and Ross Valley Nursery
Dendrobium kingianum is hardy down to around freezing around here, and works well both inside or out. It blooms late winter, as you can see, through spring.
We grow them in orchid bark, or as we prefer coconut husk chunks. I think we will be watering weekly indoor, and every 2 weeks if they’re in a shady spot outdoor. Fertilize every month. Easy!
From J Peterson Garden Design in Austin, TX
I’ll have to try that out. Of course, here in Northern California we have better local wines than they do in Texas, so it’s all good.
Keith’s latest creation featuring Dendrobium kingianum, Scleranthus biflorus and a few Cryptanthus “Minor.”
Close up! You can almost feel that Australian Astroturf.
just a cute cluster of sempervivums in this little square pot.
Leucadendron “Wilson’s Wonder”
Conebush
Native to South Africa
Evergreen Shrub
Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: 4 to 5ft.
Red-tipped leaves, reddish stems; gets covered in moderately large yellow cone flowers in late winter. Hardy to 25°F.
I can’t even watch. I don’t recommend you watch. I’ve posted this in a small window so you don’t have to see too much detail so don’t click through and see the full size video. Don’t!
Ugg.
Ribes “Barrie Coate” is coming into full bloom. I see that it has probably the most saturated color of the flowering currants, all native to California, that I am aware of.
I like it!
Ribes malvaceum “Barrie Coate”
Chaparral CurrantCalifornia Native
Deciduous shrubSun: Full Sun to Part Shade
Water: Occasional
Size: 6 ft.Winter blooming hummingbird plant. Very dark pink flower clusters February-March. Woody branches have peeling red bark as they age. Hardy to 25F.
Crassula perforata var. variegata
These are vertically oriented strings of triangular leaves with yellow and green coloring. The pink edges come with full sun, but they can handle a lot less than full sun too. They will grow to almost 2 feet tall, and then start to dip over.
Hardy to about 22F, we find with a hard freeze you can see some tip damage which will then cause the plant to start branching vigorously, so it’s all good.
South African.
Tiny yellow blooms are not particularly interesting, unless you get in really close with your macro lens. Fascinating!
@micadlg shares a spanish-language cactus with us.
Empieza el fin de semana. Momento para mis cactus! @cactusjungle twitter.com/micadlg/status…
— Mica (@micadlg) February 16, 2013
And the species is Opuntia microdasys v. rufida.
Hardy to 20F, and it has very saturated pink flowers. Small pink flowers. If you click the link above you can see one of the flowers in a picture I took last year.
It is a high altitude plant from the high altitude areas of Peru. How high? I’m talking very high. It is only found above 10,000 feet and has been found as high as 14,000 feet. That’s high up there in the Andes of Peru, indeed. Very high. Very cold.
These cacti are somewhat variable, but they are generally solitary, flattened globose, 5 to 6″ across. They are distinguished by their elongate aureoles.
The genus is named after the town of La Oroya, where these plants were first discovered. It’s primarily a mining town, and is now considered one of the most polluted towns in the world. Wow!
Related to the Echinopsis genus, it is in the Trichocereeae cactus tribe (Trichocereus being an older, defunct genus now subsumed within Echinopsis, but the tribe name remains).
This has gone through a few makeovers since it was first put together, but I think it has finally grown out of its awkward stage and into a beautiful mixed pot.
Sinningia cardinalis is a caudiciform Gesneriad (Gesneriaceae).
It’s pretty easy to grow and has beautiful round flattened caudexes with these very very red Cardinal Red even, tubular flowers.
We don’t have them available at the nursery right now. We have them growing and they should be leafing out in a couple months time. They should be ready and rooted by then. Even if not yet blooming.
A new blue succulent terrarium is out at the store. I’ve been following some succulent feeds on Instagram and have been inspired to use brighter, more vivid colors in my terrarium designs.
My eyes! Too bright! Tone it down!!!!
And it’s layered below? Wow!
Linda Estrin Design shared a succulent heart.
Happy V-Day.
Here’s Rikki’s latest mixed succulent pot, in one of our Urban Farmgirl’s hypertufa pots.
Not really a pot, though, more like a race track of plantings.
Nice!
Crews rescue man after he falls into a San Diego canyon onto a cactus
SAN DIEGO – …Crews said the 50-year-old man got off a bus a few stops too early and wasn’t familiar with the area. As he was walking along the roadway in an area without a guardrail and no sidewalk, he slipped and fell about 50 feet into the cactus….
Authorities said he suffered puncture wounds from the cactus.
I’m kind of glad they did not include a picture of the man with the article. I mean, sure, it can be humorous to watch someone in, say, a movie fall into a cactus and all, but in real life it would hurt. Although still funny. But hurt bad. And cause people to laugh out loud I’m sure. But no picture.
