My view of Rhipsalis as delicate, graceful and elegant plants was quickly broken with the arrival of this monster in the post.  Completely my fault for having only looked at the flowers and ignoring the description of the 1cm thick stems or doing any kind of independent research.  And so I am left wondering what on earth to do with it and how to keep it stable.  I seem to have sorted both problems for the moment, having confined it to the bathroom and potted it in such a way that it doesn’t immediately climb out.  But I’m not sure how long this will last.

The flowers, as can be seen, are very pretty.  These appeared shortly after arrival in November and each lasted about a week.  There can be 2 or 3 at each tip and they opened up almost simultaneously, making for quite an extravagant display.  But now all the flowers are dead and I think I must have done something wrong because they seem to be shrivelling up and dropping – no sign of any berries to come.  I may have kept it too dry.  I find it much harder to judge the watering needs of established plants, as opposed to younger ones.

The plant itself, however, is a monstrosity! The ungainly branches are almost rigid, as well as ridged, decorated with prominent red spots, and protrude any old way, forming an unsightly mass.  Nor does it seem to do anything much.  I haven’t seen any new growth since it arrived, although that might be expected given that it is winter.

So can I justify the space for just a few weeks of flowers?  Well, let’s see if any berries appear and what they look like.