Does your Christmas Cactus have red on its leaves? If so, that red is an indication that the plant is stressed out.   It could be that it has that color on the leaves when it’s blooming because blooming puts pressure on the plant.   In general, those leaves will turn a little red if you’re watering them too much or  If you have them too much sun.     One of my oldest Christmas cactuses came from my husband‘s grandmother that was a very craggy looking. I managed to keep it alive for about a decade and then it was time to start over with a new one. Don’t forget that you can propagate your Christmas cactus with the required simply graph one of the leaves   The leaves in twisted off you can put the water or you can have a little booty  or you can add a little rooting hormone   And twisted off you could you can put the cutting in water or you can have a little breathing hormone and put it directly in the soil   If you want to keep your Christmas cactus compact now is the time to prune it just take all those little cuttings and get the routing and then share them with friends                    Brevities #OTD On this day in 1801, the botanist François-Andre Michaux returned to Charleston.   François-Andre was the son of the botanist Andrea Michaux. His father named an oak in his honor.   Michaux's mom died just a few short weeks after he was born.   His father was so despondent, he turned to botany to deal with his grief. Given his position in France, his mentors were the top gardeners in the French Royal Gardens. The expert guidance helped Michaux accelerate his learning.   When François-Andre was 15 years old, he and his dad set sail for North America.   His father had a very clear goal for his time in America; establish a botanical garden and send specimens back to France. When they arrive, the year was 1786 and the location chosen by Michaux for the garden was on property that’s now occupied by the Charleston Area National Airport.   Today, as you leave the airport, you’ll notice a stunning mural that honors the Michaux's. It includes scenes depicting the rice fields along the Ashley River and the Charleston Harbor where Michaux introduced one of the first camellia plants. In one panel, Andre-François and his father are depicted in the potager or kitchen garden. The mural was installed in 2016.               #OTD  On this day in 1887 the Los Angeles Herald ran an interview with the superintendent of the botanical gardens William Smith about the senators in Washington during the 1880's who had a passion for plants.    Here's what he said:   Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts was a great enthusiast... He used to tell me that when traveling he would peer out of the car windows by the hour, on the lookout for a beautiful tree, and when his eye for the lovely and symmetrical was satisfied he would go into raptures. ... The last enjoyment I had with him, shortly before he died, was in visiting a favorite elm of his own Boston Common.   Senator John James Ingalls, of Kansas, ...is a most devoted student of arboriculture. Some of the most valuable suggestions about distributing plants in the west come from him. Senator William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, was an ardent apostle [of gardening] all through his long public life. I remember that his wife had a sweet verbena in their home in Maine, of which she was very fond. She watched it tenderly as a child, and Mr. Fessenden shared the feeling so thoroughly that for thirteen sears ho would journey home from Washington to take up the plant in autumn and make another trip in the springtime to set it out. No pressure of public business could make him forget that verbena. It was really a paternal devotion. Senator James A Pearce, of Maryland, was one of the most cultivated botanists ever in Congress. Scarcely a day passed that he did not drop in on me to watch the growth of some favorite plant or some new experiment, and his ideas were always scientific and valuable.   And then there was