How Often Does a Crown of Thorns Flower

Crown of Thorns plants, or Euphorbia Milii, are popular succulent houseplants. You can typically find it at your local nursery or maybe the nearby home improvement store if you’re lucky. If you live in a warmer climate you may be able to grow them outdoors where they grow in a bushier format. The Crown of Thorns is one of my favorite plants to keep specifically because they bloom flowers. They are known for their spiny stems, green leaves, and colorful flowers. In the right conditions, the Crown of Thorns will flower multiple times a year.

Crown of Thorns Flower

Crown of Thorns flowers are cute and petite. They come in multiple colors like white, yellow, pink, red, orange, and purple. I see a lot of pinks and yellows at the nurseries where I live so those colors might be more common. The flowers often sprout from s single stem in clusters of threes. The flowers themselves are about the size of a dime or penny. They're unique because they are just two petals, I can't think of any other flower like that.

How to Get a Crown of Thorns to Flower

Crown of Thorns can be grown indoors and outdoors. Crown of Thorns grown outdoors are likely to flower provided they get enough light. They can only be grown in zones 9 and above though. If you live in a colder zone, you either treat them as an annual or bring them inside for the winter.

Crown of Thorns grown indoors will also flower. It is best to try and provide the optimal environment indoors to encourage flowers. They mostly need a lot of bright sunlight. Perfecting the light can be much harder to achieve for many people. To get the best Crown of Thorns flower you need a south-facing window. If you don't have a southern window, you may need to supplement with a grow light to get blooms.

I have two Crown of Thorns. One I keep inside in a south-facing window, which you can see pictured above. I do get blooms pretty consistently on this plant. Notice though, how the pink flowers are a bit pale and the leaves are very lush. In contrast, I keep another one in my greenhouse where it survives off lots of sun and some neglect. As you can see the greenhouse Crown of Thorns (which gets a lot more sunlight) has really vibrantly colored flowers and way more flowers in general. The leaves don't look quite as nice as the indoor one though.

Sunlight seems like the most critical factor in creating Crown of Thorns flowers. The indoor Crown of Thorns definitely gets more water and more regular fertilization compared to the greenhouse one and while the leaves look lush, the flowers don't compare.

How Often Do Crown of Thorns Bloom

It depends on whether the Crown of Thorns is indoor or outdoor and other conditions. When the conditions are right, your Crown of Thorns can bloom all year round. Both my indoor and greenhouse Crown of Thorns will flower almost constantly all year. The indoor one slows down a bit in the winter, but it still flowers in the winter nonetheless.

If you want to encourage your Crown of Thorns to bloom, first make sure it's getting enough light. As I mentioned earlier that's probably the most important factor. Then you can try to use fertilizer to encourage blooming. In general, I use an all-purpose balanced fertilizer for all of my houseplants. However, you can also get fertilizers with a higher ratio of phosphorous. Phosphorous is the nutrient that promotes blooming and fruiting. Don't use both types of fertilizers at the same time, pick one and stick with it.

How Long Do Crown of Thorns Flowers Last

Crown of Thorns flowers lasts a decent amount of time. I've had some last several weeks. At least I think so, sometimes it's hard to tell because it's almost constantly blooming. When they dry up the flowers and the stem they grew on fall off. I usually just let them dry up completely and fall into the soil. I have also pulled them off as they start to wilt, but they're actually kind of sticky so now I just let the dry.

How to Get More Crown of Thorns Flowers

First off, make sure that you are giving the correct care that will support your Crown of Thorns blooming. The other thing you might want to consider is to chop and propagate your Crown of Thorns so you can plant more than one in a pot to get more flowers. Chopping the Crown of Thorns actually promotes branching. So if you have a single stem, you can chop that and you're likely to get two or three new branches that will soon begin flowering. In addition, Crown of Thorns are extremely easy to propagate so much so that I have literally chopped, let it callus, and then stick it back in the same pot with the original Crown of Thorns. The cutting tools root after a few weeks in the pot.

Does your Crown of Thorns flower? Let us know in the comments.