Drought-adapted plants and the ways we drown them
Echeverias, sedums, holiday cacti and the rest of the water-storing crowd — light, soak-and-dry watering, dormancy, and why yours is stretching.
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Photo: Cactus by G. Mütrel, Leipzig ; Berlin ; Wien : F.A. Brockhaus · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Little and often feels careful and kills succulents. The method that works is counterintuitive: drench them completely, then do nothing at all for weeks.
The rosette opens up, the stem lengthens, the leaves point downward and get further apart. That is etiolation, it is always a light problem, and it does not reverse. But the plant is fixable.
Schlumbergera is not a desert plant and treating it like one is why yours has never bloomed. It is a jungle epiphyte, and its flowering is triggered by darkness and cool nights.