Cactus Blog 

OMG it’s already Sunday and it’s still Tillandsia Weekend around here at the Cactus Blog.

Tillandsia kolbii is GORGEOUS! Pretty little thing. Still not as popular though as T. ionantha “Guatemala” which is similar looking but WAY more popular. LULZ!

I think I’m getting giddy from all these Airplants this weekend. GIDDY! ROTFL!

Today is the 2nd day of our Tillandsia Weekend Holiday, so that makes it Tillandsia Saturday.

Tillandsia aeranthos x bergeri is a hybrid between two very different species. Can you guess what those two species are? I knew you could.

Tillandsia butzii is very unusual and striped and bulbous. These are much larger than what we usually have available.

I saw this very large succulent planted outside along the beach at a Santa Monica. Can you identify it? Do you sell it?

Barbara

Barbara,
That’s an Aeonium, probably Aeonium subplanum. We do have it in stock, as well as many other similar ones as well.
Peter

I declare today to be the first day of a three day holiday to be known henceforth as Tillandsia Weekend. Come celebrate with me.

First up is a bloomer. Tillandsia tenuifolia “Blue”. This is an easy one to grow and easy to get to bloom and its inexpensive too, so this would qualify as a starter Airplant. On the other hand the plant isn’t as pretty or unusual as some others. So that’s the choice you have to make.

Cleistocactus straussii is the first cactus I have blogged around here in ages. It’s been so long I practically forgot what a cactus even looks like. It looks like this.

They are summer bloomers, but there’s often stragglers on and off throughout the year.

I wonder what they look like at the tip of the plant, against a sky blue backdrop?

From the high altitude plains of the Himalayan mountains. I mean the Andes, sorry about that.

Hummingbirds love them. I do too. Am I a hummingbird? No, I am not. I am your faithful blogger, a person. And I have never been to South America.

It’s been more than a week of blogging about non-native shrubs and native shrubs and trees too and even blooming California native perennials. Now we see the real reason you come to my blog – for the pictures of the succulents. What, no cacti? Not yet. Be patient.

The blooms have finally started opening! Aren’t they stunning!

Here’s where I last blogged them about to open.

And here’s a closeup, because you want to really get right in there and see them that close up.

Click to embiggen.

We’re getting into bloom season for a whole bunch of native currants.

Ribes “Barrie Coate” is a favorite for the rich deep color of the blooms. The berries are edible of course, but it is grown primarily for the flowers. Because, I mean, look at them.

Ribes “Barrie Coate”

California Native
Deciduous shrub

Sun: 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.

You can see from the photo that the blooms come before the leaves with this species. By spring it will be a gorgeous green shrub and will still have more blooms too!

A tiny Tillandsia attached to a tree amongst the lichens. In Sarasota! (that’s Florida)

Arctostaphylos rudis “Vandenberg” is a very attractive manzanita from the wilds of California. Wild indeed. Found originally on Vandenberg Air Force Base, near San Diego, it is a satisfying 7 foot tall tree with shaggy red bark. Left in its wild state it will be much wider than tall, even over 10ft. wide, but it can be kept pruned for shape to as wide as tall, though I wouldn’t recommend trying to prune this into a vertical tree.

Arctostaphylos “Vandenberg”

California Native
Evergreen shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low, summer-drought
Size: 6t x 10w.

Dense foliage forms a deep green garden backdrop, or perfect as a hedge. Clusters of small pink flowers in spring. Hardy to 15F.

The pretty pink bell shaped flowers are great for attracting hummingbirds.

Eriophyllum lanatum “Siskiyou” just never wants to give up with the blooming. This is a strange time of year to see even one of these cute yellow daisy flowers.

Unusual!

Eriophyllum lanatum “Siskiyou”

Native to California and Oregon
Evergreen Perennial Groundcover

Sun: Full to Partial Sun
Water: Low
Size: 12″h, spreads 3ft. wide

Pretty whitish to grey-green woolly leaves with stunning displays of yellow daisy flowers throughout the spring. Tidy and low-growing groundcover, blooms pop up to 12″h. Cut back after blooming. Hardy to 15F.

Achillea “Red Velvet” has some of the deepest purplish maroony reds around. In the flowers that is, the leaves are still green. You can be sure there will ber a lot more blooms than this measly spray by the time summer rolls around. It’s nice to even have these late blooms this time of year. I appreciate them. Do you too?

Achillea “Red Velvet”

North America; Cultivated variety
Herbaceous Perennial

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: Low, blooms to 3 feet

Green gray foliage. Flowers summer thru fall. Often used for cut or dried flowers. Attracts butterflies and birds. Hardy to below 0F.

Dischidia blooms.

Arctostaphylos densiflora “Howard McMinn” is another California tree. This one is shorter than yesterday’s Catalina Ironwood, topping out at below 10ft., vs. the 40ft. tall Ironwood.

Arctostaphylos densiflora “Howard McMinn”

California Native
Evergreen shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: 7ft.h. x 10ft.w.

