Is it safe to bare-root them and just stick them in all new soil? YES

Do people put several of them together in a single pot? YES

I once had 5 different color ones in the same pot. I gave it away as a gift. It was a beauty,

Socks gave you good advice.

They can take good root work and settle very quickly.

Thanks, all :-) I understand that it'll probably be a few years before I have blooms again, and that kinda sucks. But it is what it is.

I truly have no clue where the mother came from. I don't have friends and no one in my family have ever given me a plant... I wouldn't have bought it without researching it, so I'm at a total loss! LOL

Multi colors in a pot sounds amazing, I might post it locally to see if anyone wants to trade cuttings...

Why do you think it will be a few years before it blooms?

Just what I'd read before posting, really. The cuttings I have are 1-3 segments long, taken in May:

(that bottom-right one is probably a goner)

You can read my thread about the original one here:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6107692/3-4-year-old-christmas-cactus-taking-a-turn-for-the-worse

Considering that it's taken 5 months to get this far, I'm not expecting blooms anytime soon :-O

And the second picture is why I feel like I need to repot soon. I originally had 12 cuttings, but only 4 of them took root. In this one, I just put the soil mix that I had left over in a 3" pot, and it's only about 1" deep.

I was all excited, now I'm nervous that I'm going to repot them and kill them!!

Okay, you can put them all in one pot. Considering the potting mix is very loose, I think it will be an easy repot and there will not be much damage to the roots while repotting. I just transferred a bunch of cuttings (rather bits that fell off the mother plant) - the root system isn't that extensive for cuttings much bigger and older than what you have there, the roots are half to a fourth the size of the biggest stem segment.

They start retailing plants with buds/flowers for like $3 or so at this time in grocery store and big box stores (lowes, shop rite..). If were you I would pick one up for instant gratification, may be a new color....

They start retailing plants with buds/flowers for like $3 or so at this time in grocery store and big box stores (lowes, shop rite..)

Not in my area :'-( I've never seen them in stores, and my dad (a lifelong gardener) said he'd never even heard of them! They're just not common here.

I looked on Amazon, unrooted cuttings are 3 for $24 :-O

https://www.amazon.com/Cuttings-unrooted-Apricot-Christmas-Thanksgiving/dp/B08LBMGNBT/

If yours aren't red and you want to trade cuttings, send me a message :-)

Hi Jason,

Pls take a deep breath & try to calm down, these are NOT the delicate, fragile plants you seem to think they are. Also, watering once a month is not enough for these, maybe that's part of the problem.

These are not arid land cacti, they are from the tropics, moist tropical forests, usually growing up in the branches of trees, not down in the ground in soil, like we grow them. I'm watering mine now at least once a week.

Moving them from loose mix should be easy, as said above, likely the mix will just fall away causing little harm.

In your first pix, does that saucer come off the pot? If not, that can cause problems. Don't know what kind of 'permanent ' pot you want, but it should be plastic, not terra cotta, for these to do their best,, One can always double pot, the plastic pot into an outer decorative pot if aesthetics are a concern to you.

In this 2nd pic on mine the outer pot has a dish of pebbles ABOVE which the first pot sits. So I can water to overflow, allowing the potted plant to absorb as much water as & when it wants FROM BELOW.

ETA: Sorry, it seems I lost my 1st pic, so the above become now becomes the 1st pic, here comes the other I lost earlier.

Also, watering once a month is not enough for these, maybe that's part of the problem.

I was watering the original plant weekly, too, but I never actually saw any new growth. I got her to bloom once, but that's all.

I water my aloe plants once a month and they do well, which is why I fell back to monthly on this one. I'm seeing new growth and nothing looks wilty, so I thought it was good.

In this 2nd pic on mine the outer pot has a dish of pebbles ABOVE which the first pot sits. So I can water to overflow, allowing the potted plant to absorb as much water as & when it wants FROM BELOW.

That's similar to my aloe plants, I think; they have plastic pots inside of sealed "pretty" pots. I fill the external pot to the rim of the plastic internal pot (so it doesn't overflow into the inner pot), let it sit overnight, and then dump out the excess.

Or maybe more similar to my pitcher plants? I have them sitting in 1" deep saucers that I keep filled 24/7. But that's a LOT more water than they're getting now!

In your fist pix, does that saucer come off the pot?

Yes, it does. I would sit the pot in the sink drain and give it about 1 cup of room-temp filtered water (adding maybe 1/4 cup at a time, until it would flow freely out of the bottom). I would let it sit in the drain overnight, then next day place it back on the saucer. The saucer is really just to catch any droplets to prevent stains on the table.

These are not arid land cacti, they are from the tropics, moist tropical forests, usually growing up in the branches of trees...

FWIW, when I took cuttings from the original I put 4 of them in the greenhouse, and put the repotted original in the greenhouse, too. The cuttings didn't survive at all, and while I thought that the original was bouncing back... she didn't :-( They were all in the same mix of 60/40 potting soil / perlite.

I've read about them growing in branches, but can't find any close-up pics of them in their natural habitat. Are we walking NO soil at all? Just sitting there bare-rooted? If so, why do we put them in soil instead of in gravel or something (just to hold them in place)?

