These are a smaller ribes than the blooming ribes I posted a couple days ago. It only gets 2 to 3 feet tall, but will grow wide. You can let it go wild to about 8 ft. if you choose.
Prefers some shade, can survive well in our local clay soils with no watering through the summer drought.
The edible fruits are a tangy currant. I don’t really know that, I just thought I should write something about the fruits, since they are edible, although the plant is really grown for the flowers. The book says they don’t fruit further inland, but we’re coastal so we’ve seen the fruit. And the birds will eat them right up.
My Orchid Cactus has develped these orangie spots. They look ugly and menacing as there are more and more appearing everyday. What product can I use to get rid of them, short of cutting the branch off?
Thank you!
Lillian
Lillian,
Your Epiphyllum has a fungus known as Rust. I recommend a strong organic fungicide sprayed on immediately. We do have a couple products at the nursery we can recommend, but if you are not local, we would suggest 100% neem oil at a 2% dilution.
Peter
San Francisco’s Paxton Gate Nursery has a Portland branch office, now, so it seems. This comes to us via words and pictures and links from Danger Garden who happens to be in Portland, so they are probably a reliable source for this.
Check out the fully dormant and named Desert Roses they have. I thought we were the only ones to put out leafless succulents.
This very blue California Lilac cultivar was first discovered on the Owlswood Ranch in Marin, across the Bay from us, less than 15 miles as the owl flies.
An early bloomer for us, and a bluer bloomer than most of the Ceanothuses. Fast growing to around 10 ft. tall.
Ceanothus “Owlswood Blue” in bud, looking purplish.
Here they are fully open:
Man, that’s some blue flowers. Wow, indeed. I think I need to copy that color and paint some sneakers that blue. That would be awesome.
It’s a hospital, which seems to be a good location for green roofing, since the roofs are often overlooked by more patient rooms higher up. As usual, we have a sedum roof, a “Pre-Vegetated Sedum Mat” with some grasses and small trees too.
Project Name: Providence Everett Medical Center
Year: 2010
Location: Everett, WA, USA
Building Type: Healthcare
Size: 13700 sq.ft.
Slope: 1%
Access: Inaccessible, Private
Not the prettiest of green roof projects. No doubt it will fill in and be a better attraction for the patients over time.
My brother is working on a hospital project in New York. I wonder if he’s got a green roof going?
Ever wonder what it would take to deliver a very branchy, very spiny 8 foot tall cactus 40 miles to someone’s house?
Opuntia subulata being mummified for the trip. Ian, Keith and Hap (and Brian not in photo) are hard at work with newspaper, cardboard and plastic at the nursery in Berkeley.
Securing the plant in the truck.
On the deck? That must have been hard to get it up there. Four people lifting it up stairs.
And the final resting place of this giant cactus, with pot feet, in Pleasanton.
That is a truism. The rest of the review for the book Succulent Flora of Southern Africa by Doreen Court would have to be all downhill from there. Do you trust me enough to stop at the headline, or do you want to click through and see for yourself? Your choice.
They like their succulents black on the Isle of Wight. That leads, inevitably, to Black Rose.
Marie Langford e-mailed me the other day and asked if I know of any nurseries on the Island which specialise in ‘black’ plants, most especially succulents. One such is (A)eonium arboreum Swarzkopf. I bought one during a garden visit when Alan Titchmarsh was our high sheriff a few years ago now….
But I can recommend the tall, arching, tree form of this aeonium with its large heads of deep, purple-black foliage. If anyone knows where this and other black succulents can be easily obtained by Marie on the Island, please e-mail me and I will pass it on.
I like that title, “high sheriff”. I wonder what you have to do as a sheriff to become a high sheriff. Clearly a knowledge of succulents is required, which I have, but is that all? There must be more to it than that.
I can also recommend Gasteria nigra, and this one too. Anything else we should pass on to Marie?
Darlinghurst Rooftop Garden, 221-223 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst
New to Australia’s Open Garden Scheme, this garden has been designed with imagination to maximise space.
The sunny rooftop has stunning views over the city and contemporary plantings including over 100 sedums, succulents and frangipanis, which have been chosen to withstand full sun.
Communal areas have been created around… outdoor showers…
Also known as Plumeria. Can these survive in Sydney? Bloom? I guess we’ll find out after a winter.
It’s out favorite time of year in the Native California plant world – the time when the Ribes grow fresh new green leaves and stunning displays of pink flowers. Also, the Arctostaphyloses and the Ceanothuses, too, but more on that later.
I wonder if the currants from this plant are delicious? Most of the Arctostaphylos berries are terrible tasting, to us, though delicious to bears, and thus healthy and nutritious for us, but still terrible tasting.
This is one of the larger Ribes, getting 8 ft. tall! Now that’s impressive. We like these for being shade tolerant and drought tolerant and clay tolerant too. Very versatile. And attractive to native butterflies and bees and birds. Check out the honey bees in Davis collecting nectar on this plant. Very nice photos! Happy bees!
Hi…can I get a little advice? I moved into a new home with a fantastic agave about four months ago. We recently had a cold snap here in Phoenix (if you can believe that), and it’s looking sickly now. Is there anything I can do to help its recovery?
