Hi Kelly,

I don't know your plant, but I grow holiday cacti & some unknown epiphyllum. I use small plastic pots & keep them on pebble trays to keep their humidity up.

Again I don't know your plant, but as a tropical succulent it too (I'm guessing) is needing moisture. I'd try doing that. Then, I'd fertilize in Spring & Summer, maybe w/ a balanced fertilizer (all even numbers like 20-20-20).

I had one once, but it grew too big ...
I grow Rhipsalis much in the same way as I grow Schlumbergera, I use plastic pots with a mix of bark, perlite, coir, wood chippings and some shredded, pH-adjusted peat (= the "cactus soil" found in non-specialist flower shops), and water frequently with soft water (rain water or equivalent) with liquid fertilizer.

Sometimes Rhipsalis cuttings take a long time before they start growing, longer than Schlumbergera. I have not found out why.

This one is the pickiest I ever grew and I have a lot of rhips. It is also the slowest grower I ever had. They prefer more water than you would think being tropical they are used to more water then plants growing in the desert. But too much and it rotted, hard to find that happy medium for them. Bright light, no full sun. They like a richer soil mix than say, gritty mix or other similar mixes. Don't tell anyone but most of mine are in Miracle gro potting soil amended with some hardwood mulch and a little decomposed granite. I use fish emulsion as fertilizer a couple of times through the year if I think about it. Good luck with them, when they do bloom they are gorgeous!
Tally HO!

Thank you all for the tips. I am stumped with this plant, but relieved to hear about its tempermentality. I had it in a pretty rich mix, and then on a whim changed it to a very coarse mixture. Things went from bad to worse. It grow ever so slowly, as you say beachplant, and just will not mature into a large specimen. They do look so very lovely when in bloom. Not tooting my horn here, but I am damn successful with just about every plant I put my mind to, except this and maybe one other in I can't tell you how many years of tropical plant growing. I was starting to wonder...

Don't blame yourself, I've only met a handful of plants I can't grow over the years-and then mostly because I can't meet their cold needs or they won't tolerate humidity, my friends tease me that I have green arms instead of a green thumb, but this little sucker has really challenged me. It sure hated the coarse mixture didn't it? Even once you figure out where it's happy, how much water, etc. they grow sooooooo slow.
Tally HO!

I'd suggest that it might grow better if you repotted it into a glazed ceramic or plastic pot so that it stayed moist longer, try giving it warmer growing conditions and water more frequently, and perhaps fertilize it more often by using a time release fertilizer mixed into the soil. It sounds like you may be growing it too hard with too cool conditions and not enough watering. Where these are native they prefer it moist and warm, and will respond best with these conditions. Even in the winter dry season in coastal southeastern Brazil where most Rhipsalis come from, it still rains in the winter and they don't have a long dry season between rains. You might consider adding orchid bark to the mix, and I have found that sinking a small plastic yogurt or margarine container filled with fine gravel in the bottom of a larger hanging basket is just the trick to give a water reservoir for the roots without needing to over water the container, and when I go to repot, the roots of my plants have packed themselves into the gravel. I'd also suggest that bright light in winter and keeping the night time temperatures above 55F at night will keep it growing year round, probably even better if it doesn't drop below 60F. On the other hand, I also find that other Rhipsalis species that I grow outdoors year round, such as R. ceresculea and R. baccifera and R. clavata, do just fine with winter lows at night down to just above freezing, but we warm back up to mid 50'sF in the day in winter here. They don't really seem to grow much, however, until it warms back up again in the spring.

Whoa. Loads of info there. I'm gonna give all of those a try, as I've really nothing to lose at this point. Sure helps to know about where it comes from. I've not found a lot of info about them...I would have composted her years ago if it weren't for those pictures of mature specimens in bloom...when I think of the specimen I nicked the cutting off of...it was a large plant in a shop and was mislabelled as Crassula. Took a wee piece for ID and then planted her up just for a lark. When I did ID it, went back to get the plant and it was long gone. Haven't seen one since and I do look in a whole lot of plant shops and cacti shows. Don't we all have those missed opportunities?

Thanks again for all of the advice.

Kelly in Victoria

A friend just gave me a small cutting and I put in a small plastic container with cactus/succulent soil with perlite. Is that not good?
I will be fun to see if I can grow this.....
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

Neysa from California