Q.Night Blooming Cereus has a bud?
My Night Blooming Cereus cutting suddenly started growing after several months of sitting and doing nothing, except growing roots, apparently. It’s a pretty big cutting consisting of two “leaves” one around a foot and the other a foot and a half long with two baby leaves growing off the bigger one. So it started growing a new stem about two weeks ago, and now I noticed what appears to be a bud growing from the larger “leaf.” Is this possible? I thought it would take two years before it would even think about having a bud. What is the chance that the bud will actually develop into a flower? If so, about how long does it take?
I have attached a picture so someone can tell me if I’m wrong. PS, I think the holes on the leave were caused by an overly-aggressive cactus it was sitting next to, but I treated it with Neem oil anyway. There don’t seem to have been any more problems of that sort.
Certified GKH Gardening Expert
That does appear to be a flowering bud. It may not make it to maturity, and had likely been forming, invisible to the eye for some time before the cutting was taken.
Let it keep going to make sure that it is not new leaf growth, as sometimes they can be hard to tell apart in the very beginning such as this.
If it does happen to be a flower, then you will want to pinch this off so that it can focus more on gaining new root growth instead of on the new flower.
This collection of articles will help with the care of these plants: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/cacti-succulents/night-blooming-cereus