I've never seen any pix of them growing in the branches either, but it's a known fact, that's how & where they grow; you've said you've read it yourself. I can't answer for how or why they're grown in soil in US nurseries (these are native to Brazil), they just are.

Sorry to be so blunt but Aloes & Tropical Cacti are completely different plants from different families, requiring different growing conditions. I grow both so I do really know this stuff.

I don't know what you mean by 'sealed' pretty pots, but if you're letting Aloes sit in water overnight, you'll be rotting their roots pretty quickly, if not already. Sorry, but it's a terrible idea!

If I were you, I'd take the Aloes out of those pots to water them, let them drain in the sink a 1/2 hr. & them put them back in their pretty pots.

I grow 3 different Aloes, mostly in terra cotta pots. They take strong, direct sun, & I water them infrequently, like once every 3 wks or so, emptying any overflow water IMMEDIATELY. They are arid land succulents, from DRY climates.

vs.

CC or TC which again, are Tropical Forest Cacti, wanting dappled, indirect light, like thru tree branches & other leaves & frequent watering. Tropical forests are moist places as they get a lot of rain, depending on the season.

The color of your blooms is quite pretty, if I saw that, I'd scoop it up in a minute!

https://newgarden.com/learning-center/christmas-cactus

These guys seems to have them, they know abt Holiday Cacti.

I found them by doing a search like this for you. Schlumbergeras are part pf their botanical (latin) name.

where to buy schlumbergeras in greensboro, NC

also try any local Home Depots. I also saw some listed on Etsy, which I don't use or shop at.

It is strange that the mass market plant industry doesn't sell these in NC. We get them the same way as kalanchoe or mini roses, just seasonally. I have a red with some fuschia undertones and a pink. They are sold in thick bunched growth of 3 plants or so in a 4 inch pot root bound. There are at least two  or three other colors, white or off white, peachish, and creamish yellow. The problem is they are grown as badly root bound and so hard to keep long term without losing to root rot, which manifests in big segments breaking off and dropping. The same is true for mass market mini roses, gardenia.... Anyhow, I will be happy to send them your way at cost when they come up again in the grocery store. Why settle for puny cuttings when you can have a decent specime. Now, I would exchange for something you get abundantly and cheap in your parts that we don't.

@HU-622143985, I wasn't doubting your information, just expressing interest :-) Reading about their natural environment is what prompted me to try the greenhouse, but it seemed to work pretty poorly.

The original stayed on my dining room table, close to a North-facing sliding glass door so it had indirect sunlight. It seemed to do OK there... until it didn't. I don't remember who it was on here that helped me back then, but the soil had gotten SUPER compacted, almost like a brick! By time I discovered there was a problem, I think it was just too late.

But now I have several, so I plan to have the biggest back on the dining room table, and another in my office near an East-facing window. It'll have a little more morning sun than the original, but it's still dappled through a dogwood tree so I think it will probably do better there.

Thanks for the info on the aloes! I should probably create another thread on them to keep this one on topic. One was a gift that is much larger and floppier than anticipated:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6128837/aloe-plant-kinda-floppy

The other was a find at the Lowes distressed rack in 2019, no one knew what it was! They ended up letting me have it for $1. It has a round plastic pot which is surrounded by some kind of moss, then the whole thing is sitting inside of a square ceramic pot (no drainage on the bottom).

Here's a pic from about a month after I bought it:

I can take a current pic tomorrow if you like.

FWIW, I'm actually about 100 miles from Greensboro, it's just the closest city to me that anyone here would likely know :-) I'm in a small town in the rural part of NC, which is why we don't have a lot of options. We have Lowes, but the nearest Home Depot is almost an hour away!

@getgoing100_7b_nj, I would definitely love a white, off white, yellow, or peach colored one! That would complement the red one I have well, I think :-)

I have a ton of perennials that I can trade, I'll message you with a list tomorrow :-)

@getgoing100_7b_nj, I can't figure out how to message you on here :-( Feel free to message me, though, if you still want to talk about trading!

Sure, I will give it a try. I think we are still early for the season so no hurry.

Well, I have a follow-up.

A friend just gave me a new Thanksgiving cactus; well intentioned, but it's still red!! LOL

The soil does NOT look like it's the well-draining type. It looks more like moss. I've had it for over a week and haven't watered it yet, but the soil still feels very wet. Like a sponge.

I suspect that this is the same type of soil that was in my original one, that basically turned to rock after a few years.

It has buds and 2 blooms on it now. So my questions are:

1. Would you bareroot it and put it in new soil now, or wait until there's a problem?

2. If you would repot it sooner rather than later, should I do it now, after the blooms are over, or wait for Spring?

Wait for a problem or in fact try to grow it successfully as is. Just don't water until it needs to be watered. In my experience, the roots are too dense and entangled in such mostly peat grown plants that repotting is difficult without destroying a majority of the roots. If the plant is judiciously watered it can live happily for years as is. In the meantime you can root cuttings if any stems fall off by accident, over or under watering. I sent you a message regarding our previous conversation