Learning how to propagate a Christmas cactus is easy and fun. I’ve put together this article plus a video to show you how!
How to Propagate Christmas Cactus
Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii) offers house plant lovers a long-lived plant that blooms profusely every year. Propagation by cutting enables the Christmas cactus owner to spread the holiday joy by growing multiple cuttings easily. Within a year of starting two little segments that had fallen off of the parent plant, I had blooms. Talk about a happy plant!
If you’d prefer the instructions to propagate Christmas cactus as a video, I’ve created a little video, here, that walks you through the steps:
Steps to Propagate a Christmas Cactus
You’ll need a healthy, mature plant like these to start with plus a clean pot and some bagged potting soil (house plant soil from the garden center). You will also need a clear plastic bag. The kind that you get when you buy produce at the grocery store is fine. Other things you will need are an X-acto knife or a sharp pair of scissors.
Steps to Propagate a Christmas Cactus
- Fill the pot with clean soil.
- Find a segment on the parent plant that has at least 2-3 jointed “leaves”. A bit of roots are great to have, but not necessary. The aerial root parts look like fine white hairs (my pictures below show you what I mean).
- Use the knife or scissors to cut the segment off.
- Place the segment on a paper towel for a few hours. Let it dry out a bit.
- Insert the cut end of the segment – the part with the little root hairs – into the soil. I used a pencil and made a dip about 1/4 inch into the soil and buried the segment halfway up the first flat leaf. There is a picture below of the rooted plant which shows you how deeply I buried the segment.
- Water the cutting well. Place the plastic bag over it to make a little tent.
- Place the bagged pot in a brightly lit place.
- Check daily to make sure it remains moist but not sopping wet.
- You’ll know your plant has rooted when you see the tips starting to grow. They turn red first then grow a new segment.
