Hi,

Could you define what you mean by cold storage ?

I bring my in and park them by a window for some light.

As the winter moves on I put some fluorescent lights in the room.
The temperature were I live gets well below freezing so the only reason they get moved indoors at all is to avoid the temperature.

I was told you're not supposed to give them any light over the winter, and only water once a month. My question was when do you do this, and does species matter?

If you have a different way of overwintering them I'd be enlightened to hear it. I was just told this way so that you can ensure blooms for next season.

Oh wow, I had never heard this but rather that you just brought them in and treated them normally. That's what I do, although I don't have all of the species and such you have (I keep trying to get them though lol!)

I sorta like you idea about not supplementing artificial light.
I am going to try that this year as I do have trouble getting them
to bloom although they are plenty old enough to do so.
I always thought that the climate was the problem.
Maybe a couple of weeks before spring I will try bagging them to eliminate light altogether before I take them outside for the growing season. Probably just start with one or two plants to see if they bloom and the other ones I didn't bag bloomed or not.

I'm in the Bay Area of California. WInter temps in the teens overnight are very unusual.

My hanging epis are under lattice all year round. In Winter if I need more protection I just throw a tarp over the lattice and weigh it down. This affords quite good cold protection in my area.

For epis still in pots, I either bring those in my unheated cactus room that has a window or put them in my unheated plastic covered greenhouse thingie.

Epis seem to tolerate a little below freezing pretty well. When you get into the teens though, it is probably a different story.

You can see mine always have light. Water? They get some but not much over Winter if they are inside or the tarp is on. Otherwise, they get rain all during Winter if they're outside and the tarp is not on.

I have reliable blooms every year.
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Beautiful blooms! I think I'm going to try a few different methods and see which one yields better results. Thanks for everyone's input!

Beautiful blooms!! Have you always got those blooms or did it take a number of years to start?

TFS!!

Mine get as much sun as possible over the winter, however, I try to keep them rather cool and water sparingly. They stay outside in a sunny balcony until it gets frosty at night. We are enjoying a spell of really warm weather here with day temps shooting over 20 degrees C. It should stay warm (12-15 deg.C during the day and 5-10 deg. C at night) for another 1,5 - 2 weeks so I don't plan on bringing the plants in any time soon. It should be mentioned, though, that my plants are grown in rather spartan conditions and are, in general, quite hardy.
On the other hand, my grandma overwinters her huge Epiphyllum ackermannii in a fairly dark and cool room in total neglect. Then, come spring, she drags it out onto the southeast-facing patio with some dappled shade from an apple tree where it stays until frosts set in. The cactus is sturdy, if a bit scraggy, but always a reliable and profuse bloomer.... Which approach is better? Go figure...

I am in 8 b..I find E. oxipetalum more hardy tha D. ackermani.I used to treat the Ackermani as I treated the Oxy. I would let them hang out under frost cloth pulled close to the house. and then bring them in when the nights got to close to 24, . The Akermani never grew. I started bringing it in at 32 and installing it on its shelf where it only got natural light , no lights. It grew much better this year. I bring the big monster Epi in later and put it back outside as soon as possible. I have heard that a natural light/dark cycle between night and day is important for bud formation,especially late winter, early spring. The akermani will get a deleted no nitrogen fertilizer this winter about once a month. I am still bloodless where the akermani is concerned. I am looking for that magic balance.

wantonamara, an interesting observation... I can't be the judge here as I've never grown E.oxypetalum. When you write that your ackermannii never grew when treated as oxypetalum, are you saying it never grew in the spring/summer/early fall? No new shoots, no flowers? My grandma keeps hers outside only till the first frosts. One year the poor thing was left outside a few nights with temps around or slightly below 32. It got a frost bite, but bloomed like crazy the next summer... I guess, what might be important here is the size/age of the plant and the amount of sun energy it is exposed to during the growing period - the larger the plant is and the more sun it gets, the "thicker-skinned" it becomes - just a guess...
I, like you, haul my larger plants back and forth in the late fall when it gets cold at night and days are still warm and sunny....

It took forever to look more than a three inch plant from the cutting....for several years. I keep them in a unheated shop and we did get very cold on several years and I struggled to keep them above freezing for 3 days.. It did not bother the oxy who was about 8'accross but the ackermanii was in suspended animation for years. As soona as I babied it during the winter , it commenced to grow. Maybe it was a coincidence. I don't know. But it is an observation and now I have a belief about it. Could be a superstition. Who knows , but its my story and I am sticking to it because so far I have had better luck with it. I flirt with temps and leaving plants out because I barely get freezes and then WHAM , we have a real bad one. Last year was a non winter with one quick pass down to 24F and the rest above freezing. This winter could be another story.

I'm in S.Ca,so I never have to bring anything in,and i'm so spoiled by that.My poor sister in N.Y. state always has to bring her stuff in.
Kathi