What is your propagation method for schlums?

[snarfie]

I'll start with mine: i plant them about three days after i've separated them from the plant. After planting i give them a thorough watering to make sure the leafs are in contact with the soil and to promote root formation. It usually works perfectly: about 1/20 starts rotting, and about half of the ones rotting i can still save by removing the lowest leaf and let the other leaf of the cutting root. My cuttings usually are 2 or 3 phylloclades long.

[adetheproducer]

I just stick any broken off pads straight in the soil with the mother plant and water as normal they take every time. When I was little my nan had two massive ones on pots and I was not careful and would knock the odd pad or branch so i just stuck them back trying to hide the damage but they just rooted in and kept growing as if nothing change. So now I bumped my slums up to a bigger pot so split a few branches a few pads long and speak them about the pit strain in the soil they root very easy.

[Zhanna]

Snarfie, my method sounds similar to yours. I wait a few days after removing the cuttings from the mother plant. Then I pot them up in damp mix; lately I've been using a mixture of fine orchid bark, perlite, and a peat-free African violet mix (http://repotme.com/potting-mix/African-Violet-Mix.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). So far, it's been working out well. I've had a few rot, but not many. I've also put a few pieces directly back into the soil of the mother plant and that worked too, but I haven't done it often.

Interestingly, I've had even better luck rooting Easter cacti (Rhipsalidopsis/Hatiora) in the same mix. They root very quickly and I can't recall having any losses to rot.

[snarfie]

Thanks for the post zhanna. As far as i know, hatoira is the difficult to grow cousin of schlumbergera ☺
Another method i've used lately was also very succesfull: sticking them in damp perlite until they start to root and then plant them in the soil. That worked well for my madame butterfly variegata(it just wouldn't root in the soil)

[Zhanna]

Nice! I'll keep the perlite method in mind. I've used it for rooting Mammillaria offsets, but not Schlumbergera.

Try Hatiora if you can find one ... I also heard that they are difficult to grow, but I have 9 of them now and so far I haven't had any real problems. They grow quickly and are fun to watch. Their flowers are great, but I do find them harder to get to flower than Schlums, which bloom like crazy for me. Just need to figure out the best conditions to get Hatiora to bloom, I guess!

[snarfie]

I had a hatiora once, but indeed difficult to get to flower, and very sesitive to over/underwatering, so i gave it away.

[greenknight]

I had a hatiora once, but indeed difficult to get to flower, and very sesitive to over/underwatering, so i gave it away.

I used to have a Hatiora rosea, I didn't find it difficult at all.

[snarfie]

Mine was an orange flowering hybrid