Let's see your spring flowers!
Pictured here: Echeveria, Pachypodiums, agave, Sempervivum (not flowering, just doing its spring thing).
That second Pachypodium still has a ways to go... but if you look closely, you can see a 5-headed flower in the center. Great news because now it will branch.
Nice.
This is the first bud coming on my Haworthia limifolia. Woo hoo! I'm anxious to see the bloom.
Haworthia flowers are pretty low key. I like that.
Pictured here: Haworthia, Aeonium, Cleistocactus, Opuntia (with pollinator).
Dudleyas, Dyckia, Graptoveria in the last light of the day, and a group shot from the back patio... 8 of the plants in the picture are flowering or just finished. Lots of yellow and orange and red.
Good thing Echeverias types don't so well here. I'd have to have lots of them. Dydleyas are hard for me to grow also. I tend to want to water in the heat of summer and they do not like that. Also, they don't like the night heat so have to be moved inside in June.
Love all your photos, Baja!
Thanks, Nancy. One bonus of so many Echeveria types in flower is that the hummingbirds come by several times a day to sip from the flowers. They visit the Dyckias and aloes too. I remember seeing Dudleyas wedged between rocks in the central desert of BC, which is technically part of the Sonoran Desert. So it is possible for some of them to grow in hot places. But why make things harder than necessary in the garden, pick what grows best. That's my approach anyway.
A couple of Echeverias in bud, Parodia, Ferocactus with a late bloom, Dudleya mostly done flowering (still a hummingbird magnet). That is the most floriferous Dudleya I have ever seen. It's borderline out of control. :)
Baja, I just cannot get over admiring your garden, plants, tons of work you put into your love and the time for photography and posting the pics. I am so far behind my back filing is from April 2013. My true excuse is that I do have lots of other hobbies.The show stopping Peony in my front yard got some photos, while the cactus that are blooming are photo-less. It is not that I do not have pics of them from prior years but having yearly pics was my goal - from birth to death so to speak. There is no way to get rid of my other hobbies, habits and vices so they all suffer a little. So please keep up the good work so I can have the pleasure of enjoying your pics and beat myself for not getting my own pics.
xuling
You are too kind, Xuling. It is all a labor of love. It makes a big difference for me to know that you appreciate the photos, so I will keep them coming. :) At the end of the year I select the best shot from each month and use those to create a photo calendar where the picture for any given month was taken in that month. The calendars have been a great way to remember events from times past. They are also useful for me to keep track of watering, hehe.
All the plants in the ground are in public land, and I'd like as many people as possible to see them in all their weirdness and variety. It's a different concept from the garden behind a locked gate. The downside is that plants do walk away, but even that can happen behind a gate. Someone ripped a head off my Aeonium "Sunburst" through the bars on the front gate recently... just barely within arm's reach, I was impressed at that. (And the bad taste, given I would gladly give away rooted offsets to anyone who asked.)
This message was edited Apr 11, 2014 12:20 PM
Baja, The things people do are amazing. Fortunately I have not had any theft from my front yard. It is loaded with cactus, succulents and perennials. It wouldn't be any problem to take one, other than maybe digging it up without stabbing themselves to great harm if they don't know what they were doing. But then cactus/succulents are not a popular idea here where I live, so I probably do not have to worry much. I get plenty of compliments but not thefts. We are in a drought and people are digging up lawns but not planting cactus/succulents. So for now I am safe. It they got into my back yard (not difficult) they would have a difficult time trying to chose what to take but then they are dealing with larger and more dangerous plants, so let them go at it ja ja ja. Is your calendar just for yourself or do you publish it on slick paper and sell it? Thanks for all your postings. Xuling
There's no money to be made from it. You can get custom photo calendars from various places on the web and the quality is generally pretty good. Send me your address in December and I'll happily put a 2015 calendar in the mail. Lots of color, guaranteed.
We are in a drought and people are digging up lawns but not planting cactus/succulents.
That would be great Baja. I will put it on my calendar. It is a 3 month hanging calendar and everything gets written 2 to 4 times and the pages get turned. Just a little neurotic, I guess. Some of mine are blooming and others are waiting. xuling
Euphorbias in fruit and flower. Brown fruit in first picture is about a day from exploding. Remnant to the lower right is what's left afterwards. Second plant is a male that decided to make a few female flowers. (Good for him/her!) Third are two males with small flowers.
Dudleyas at various stages. The flowers in the second picture don't open much more than that.
Dyckia (honorary succulent) with little drops of nectar on the buds, Echeveria (best thing about this plant is that it flowers profusely... there are maybe 7-8 other inflorescences right now in various stages), and Adenium in bud. That third plant was horribly underpotted for years and was just recently repotted.
Love them Baja! I have one sorry looking Dudleya that I just can't seem to get to grow. I only water it is spring and fall because somewhere I read that they rot if watered during the wrong time. What do you think. Maybe it just doesn't like the Phoenix weather and wants to be down in Baja!
Oops, forgot the Dudleya photo:
The plant looks good to me. The desert ones I've seen tend to have that complexion.
