Christmas cactus over watering

Question

My mother just gave me some Christmas cactus and I accidentally over watered them. This has happened to me before and I promised them I would not let it happened again. So, since it did happen again I need your help very badly. I don’t really know exactly what is happening but it happened last time I over watered too.
This is the problem, the first leave coming out of the soil looks rotted but the rest of it looks good. Last time this happened the plant kept breaking, so I took the healthy parts and dried them overnight, then put them in kind of dry soil the next day (I had not watered the soil that I planted them in). They seemed fine for about three days and then the leaves just continued to break off.
In one pot I have two different colors and one of the plants seems to be doing fine but the other isn’t. I am not sure how to fix this, last time I tried it didn’t work and I really don’t want these to die on me too. Also I do not have any dry soil to replant them in, can you tell me another way around this, like maybe I could put a paper towel or a clean rag on the soil to soak up extra moisture? Please help me?

Answer 1

Yes, you can try paper towels or rags to soak up the water. Even taking the plant and soil out of the pot and putting it in front of a fan can help it dry out. Once the soil is quite a bit dryer you can return it to the pot and see if it recovers.

If the plant doesn’t seem to be recovering, you can propagate it from cuttings taken from the healthy parts and grow a new one:
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/cacti-succulents/christmas-cactus/how-to-propagate-and-plant-christmas-cactus.htm