Lithops Stories has a whole bunch of colorful, and beautiful (of course it goes without saying beautiful), lithops in the midst of regenerating new leaves.
Don’t forget when your lithops are in the midst of doing this not to water them or the old leaves will choke off the new leaves. Ouch!
Hoya australis is a vining succulent in the Asclepiad (Milkweed) Family (Asclepiadaceae).
According to the Australia Native Plant Society:
Hoya australis
Family: Asclepiadaceae
Distribution: Rainforests and rainforest margins from north-eastern New South Wales to north-eastern Queensland.
Common Name: Common waxflower.
Derivation of Name: Hoya; after Thomas Hoy, English gardener. australis; southern, referring to the global distribution of the species.
Conservation Status: Not considered to be at risk in the wild
EHow has an instructional video showing you how to put together succulent centerpieces for a wedding. I suppose these could be used for centerpieces for any kind of party or celebration. I wonder… Can you use it for Valentine’s Day?…
Fascinating!
I like the way he shoves the aloe in. Now I understand this is just a centerpiece and so is not necessarily intended to survive the event, hence no drainage holes in the bottom, but really it would be nice if he added a bit more soil around the root balls before putting the rocks on top. I guess. But he does know how to make a pretty centerpiece.
A lot of our shrubby Euphorbias, i.e. the Spurges, are blooming right now or coming into bloom soon enough. While not strictly succulents, they are very drought tolerant and can easily mix in a succulent garden.
Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii
And just for fun, here’s one blooming succulent spurge – so many Euphorbias are succulent, and this one is succulent:
Elizabeth has a question for Yahoo Answers. I thought I would post it here so you all can join in and pass along your cactus expertise to Elizabeth.
Cactus for Valentines Day?
So my boyfriend and I have been together for three years now and I always make him crafts or get him odd little things for Valentines day and he loves it. So this year I was going to get him a Venus Fly trap that said You caught me ;D but all the fly traps were dead and i bought him a “Golden Ball Cactus”…The cactus has a yellow straw flower actually hot glued onto the poor cactus… stupid people.. and all the others were like,,, dead and such and i was wondering if there is any way i can keep this crinkly little flower alive. I wasn’t sure if it was fake or not.. but im assuming fake flowers can’t die although it has obviously been glued on.
I’ll start it off by saying that if all the Venus Fly Traps and all the Cactus except one were dead that the store she bought the one from is not doing a good job taking care of the plants and I would watch the cactus carefully for signs of stress and not worry about the straw flower.
Can you top my advice?
They held a race and called it the Cactus Derby. It was a derby insofar as it was an off-road car race, interstate paved roads being somewhat rare. And cactus as it was a race through the desert from LA to Phoenix, which couldn’t have been a very big city back then.
Avid racing fans line up along West Gurley Street anxiously awaiting a glimpse of the first racer into Prescott on Nov. 11, 1914.
Wow! How about that. And I checked, so you know, and Phoenix’s population in 1910 was 11,314. It has grown by 23,332% since then.
You can read more about it here, in Part 1. More to come.
Hoya kerrii
We’ve got ’em, you want ’em – stop by, doncha know. Happy pre-V-day!
Some people think that our cute little blooming Delospermas are Ice Plants, just like along the highways and coastlines of California.
But they’re not! I mean, sure, they’re related and all, and the leaves are similar enough and the fruits are also edible enough so that maybe you could call them Ice Plants if you really wanted to, but the biggest difference is that these are not invasive. So I choose not to call them Ice Plants.
Here are some in bloom right now at the nursery. Look at all the pretty flower colors!
Would you call that Magenta? I would. Maybe some would say it veers toward fuschia. I would not.
Yellow is easy to ID. Plus it is particularly popular with the native bees. They like yellow! There must be lots of native yellow flowers, like the Mimuluses. I would like to name this color, Rapeseed Yellow.
Pink is a varied color. Is there a shade of pink that would match this? It kind of matches MAC Eyeshadow’s “Swish” Swatch.
Red! Finally! Actually kind of a crimson red, so you know its good.
By the way, the most popular Delosperma flower color on my Instagram feed is…
Wait for it…
Pink!
Science!
It’s 5pm and this Fockia crispa is ready to get out of here
Carla sends along a picture of an Agave bracteosa variegata. Anyone know who’s growing these?
That sure is a pretty specimen. It would be hard to keep it looking so good year-round.
Ribes sanguineum
The California native currants are in full bloom now, with fresh new green leaves popping up everywhere too. We have 3 or 4 varieties right now, so you know they must be gorgeous too.
9th Street
Aloe arborescens
There are aloes blooming all over town. Everywhere you look there are winter blooming orange tubular flowers. The hummingbirds are very happy, so one can presume.
Interesting how well these South Africa succulents have adapted.
Testing out my new iPhone app on this Cleistocactus strausii!
