Judy--
I don't think JB still sells and grows CC.s. All the problems she had with insects in the GH
and inspections--and having to throw everything out--as well as her advancing age...
I don't think she does much any more with the CC's.
Hmmm--I think she hinted in a recent post that she would still love to have a cutting or two...

Please send her a T-mail and have a chat. She would love it...She posts now and then in the
"I'm thinking of food" Thread in the MAG.

I am sure I could share a small plant or two with you. I have a lot of smallish/medium CC's growing
as well as all the bigger ones. They still all bloomed for me....I started watering them more...

I do not have the dazzling mount I had in 2014--when they were all at their best.
So me have been struggling....mostly because I did not water them regularly. I thought they needed
a dry rest for 6 weeks after blooming. Someone told me I needed to water them more regularly.
I have been doing it....We will see.....we will see....

I have 2014 photos of every variety I had. JB's favorite was always the red. She said it was the most hardy.
Funny--as it started as a broken off section on a Lowes crammed-full CC's cart after the holidays.
I went "shopping" for broken off pieces.....good way to start fresh. HD just threw them all out.

I do not know if JB actually had "Named varieties" other than the colors....eg. "Peaches and Cream"...
"White Christmas"...."Yellow one" ..."Orange one"...."Salmon one" Also her fave. etc.
I have not taken any cuttings for a couple years--as they never seemed to do well. WHAT happened???
Me thinks I need to re-pot all the bigger ones in fresh soil/Mix. Any suggestions what they will grow in the best?

Is there a color you are particularly interested in? Not sure what I have?
LMK. We can chat longer on a T-Mail. I don't want a bunch of people asking me for this or that.

See you Feb. 4th. Gita

Gita,

The CC cuttings and Ric Rac cutting I got from you at the fall swap are doing great, and the inky fingers are still going
strong too...


Just to throw out some other resources for CC & Epis if yous are looking to group buy..

Can't beat these folks ---- http://www.bobsmoleys.com/new....

I've gotten great plants here - https://whittongreenhouses.com...

https://ncfarmsinc.com/rooted-...

http://www.pecketts.com/tropic...

MariposaMaid said:Some of you remember that a member here @JB for many years raised tc cc and ec cuttings and sold them as JB's Plants. Not sure if she still does any of this but a number of hers were 'named' and quite lovely . @Gitagal may know of JB and Gita may have a plant or tow that she could share.

I love the 'new' ones but also have deep reverence for the old ones grown on and passed down to the next generation or two! An inheritance of long term caring.

Hey there, here I am, old JB, out of business but still kicking. I have a few Holiday Cactus in the greenhouse but this year they are terrible. It was a bad year for them here. Have no idea what happened. I have one white one that is a beauty and I am hoping next year I may be able to share some cuttings. I am not selling anymore, just giving away.( No, do not send me your name to put on a list.) If I am still alive and able, I will let you know when. Have a good winter everyone and I do miss all of you so much. Stay well and stay warm.

I do not know if JB actually had "Named varieties" other than the colors....eg. "Peaches and Cream"...
"White Christmas"...."Yellow one" ..."Orange one"...."Salmon one" Also her fave. etc.
I have not taken any cuttings for a couple years--as they never seemed to do well. WHAT happened???
See you Feb. 4th. Gita
[/quote]

Hey Everyone, I am still here. I just have very little to post this time of year since all my Holiday Cactus are resting. I thought I would reply to Gita's comments while I was thinking about it.

I only gave the colors you sent me names like Gita's Red, because they had no specific variety name since you got them at HD.
I actually had collections of several varieties but over the years lost them to cutting them back too much to sell or too much salt in the water. I still have some but they are in the GH and I have no idea which ones without looking. I do not keep an inventory anymore. I just enjoy them. I will not be working out there for a few weeks. I do not want to disturb them until they get more rest. The Brazil variety was the last ones I had been really selling. They are beautiful.

See what happens when you wake me up?
Here is a shot of the GH Brazils

Here are some Brazils:
S. Amazonis Brazil

S. Anapolis Brazil

S. Sao Paulo Brazil



Most all of my collections are in the Plant Database. At least they were when it was Daves Garden and ATP. Don't know now. If you see any in the Database you want, you can check with me in a few weeks and I will try an inventory the GH. I will be cutting back the Mandevilla and Bougainvillea in a few weeks also but just now I have other things that must be done first. I am not quite back to normal but I am working on it.

Keep working on it, and check in with us when you can -- we miss you!! Did you know the spring plant swap will be at Jan's place in NJ? Hopefully that's close enough that you can join us... I'm thinking you might be about an hour away, and if that's too far to drive then hopefully somebody coming from further north down 95 can pick you up.

@JB :hurray:
So good to hear you are still around and kickin' You may remember me (Coleup) from DG and our great threads on Holiday Cactus! Phew, we sure covered the waterfront on these beauties and how to grow and propagate them! I learned so much from you and others.

So, here we go again with some new folks and faces but the same appreciation for these plants in their ever expanding array of 'new' ones. Yippee.

I really like the Brazils, too and your pink is so clear. Thanks for the pics.

It has been a really long and painful recovery for me. Lesson learned. Do not get up on your desk and lean down over the back to untangle PC wires and cords when you are over 85 years old. Things you stretch and strain and pull and stress take a very long time to heal when you are an old body. Which I guess I was. Anyhow, I am now finished with all PT and BT and am now on a daily routine of exercise and the Chiropractor once a week. I am still walking with a cane and get very anxious and depressed at times due to the fact I get frustrated healing has not gone faster.
When you do not move around at my age, you get slower and slower and weaker and weaker. You must keep moving and believe me, a month in bed and being restrained in what I was able to do since I had only one leg to do it on, was a real pain in my old butt. But the good news is, I am slowly getting stronger and I am still healthy physically. Mentally, not the greatest but I am working on it. Now that you are all up to date on what actually happened to me, back to these beauties.