The coast here (prime Dudleya territory) gets 70% of its rain from December through March, if that's any guide to watering. I have tried growing a few different Dudleyas and they seem to be different in how much water they need/like. They do enjoy regular water (when the soil is dry or almost dry) and a relatively rocky mix.
The one time you really don't want to overwater them is in summer (during those three months I cut the watering frequency for most in half). When the humidity is very low you might try occasionally misting the top of the pot so as to give the plant a bit of moisture in the air. I'm convinced the ones here get a lot of their water from the breeze.
I have little experience growing Dudleyas in clay pots. I'm guessing that in low humidity the clay pot will dry out super fast. If you find that the plant sits there without doing much, you might try moving it to a regular plastic pot (in a smaller size?) or figure out when the soil is actually drying out, so as to fine tune the watering schedule. Some plants do not tolerate clay pots very well (Aeoniums for example, which I found out the hard way).
A little late on this thread.... Here are some blooms in my yard/green room! Does anyone have an ID for the Stapelia? Orbea?
The hedgehog cactus was moved twice and has put on quite a show so far.... Still more to come. What a trooper!
Cville_Gardener! My Haworthis bloomed this fall. Really interesting bloom. VERY tall! Fun!
Peace~
Photos?
Thanks for the info Baja. That clay pot is deceptive. it is only about 2 inches deep and not as big as it looks in the photo. Maybe I should try plastic and see what happens. Watering is my nemesis with these type plants. I won't water much in summer and try misting too. Here is my Sarcocaulon crassicaule blooming this season.
Lovely. The petals look so delicate.
Pictured: Echeveria (the flowers are small and yellow like the greener plant next to it), Hesperaloe in bud. Then a couple flowery looking plants that aren't actually in bloom (Echeveria, Aeonium).
Oooops. Out of practice I guess. Here are the above mentioned photos!
I'm enjoying all of these photos.
Kbh69, I think my Haworthia limifolia bloom stalk has finally stopped growing and the bloom is getting ready to open. It has been a lot of fun watching it grow ... and grow ... and grow. I call it Jack's Beanstalk. :)
Cool huh? The raceme lasts a while. Palmbob wrote an article (sorry, can't reference title!) mentioning that sometimes an offset can appear along with the bloom. Just moved most of my guys outside for some long awaited fresh air! Hope the weather holds up!
Nice flowers. I can't help with a firm ID but the red flowered plant looks a lot like my Huernia schneideriana.
Graptopetalum, Gymnocalycium, Parodia, Dudleya flowers finally open.
Baja, you are correct! The common name is Red Dragon Flower. I'm propagating a whole mess of them. I have the perfect "head" planter. Fun
Nice blooms. An indoor Graptopetalum bloomed under my care in January. It was refreshing against the gloominess outside!
I agree with Nancy, Huernia schneideriana.
Kiley, so you know, that Huernia does not grow long stems for me... quite likely I'm doing something wrong, but it stays low and branches at the base. Also, the Grapto does not flower much (this is the first time in 2 years I've seen anything, with dozens of rosettes in different conditions) so it's sort of a special event when it does. Even more so indoors in January.
Kiley and Baja, I just recently acquired some H. schneideriana and from what I understand, it's a sprawler.
I had to have been mistaken! Surely such a rarity wouldn't have occurred! I think I've used up my blessings for a while...... But, who knows!
Here is a photo of what I CLAIMED was a Graptopetalum.
The blooms were yellow and looked very similar to those shown by Baja....
I get lost real fast in the Mexican plants from that family, but one distinction I understand is that Graptopetalum flowers are open while Echeveria flowers are closed. So if they looked like mine then it's definitely not an Echeveria. Otherwise I couldn't speculate on what to call it.
Yesterday I found this page in the botanary, which is sort of interesting (and does apply to some plants anyway).
http://davesgarden.com/guides/botanary/go/7805/#b
Photo here of brand new Echeveria seed waiting for a gust of wind to disperse. Euphorbia below.
Tiny little Haworthia limifolia buds and finally a bloom.
Congrats C'ville! Noticed another spike starting on mine.
Currently in extreme South Texas....... In awe. Took a quick snap of this Jacaranda on the way out for the day. This is on of several in bloom around town. The film doesn't begin to capture the luminescence of the purple. It was cloudy when the photo was taken.
Would it be okay for me to post buds and blooms that knock my socks off? The Valley had lots of rain this year.
Kiley
Took these at my AZ home over Easter weekend:
Haworthia cymbiformis; Astrophytum myriostigma; Euphorpia ferox
Being from dry, not so pretty West Texas, all of South Texas in Spring knocks my socks off.... I will spare everyone my repressed wonder :)
Lovely flowers, guys. Kiley, go ahead and knock our socks off if you want. The jacarandas around here are sort of opportunists and this has not been a good year for them.
More succulent flowers here... Adenium, Pachypodium, Euphorbia. Last shot shows an agave with a mild sunburn aggravated by our recent heat wave.
I agree.
Opuntia, Mammillaria, Aloe, Gasteria, Echeveria (a little burned at the tips).
