPlants or you may join as a YouTube member. Simply subscribe and if you're subscribed, that button will turn into a join button next to my channel name. And if you click on that, it'll give you an option to join. And for those of you who have contributed so far, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. But for the rest of you, just by watching this all the way to the very end, smashing that like button and commenting down below, it really means the world to me. I wish you guys happy growing and I will see you guys in the next one. Bye! All right, thank you so much for sticking around all the way to the very end. I've got a little surprise for you. This is actually a six month update further along from what we filmed before and this is what the plant looks like now. There's actually a little bit of sun stressing because if you look over here where it's sitting on the shelf, it's got a bit of a full sun above it so it's getting very strong direct sunlight. So you can see from here that it is a little bit scorched, but I've got a lot of these hanging around all over my garden, so I'm not that terribly worried about it. I might want to move this indoor at some point, but the fact that it's still alive is doing well. And this one, I believe, is the one that was probably in a water propagation. It is a little bit slower to come along, so I would say that the soil propagation is the way to go for these guys. But also it's getting a little bit scorched here with a new leaf coming in bleached like that. All right. Thank you again for watching this and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.