Is this normal? It never seems happy to me but does bloom and grow. The segments are very thin, never plump. Has been in this pot over a year. I use decent soil. I am aware of all the normal pitfalls of potted plants.



This and Christmas cacti seem to defy my logic of houseplants care, whatever I have learned about a number of other plants I can grow just seems to not apply to these.

@sallyg, that's incredible, how can it be? I don't have any experience with it, I just bought mine last week, but I do know that I have a cactus that is growing on a dead segment of himself, the bottom part of the plant is completely dead, you can see it, so obvious, shriveled and thing and totally dried out, and still! on that it has given new growth. I totally hear you!

Was your plant summered outdoors? It seems to have gone a little dry at some point. If you scratch the stem and see green underneath, it's still alive and the plant will continue to benefit. The older stems do tend to harden (cork), and that is normal. I do know that this cactus resents being overwatered (roots kept too wet, deprived of oxygen and thus rotting) for so than the thanksgiving cactus. I would check the medium to make sure that it's chunky and free draining. Also be sure to feed it during it's growing season. Maybe @WillC or @Purpleinopp can be of better help.

Until holiday Cacti are well established in their pots, they can be difficult. Yours shows evidence of getting too dried out and/or being exposed to very hot direct sunlight. The most obvious cause would be treating it like a Cactus and allowing it to get very dry deep into the pot. This plant species is an epiphyte that has adapted to tropical regions where it does not get nearly as dry as it does in desert areas. Thus, it generally needs to be watered when the top quarter of soil is dry, depending on how and in what it is potted.

Conversely, if yours has been kept too moist around the roots, they may have rotted and are no longer able to absorb water, thereby mimicking a plant that has been under watered. I think is a less likely scenario.

In any case, this plant does best in a small pot with a porous potting mix. Even mature holiday cacti rarely need repotting.

Indoors, keep it on a moderately sunny windowsill. Outdoors it must be kept in light shade.

Thanks for all the help. I'll see what I can figure out.. maybe discard and start from cuttings, maybe discard and call it a day.

No, no don't discard and call it a day! It's not that bad; it's not even near dead, although it may look so. Remember gardeners don't give up, we re-root, even if it means starting again. We've all lost specimens before we got the hang of our plants. That's learning, a normal part of gardening.

Jungle cacti are not finicky, they just require different conditions from desert cacti. They are succulents and should be treated as such. If it were mine, I'd check the roots condition and repot accordingly. Remember that in potting media, particles break down and become smaller over time. There are less air holes for the roots to breathe and in time they suffocate and slowly die. That's why it's important to repot yearly, especially if you're using a peatty mix. You have a fairly large specimen to experiment with, so do so.

He may have gotten waterlogged with summer rain, or maybe hot sun event.. I slipped it out and can see fresh looking Lamberts potting mix, cannot recall just how I repotted. I already have fresh cuttings rooted. Still thin and flat though. Do they ever get plump?
here's what drives me nuts with Xmas/Easter cacti- My MIL got a tiny grocery store one five years ago. It stayed in THE SAME soil and 3 inch pot. It wouldn't die, even neglected, in her overheated dry dim apartment.. So I started hitting it with water about weekly. It ran right through/around the peat. It grew. And has nice plump segments. Brought to my house in April. Moved to slightly larger pot, with 'tapla's gritty mix' a friend made, or maybe something approximating it without really trying very hard.
And today -picture of vitality and blooming like mad.

I apologize if you have previously read my whining about these guys.

sorry, just duplicate