Wayne
It does look like cold damage. There’s really nothing you can do at this time of year to help the plant. It looks like it will eventually come out of it. You’ll know when you see new leaves starting to grow out of the middle, and then you can start cutting off the older dead leaves. But you shouldn’t really start any pruning until spring. At that time, after you see some new growth, I would recommend fertilizing with something like a Liquid Kelp, or other low-strength growth stimulant, but not until the plant has started coming out of winter dormancy.
That’s the recent headline for the Sealy News. I wonder where Sealy is? I think it may be my new favorite town if everyone there with limited space follows through on the promise of the headline and buys succulents. It’s all good.
And it turns out that we’re talking about Texas. Texas! Who knew.
Here we have a picture of the Old West version of Sealy.
And here’s one of the New West. Sealy has something for everyone.
I think the cankers on my cacti are a fungus. Regardless, I am not sure whether there is any hope (treatment) for the first one and whether the second is suffering from the same problem. Any help/advice would be much appreciated. I live in Oakland, CA.
Thanks,
Don
Don,
It does look like a fungal issue. You can treat with Neem Oil, which is a natural and usually effective fungicide. We usually use it in a 1-2% solution in water with a drop of soap as an emulsifier. Spray to the point of run-off on an overcast morning or in the evening, but not on a sunny day as oil treatments on sunny days can cause burning. Retreat after a week at least twice. It should deal with the fungus, though the scaring will always be there, though eventually it will bark over and just add character to your plants. We carry Neem Oil at the nursery, and can talk you through it’s use.
Take care,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the prompt reply. I will stop by, say hello and buy some Neem oil from your store.
I was contemplating getting rid of the cactus because it looks so sick, so you saved it.
BTW, can this fungus spread (wind, etc.) to other cacti in the garden?
Love your blog and your helpfulness.
Regards,
Don
Don,
I do recommend spraying the plants that are near the infected one, the fungus can spread.
Peter
I bought a Rebutia krainziana cactus from a plant show in San Francisco last spring. At the time I bought it, the cactus looked as it should; short, round, plump, spiral pattern of spines, and was blooming. I decided to keep this cactus on my work cubicle, which is next to a window. However, over the summer the cactus grew to be an irregular shape…it’s now very tall (10cm), and cone shaped. The top of the plant is very narrow, and it slowly starts to round/plump out towards the lower half of the plant. The spines are also no longer arranged in a spiral shape and are not fully formed (there are very few actual spines in the white spots on the upper half of the plant). Other than the abnormal shape of the cactus, it looks perfectly healthy. I’m just wondering what’s going on with the plant, and if there is anything I can do to get it back to its original round, plump shape. Could lighting be an issue?
Thanks!
~Kristen
It sounds like it is not getting enough light. Can you send a photo or
bring it by the nursery? Anyway, try getting it a minimum of 4 hours
direct sun, or adding a full spectrum light bulb within 12″ of the
plant.
Peter
Hi Peter,
Per your request, attached is a picture of my Rebutia. Would it be okay to keep my cactus outdoors (I live near ocean beach in San Francisco), or is San Fran weather too cold for it?
~Kristen
Kristen,
That is an extreme case of not enough light. Quite the interesting shape!
It can survive just fine outside in SF, but it would do better in a terra cotta pot with a fast draining cactus soil, and no saucer – you never want it sitting in water.
When you bring it out into the sun, it will need to be “hardened off” which means giving it progressively more light over a couple weeks, and not putting it straight into full sun.
There are some amazing carrion plants out there, in the Asclepiadaceae family. Including the Asclepiads too! Who knew the Milkweed Family and the Stapeliads were related.
Anyway, so on the recent foray into the jungles of Florida, we found this stunning stapeliad at a nursery and we snapped up a few for parenting. We should have plants ready if we’re successful, in a year or so. I took this picture of the tiny bloom with my cell phone camera and this was the best I could get it while on the road.
This isn’t my desert rose, but it looks just like it. My blooms haven’t opened and, in fact, the leaves are curling up and dropping at an astonishingly fast pace. But that’s normal! It’s winter. This is dormant time for desert rose.
The tips I’ve learned for this plant: Don’t water during the winter, when it’s natural to drop leaves and go dormant. (I take mine inside during winter rains.) In the growing months, it needs lots of sun, and water and fertilizer about once a month. Prune after it blooms and you’ll be rewarded with more branching and more blooms.
There are a lot of cultivars of this plant out in the trade all with slightly different flower colors, or completely different flower colors. On this trip we saw new Adenium cultivars growing as full blown shrubs with flowers constantly, and completely covered in glossy green leaves. Apparently if you live in the right climate, it can work! We grow them primarily for the caudex and the up to twice a year flowers.
We’re having a last minute tropical storm on our last morning in Florida. Assuming our flights take off, Hap and I will be back at the store this weekend, so you have one more day to harass the crew, or just go over and be really nice to them too. And then we’re back!
Have one more Florida plant, a Jatropha integerrima.
We custom planted these succulent wall panels for a customer who gave them to his wife as a birthday present, covering a wall right outside the window. Nice!
Selenicereus is a jungle cactus that is quite large in this particular case, I think. It was big enough to catch my attention and cause me to photograph it.
And then I see a nice big fat, tall Pachypodium. Ours are all inside in Northern California and never end up looking quite like this.
They grow their Staghorns big in Florida, as you can tell from this Platycerium.
Those are the only remaining shots that came out from that day. It was cloudy, and my phone is a less than ideal camera. One lesson: Do not zoom. The loss of detail is too great, or there would be a couple more nice epiphytic cactus shots. Live and learn.
