Christmas Plants: The Ones Worth Buying (and the Ones to Avoid)

Every year around this time, the garden centers and supermarkets fill up with festive plants — bright red Poinsettias, Christmas Cacti covered in flowers, Amaryllis bulbs in fancy boxes. Some of these are genuinely great plants. Others are destined to be thrown out in January. Here's my honest take.

Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera): Actually Great

The Christmas Cactus is one of the most underrated plants you can buy. Despite the name, it's not a desert cactus at all — it's actually a forest cactus from the Brazilian rainforest, which means it likes more humidity and indirect light than a typical cactus. Treat it more like a tropical plant and it will thrive.

What makes it genuinely special: with the right conditions, it will bloom reliably every year around the same time. Mine bloomed last December, sat quietly all summer, and is currently covered in buds again right on schedule. All it needed was a slightly cooler and drier rest period in autumn to trigger the buds. It's become one of my favourite plants precisely because it marks the seasons.

Amaryllis: A One-Season Spectacle

Amaryllis bulbs are sold everywhere right now, and the flowers are undeniably dramatic — enormous trumpet-shaped blooms on a thick green stem. I bought one last year out of curiosity. It flowered beautifully for about three weeks and then... the journey of trying to keep the bulb alive and get it to rebloom began.

It's doable, but it requires keeping the foliage growing all summer to feed the bulb, then a dry dormancy period in autumn, then bringing it back out. I'm going to try again this year, but I fully understand why most people just throw them out after the flowers are done.

Poinsettia: Probably Not Worth It

I know this is a controversial take, but I genuinely don't buy Poinsettias anymore. They're beautiful in December, but they're notoriously fussy — they hate drafts, hate overwatering, hate being near a cold window, and getting them to turn red again the following year requires a very precise light-deprivation schedule that I've never successfully managed. If you want colour in December, get a Christmas Cactus instead.