Our Christmas Cactus

Rita is so proud of her Christmas cactus this year. It is new to our home. We bought it earlier this summer at a garage sale in the Mexican War District in Pittsburgh and she has been talking to it all year. The first buds are coming out and it looks like it will be all white. I tell you it is the healthiest plan we have had and if our luck holds out we won't "kill" it. We kept it out on our front porch this summer and it was covered and protected from direct sun, which is supposed to be best for this tropical plant. We moved it into our sun room now and the lighting is a bit more direct which is supposed to be good for the blooming time. Do you know it isn't really a cactus but tropical and needs a lot of water, especially from below? We kept it in a large dish and kept water in the dish and it sucked it right up. When we bought it the leaves were all hung down and sad looking but they perked right up with a little loving care. Hopefully it will bloom by Thanksgiving because we are going away for two weeks in December and would hate to miss the new full blooming period. Pray for our cactus that it stays healthy. Rita will share more about this cactus later when we have blooming pictures.