Night Blooming Cereus, Mandacaru

I live in zone 8b. It must have winter protection, which I used to provide by moving to sunny south side in winter and covering when fro...Read Morest was predicted. It has gotten too big to move. It is growing in large pots on the northside of a low rock wall. In the winter I cover the bottom 2 feet with hay, and cover top with cloth when frost threatens.

Everyone should experience at least once, the thrill of watching your own cereus open and bloom for that one night of the year. It looks amazing. The bloom is so large, frilly, and sweet smelling. You can almost see it swell and fluff out before your very eyes.

However after the first couple of years, sleep starts to seem more interesting -- been there, done that.

There are some major downsides --
1. The plant is always sprawling, out of control, ugly looking. Even the best looking plants I have ever seen in nurseries and botanical gardens are not attractive.
2. Given the chance and proper habitat, they will sprawl for at least 6 feet. You can cut them back (the cuttings root readily just by sticking them in dirt), but the cut on the mother plant tends to look ugly.
3. Bits that freeze, rot to a gooey mess with a stick down the middle. When you cut this off, the cut looks ugly. (see above)
4. They can not take direct Texas sun. They sunburn. Mine are planted near the south drip line of a pecan tree, so they experience a nice bright open shade once the pecan leafs out. Unfortunately for me, this is one of the later pecans to leaf, so I either need to rig up some sort of temporary shade, or live with ugly brown sun burns.
5. They do need to be fertilized to bloom. I use an organic fertilizer 3x per year -- early spring, mid summer and fall.
6. There is nothing more disheartening than to have watched that huge bud, night after night waiting for your first ever bloom experience, and then get up one morning and see the spent withering flower.

Every year, I swear that I am not going to cover them and just let them freeze. ... and soft hearted me, never does. It is September 14th, and I am on bud watch. I don't think it will be tonight, but it might be tomorrow. ;)

I've been practicing night photography with some other white flowers to work out better exposure conditions -- point-n-shoot style conditions overexpose the bloom and you loose much of the frills.

Can I get any thoughts on how to hand pollinate these flowers. One of these nights it looks like I"ll be having my last group of flowers...Read More for the summer.

I agree that some of the pictures are for the wrong plant. The night-blooming Cereus is an erect columnar cactus with infrequent spines....Read More Mine has 4-6 ribs and now blooms in June and usually August or September with 5-8 booms a year - once per night. Getting it to grow 6 ribs is an indication that it is happy.

It is not very fragrant. The Queen of the Night is often confused with this plant as they both bloom only at night and each blossom lasts only one night- The Queen has flat non-spiney leaves. I added a bloom pic for the actual night blooming cereus.

I got mine from my great uncle who was a horticulturalist and his was over 60 years old when he gave me a 6 inch cutting some 20 years ago. I keep mine in a pot and bring it indoors to overwinter. It can take a light frost a couple of times but that is it. I water it very little in the winter and it is very happy on my NE facing deck with morning-midday sun all summer in MD. This is my most treasured plant.

It is important to not remove the rotting blooms from the cactus. Doing so will impair its ability to rebloom. They will fall off naturally when it is ready - a few days after blooming.

There appears to be a great deal of confusion regarding this cactus. In fact, four of the photos presented here are for a different spec...Read Moreies altogether- Epiphyllum oxypetalum, I believe. The first three photos are correctly identified. The true "Night Blooming Cereus" is a columnar type cactus. The Epiphyllum has flat stems, is branching, and is very vinelike. In fact, you can clearly see the similarities between the potted specimens here, and their "orchid cactus" relatives. Most of the confusion arrives from the fact that both cactus have very similar looking flowers (well, at least somewhat), and both bloom in the evening. Another point of confusion- there are many more cactus that look similar, and have nearly identical flowers.