Large evergreen mounding shrub with clusters of small flowers, white to light pink, in winter through spring. Berries are favored by native birds. Dark red trunk.

Also…

A. “Howard McMinn” is a nectar source for the Monarch Butterfly and the California Dogface Butterfly

Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp asplenifolius

I’ve been blogging a bunch of non-native shrubs this week. This is not one of them. This one is a California native tree.

Hap likes this tree. We don’t grow a lot of trees so you can bet someone at the nursery likes it if we carry it. It certainly has bright red bark and very green leaves.

Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp asplenifolius

California Native
Evergreen tree

Sun: Full to Moderate
Water: Low – keep dry
Size: 40’

Quick growing. Peeling grey bark reveals new red bark. White flowers in summer. Well-drained soils, low water. Hardy to 20°.

Teucrium fruticans “Azurea”

Mediterranean
Evergreen Shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low, Good drainage
Size: 4ft. tall x 5ft. wide

This Mediterranean evergreen shrub grows well in the Bay Area. Silvery gray foliage. Deep blue flowers cover the plant most of the year – spring thru fall. Hardy to 20F.

Phlomis lanata is a prolific yellow flowering fuzzy leafed shrub so you would think I could catch it with the yellow flowers in bloom, but not today. Today I wanted to capture the fuzzy leaves.

That’s another shot, which I like better.

Phlomis lanata
Native to Eastern Mediterranean
Semi-deciduous Shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low to Moderate
Size: 2 to 3 feet

A bold grey shrub for a warm, sunny border. A great Mediterranean climate plant – beautiful pale-yellow flower whorls in summer. Cold tolerant to 20°.

Eremophila maculata “Aurea” is a yellow flowering cultivar from Australia, hence the Emu name.

These are generally a very leafy shrub in the 4 to 6 ft. range, height and width. They’re hardy to the mid-20s. They get covered in the bell-shaped yellow flowers in the spring, but will bloom year-round.

Generally we like full sun close to the coast, but further inland it can handle a lot of shade.

So here’s the deal. It’s not the prettiest plant around – after all what do you expect from a plant call Emu? But it’s very hardy and drought-tolerant and heat-tolerant and flexible for sun conditions and it blooms year-round too. So it turns out its a pretty good plant after all.

Brighamia insignis is a very rare and endangered plant from Hawaii. However it has recently become a bit more common in the nursery trade, so not quite so rare and unusual as a few years ago. This particular specimen is quite lovely, don’t you think? A very full head of leaves. There is a trunk too, I wonder what it looks like?

Oh, so that’s what it looks like. You can see the spots on the trunk where the old leaves fell off. I wonder if there’s a name for that?

So what more do we know about this plant?

Brighamia only survives on the 3,000 foot high Na Pali sea cliffs, on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai.

This plant was once common on the four highest Hawaiian Islands… Sadly, there are now fewer than 100 Brighamia plants on Kauai….

The Brighamia‘s environment has been disturbed so much that the species of insects, which were specially adapted to pollinate the Brighamia flowers, have become extinct. Scientists from the Conservation Department of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii use ropes to lower themselves partway down the steep cliff faces to pollinate the remaining wild plants by hand.

Interesting!

We also know that it has yellow flowers.

I see that the Garden Rant’ers have finally discovered the made-in-america hoses we carry – by Water Right. Good stuff.

Euphorbia royleana

Apparently this plant has the common name of Churee. I don’t know anything about how it got that name.

The plant itself is from the Himalayan regions of India. It has stunning leaves which we find always drop off on us.

Here’s a closeup of the blooms with a new leaf started right behind.

Euphorbia royleana will grow tree like to maybe 8ft. tall, slowly. The branches all tend to grow fairly vertically, around 3″ diameter.

Moderately poisonous like most Euphorbias, mostly its milky white sap is a bad irritant. But don’t ingest, please.

These are hardy to about 28F, however we find they cannot handle our normal winter rains so we keep them under cover in Berkeley. They make a great potted houseplant since they can handle fairly low light levels and very low water levels, without eventually growing as tall as some of the other columnar euphorbias around that will hit the ceiling of your home.

It’s been a weird day today. That’s what we get for living in the city of Berkeley.

Here, have a dinosaur in the garden.

Walking to the bank and I see a Kangaroo paws in full bloom near the lighting store on 4th Street.

Any idea on the cultivar? It looks like Anigozanthos “Bush Tango” to me.

What do we do when a mixed perennials pot is overgrown?

We tend to take it apart and start over.

Here we see Brian has pulled the plants out of the square pot and they have all come o0ut together in one well-rooted mass.

Nice!

Now we also see Brian has a knife. What is he going to do with that knife????

Here’s the closeup of the very well-rooted mass.

Here we see a classic use of the Chive Pill Terrarium.

That’s a succulent terrarium alright. I see an Aeonium, a Euphorbia and a Haworthia. Classic!