<\/p>\n If you haven’t guessed it already, it involves coffee grounds. So, here’s how to keep this popular seasonal plant not only alive, but thriving with this affordable, natural fix.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n How to use coffee grounds to fertilize your Christmas cactus<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n Now, it’s not quite as simple as offloading your old coffee grounds into the soil, but it’s definitely worth the little extra effort required.<\/p>\n All you need to do is follow these simple steps to get what you need from your old coffee.<\/p>\n Firstly, steep a teaspoon of coffee grounds into a cup of warm water overnight in a cheesecloth. Then, strain out the solids before pouring the remaining liquid into the soil of your Christmas cactus.<\/p>\n This process should be repeated once a month throughout the active growth phase of the plant, which is usually over the winter period.<\/p>\n Why it works<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n Coffee grounds don’t just make a delicious beverage, there’s also 5 ways to use coffee grounds in your yard<\/a> and that also translates really well to your Christmas cactus, too.<\/p>\n Coffee grounds are rich in nutrients, have a texture well suited to soil and a natural pH that provides added benefits. No surprise then that using coffee grounds is something your Christmas cactus will love.<\/p>\n And another thing, coffee grounds are slightly acidic and for acid-loving plants like the Christmas cactus, it’s a match made in soil heaven.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n For many plants, they’re a direct replacement for traditional fertilizer, and for the Christmas cactus, it can replicate the environment they’re native to, which is the humid, tropical rainforests of Brazil.<\/p>\n While it’s unlikely you’ll be able to reproduce the same climate in your home, the coffee grounds do the hard work for you by offering the soil a slight acidity, plenty of nutrients, and a moisture-rich soil.<\/p>\n Other ways to look after your Christmas cactus<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n While a Christmas cactus shows off its blooms at winter, it’s certainly not a plant that’s just for the festive period \u2014 and there’s plenty of ways you can look after it all year round.<\/p>\n We’ve delved deeper into it in our guide on how to care for your Christmas cactus when the holiday season is over<\/a>, but there are some main takeaways that are important to follow.<\/p>\n You should gently deadhead any withering blooms when you spot them. And, once flowering is over (around January time), make sure to keep the plant at temperatures of 60-70\u00b0F for the remainder of winter and only outside when it’s consistently above 50\u00b0F. Plus, be sure to water it less once the flowers have all died.<\/p>\n During the spring and summer months, the Christmas cactus loves to grow, and so, you should use fertilizer on a consistent schedule, around every two or four weeks.<\/p>\n You can also prune any longer stems to encourage further growth when it’s getting a bit out of hand, and even propagate these cuttings<\/a> to gift once the holidays swing back around.<\/p>\n And, very interestingly, if you want the flowers to bloom year on year, you need to give the Christmas cactus 12 hours of dark and 10 hours of light starting 6-8 weeks before Christmas until the flowers begin to bud. Not quite as long as ‘feeding’ your Christmas pudding<\/a>, but something you’ll need to keep a check on!<\/p>\n More from Tom’s Guide<\/p>\n Today’s best pruning shears deals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finding ways to reuse old coffee grounds is seriously satisfying, and it just so happens that during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-190921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Spoon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/WtPyeniaZL3rjNiTSzsFWm.jpg\")
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\n<\/p>\n![\"Christmas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/69NTdf2M3edtvK8jMBzMXE.jpg\")
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