I am having problems getting around the new form of ATP. I can't even remember the name half the time. Like all change, I do not do it well and it takes me awhile. I get frustrated and then just give up. For example, I wrote one of those idea stories and never saw an acknowledgement it was received. I no doubt did not sent it in properly. Oh well, so much for trying to share new ideas.
As for the Holiday Cactus. I can not help but wonder what, in a few years the hybrids will look like. I was on a list back when I was selling that had thousands of members and they were going crazy over hand pollinating the different species to each other.
I have a difficult time with that, I guess because I like to keep a pure line, pure. I was the same way when I bred parrots. I never crossed species just for that reason. I always feel why fix it when it isn't broke. I do think much of this comes from selling these plants at Home Depot and the other stores without names. The wholesalers do not seem to care if they have names or not and it is very frustrating. Some members in this group were also very into growing them from seeds. It was a great learning experience but I had a difficult time agreeing with some of the things they did.
I like to know the names and the families, etc. The new hybrids they are going to be distributing here and there have no names unless they go for a patent and that may be a possibility for some of them. How they can do that without any names is beyond me. Gitagirl had a red that was just beautiful. It never had a name. Unfortunately, it will be cross pollinated by some of these girls and they only name it had was Gita's Red. The name I gave it for the lack of anything better. I could see nothing about that particular plant I would change. It was a beauty. Unfortunately is was a NOID.
Whoa.....here I am chattering away and you all are so patient tolerating my rambling. Have a great day and thanks for the nice welcome.
Gita's Red

Hey JB, I think we can all identify with the 'keep it moving if you can' issue. There are days when the only reason I get out of bed is because my back starts hurting from laying around. At least in decent weather, I can play around in the yard. But, when it's 45 degrees and soggy, the incentive just isn't there.

I hear you on the hybridization stuff. The has definitely happened in the hosta world. So many of the newer named varieties are quite plain. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Why can't people just leave things alone? All of my CCs are NOID. Some came from big box stores, others were 'hand me downs'. I inherited a beautiful crisp white one from my mother years ago. It finally got too old to go on. I tried to root some cuttings to keep it going, but none of them took. I did pick up 2 at HD in early 2016. Of course, there was no ID on them, but they look very close to Christmas Flame.


This is one that I'll be offering cuttings of soon. Let me know if you would like a piece.

That does look like Christmas Flame. That reminds me. There are two . Christmas Flame and Zygo x Xmas Flame. I have a difficult time telling the difference but depending on where you buy them, this is what you get and how it is marked. We all know the old time growers used the word Zygocactus instead of Schlumbergera and some people use the word Xmas rather than Christmas. So, now we are faced with the following:

Zygo x Xmas Flame


S.Christmas Flame


If you enlarge the pictures you can see a difference. Or is it my imagination?

Let me muddy the water even more... When the flowers first open, there is no pink. The pink only appears a couple of days later.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !

Don't you just love this?????

It probably didn't help when ATP acquired the National Gardening Association and then underwent a face lift to reorganize the home page... it's better (I think), but it does look different again. You can customize what goes where on your home page if you want, although the default is OK.

What browser are you using? Most have a way to "save" a standard window (your "homepage) with one or more tabs for your favorite sites, like a weather site, this site, whatever else you want... you open the browser (like Firefox or Explorer or the newer "Microsoft Edge") like usual and click for a new tab (usually a + sign at the upper right), then put in the website (like garden.org). Once you have it set up with tabs for the websites you want to find easily, you can save it, and whenever you click on your browser it will automatically open up with your favorite sites on it.

Using Firefox, go to "tools" at the top, then choose "options" from the pull-down menu. Under "startup" at the top, look at "when Firefox starts" and choose "show my home page." then under "Home page:" click on "use current pages."

I am set up that way Jill. It is the whole new layout that is confusing at times. No big deal. I will get used to it and I am not on it very much now. I have little to talk about anymore. I have no garden and much of it is gardening. Houseplants is a small part. No problem.

@JB - I've MISSED you!!! So good to see you post...I LOVE your stories. If you decide you'd like some jasmines...just say the word and I'll get some rooted and sent up to you. I can also send cuttings of Gardenias when the time is right.

Chantell said:@JB - I've MISSED you!!! So good to see you post...I LOVE your stories. If you decide you'd like some jasmines...just say the word and I'll get some rooted and sent up to you. I can also send cuttings of Gardenias when the time is right.

You are so sweet @Chantell. I would love to have either or both when you have them ready. I never say no to my favorites. Thank you.

I am better than I was physically but still walk with a cane. Guess that will never stop. My balance is usually off since the injury and it is so annoying. My GH needs some attention just now and I want to take inventory of the CC to see what I still have. The weather is not cooperating and I like to work out there when one of my girls is here just in case I do something stupid and fall. I do not fall often, but there is always a first.
Thanks for your thoughts.

@JB - alrighty then...as soon as the plants start putting on new growth and it warms up a bit, I'll shove some jasmine cuttings into soil with your name on it. I'm not successful at rooting the Gardenias so if you tell me when is the appropriate time to take cuttings I get some of those up to you as well.