This Week's Podcast: A Replay: The Reluctant Queen
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I get e-mails and comments from listeners and podcast subscribers from time to time. I’d love to get more. The most often asked questions, by far, are about the night-blooming cereus: Epiphyllum oxypetalum.
For example, Mark writes, “…my Queen of the Night cactus plant that's nine years old never bloomed I fertilize it once a month March to November with a 15-30-15, keep in a cool place in the winter months and how come you never blooms? 
[In] summer time I have it out in the full Sun. It is about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide in a 6 inch pot…I heard the plant likes to be root bound…does it bloom around the full moon?”
Well, I tried a lot of things to get mine to bloom over the years. The thing that worked for me was repotting this jungle cactus in a larger pot and feeding it. That’s pretty much against the prevailing wisdom. Mine blooms, but I don’t think it coincides with the full moon.
This year, in late June, four flower buds formed and they are getting larger every day.
I do not have mine in full sun – just bright light and a couple of hours touched by the sun. I fertilize mine, but not as much as Mark does. I dilute a water-soluble organic plant food and fertilize about one out of three times I water. I let the soil dry a bit between watering’s, but in winter, I keep the soil pretty dry and the plant in a sunny place that can go down to 55 degrees F.
The plants are not pretty. It is very top heavy. I have a sort of cage made of plant stakes pushed into the medium inside the edge of the pot and a bit of jute string corralling the taller shoots.
The year that I potted up the plant from its potbound prison from a five-inch pot to an eight-inch pot, I got four flowers. The next year I got half dozen and a few extra buds at the end of summer just before the frost. Unfortunately, I usually see those late flowers the day after they bloom.
The giant white flowers begin to open late (left). You can almost see them unfurling (if you stay up late – even later if night is cool). Epiphyllum oxypetalum originated in Central America. All cacti are from this hemisphere; none grow in Africa, Asia or Europe. But not all love the desert. Oxypetalum plants are jungle cacti that grow in leaf litter in crevices in trees. The plants are epiphytic…hence Epiphyllum: an epiphyte is a plant that grows on another plant, but does not harm it. These plants do not grow in soil in nature, or not a lot of soil, I think that’s where the thought of potbound comes from, as well as the fact that many houseplants do bloom more readily if they are potbound. In their homeland, the air is moist – something they would like.
In cold climates, most folks just try and grow Epiphyllum oxypetalum, but there are many jungle or orchid cacti and scores of magnificent hybrids. 
In California, Florida and other frost-free locations, they can be grown outdoors (right: NoelGieleghem and Brandon Tyson’s California collection). I have a beautiful one with a great story.
I got a cutting of this plant from a friend in Colorado. He grew up on a cattle ranch. The cook who drove the chuck wagon had gotten a cutting from his mother in the Caribbean, and she had had it from her mother. I have no idea exactly what hybrid it is. It is small, and the pure pink flowers are about half the size of most orchid cacti (right). 
It, like the others, grows horizontally and is best in a hanging basket.
The night-blooming cereus is the only one I know that produces vertical growth. The fragrance of the flowers is a bit like wintergreen. In its homeland, nectar-seeking bats push their faces into the open flower, get covered with pollen and fly off to the next flower to lap up the sweet liquid deep in the blossom and fertilize that plant in the bargain.
I met you at The Dixon in Memphis where you gave a talk some years ago and have purchased several of your books. I just found this web site and love it. thank you for making it available to the public.
Thanks, that’s great to hear!
I want to learn as much as I can about Night Blooming Cereus. I have been given a very large plant, I live in Mesa Az, The plant came here yesterday from Tuceon, AZ. I had hoped to put it inside a t a bright south window, but when I got home it was too large. it is in a screen az room whih faces south. I have a swamp cooler running as it is 112degrees….
HELP
wenchinthewood@gmail.com
Pam Saunders
You can start it over. Get a pot with very clean, just-damp medium, and cut two to three-foot-long cuttings from the newest growth and stick them in. Then throw the old plant away. Try not to over-water. Put in very bright spot for a couple of weeks then bright sunlight. Keep cool and not too wet until spring, then summer outdoors after all dnger of frost has passed.
I put mine in a west window over winter and keep it watered. When frost passes, I put it on the east/ northwest side of an island bed of trees. So it gets morning sun until about 11. Dappled from then on. My plant is about 4.5 feet tall (5.5 with the pot) and about 3 years old. Tonight 6 blooms opening!
I’ve had mine for 5 years and thinking this next year will be the year for blooms. But shes extremely ungainly and top heavy so I had her in a hanging planter. She is looking very bedraggled now so I pulled her out of the pot because I could see root’s coming out of the bottom and creeping out of the top of the dirt. Of course, root bound! But I can’t put her in a bigger pot because then she can’t hang and I’ve no room otherwise. Is there nothing I can do or do I need to start over fresh with new cuttings. And if I do, how do I avoid this in the future. I’ve yet to enjoy a bloom.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum – night-blooming cereus
Common advice was to keep these jungle cactus dry and lean, pot-bound in poor soil. I’ve found the opposite to help initiate flowering. I do maintain these cacti on the dry side and cool in the winter, but I repot them every second or third spring in a container one size larger and feed regularly from spring through summer with a balanced organic fertilizer. Newly repotted plants may not bloom the first summer. The plants usually put on new growth and in July, flower buds appear. In late August, another set of buds may form. In some years, I get two flushes of flowers, up to a dozen at a time.
When the plant gets too big or has too much old, damaged growth, I make a new one. I cut off this season’s fresh new stems ending in a flat leaf at the base. I leave the cuttings outside for a couple of days to heal over the cut end and stick all the stgems – artfully arranged – in a single five or six-inch pot of medium – usually coir and perlite (no soil). If need be, I’ll place a stake in the centger and girdle the cuttings standing straight up with twine. (Any dead parts are cut out and those ARE sent to the compost pile.)
The plants will be rooted by spring. I don’t grow them lean, but feed. The second year, these young plants will bloom and for several years.
I try to throw away the old plants, but I have a hard time throwing out any plant. I usually grow these old, more manageable plants, now cut back and shorter. They will make new growth the following spring.
I have multiple blossoms on my queen of the night. I want to have a bloom party, but my plant is in our bathroom on the corner of a large tub with a south facing window. Will it ruin the bloom process if I move it to another room in my house the evening it is going to open? I don’t think we can all fit in the bathroom…🤣
Hi Ken. I have night blooming cereus plants growing on palm trees in Naples. My neighbors do not like them and want them cut down because they say it will kill the Royal palms. I am trying to keep them as most of our neignbors enjoy seeing the blossoms. Can you please me with expert advice and or language that states that this plant does not or will not harm the plants. Thank you in advance for your response. This is of a timely matter