We had rain last week and these leaves are the 1st since I got this plant in March 2012 from Miles' To Go. It looks happy now. I was afraid it was dead. Good thing I didn't throw it away!
Fouquieria diguetii
Such nice leaves too. I have several little nubbins of plants that hardly seem alive and rarely produce a leaf. But then they will so some sign of life so I keep it around hoping for more!
Fouquierias go through their phases. Good to see yours in leaf. Mine are looking scrappy (leafless) at the moment. I think they're waiting for the rain to come back.
F. diguetti is a nice looking plant when it grows up. I saw a couple earlier this summer. Another cool one I lust after is F. purpusii. I think there's a hybrid of those two which looks pretty cool too.
Congrats, Nancy! It's such a good feeling when a small, leaf-shy tree finally foliates.
I just had a Commiphora wightii break into full leaf after 12 months with nary a leaf (Miles2Go 2011 purchase). In fact, I found its first leaves the very same day I broke down and bought a 2nd Commiphora wightii from Miles in person at InterCity Show and Sale.
I now regret discarding a big old Bursera I had. I gave up on it after it gave no leaves for 1 year.
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dean
This Fouquieria is so interesting. At the very tip it had a tiny dot of green for months. That is why I kept it around. After the rain it only took a day and all those leaves were there. I couldn't believe it. I was also thinking, Dean, of some plants with caudexes that I tossed because I got sick of waiting and that I probably shouldn't have gotten rid of them. They really can surprise you! Lesson learned, I guess!
I have a small Boswellia sacra which has looked like a small, dead stick for a year. But I broke off a tiny bit of the tip and it's green inside. So I repotted it and I'll try to stimulate it into activity with water and feeding.
I know you can kill other succulents with rich treatment when leafless, if they're truly dormant. But with trees, it's the only way I've managed to get them to leaf out when "stuck" in a leafless state.
That looks great Nancy. :-)
I just looked at F. purpusii on DG PlantFiles and it took 18 years to bloom! Yikes! By the time my F. diguetii grows up I'll probably be ancient (if still around). My little plant is about 5 inches in height. I've been afraid to give it much water because I have rotted so many plants with overwatering. It is a dilemma at times!
But it does look really nice now (Thanks, Sally!) so I'm happy with that success anyway.
Had my Fouquieria columnaris in the ground for the summer. It did get some growth. Just lost it's leaves but has a few left.
Sally, so you know, those are not real happy about summer water when they get older, especially in the ground... rot risk. Probably not too happy about roots being handled then, either. Summer is sleepy time for cirios. When they're little like yours it's not an issue, but down the road things are different.
I have this little plant (1in tall) that got its head chewed off about 2 years ago by a squirrel. It sat for a year without any growth and them this past spring put out a little shoot. Those leaves dried up, probably from my neglect (:-() but has rallyed again with some more tiny leaves.
I am not sure how much longer it can hang on. I can't remember its name.
Thanks for the tip Baja.
Baja, what are cirios?
Cirio = F. columnaris, the boojum tree. It's what people call the plant here where it's from. There's a protected area in Baja California called Valley of the Cirios which is home to these and other strange creatures. Worth a visit just to see the giants in person.
http://cirios.conanp.gob.mx/
Thanks Baja. I never heard that name for the boojum tree. There are really big ones here in Phoenix at the Desert Botanical Garden. They are wonderful plants. I learn a lot on DG!