Cactus Blog 

That’s what the name means in latin. Echinocereus pulchellus. And it is! It is a pretty hedgehog! This is one of those cacti that will grow better indoor in a sunny window.

What else can I tell you? It’s from Mexico up to 6600ft. It’s generally solitary. Dozens of flowers every year. Under that flower you can barely see that the spines are short and white, but they become darker with age, a yellowish brown color. You can that the ribs are well spaced and the spines are short – that’s a sure indicator that this is a cactus that will shrink into the ground when cold and dry.

Air Plants are all the rage these days.

Tillandsia caput-medusae has the classic multi-colored blooms. Actually, the bloom itself is the very bright violet you see, while the red is the sepals. These grow fairly large, with twisting leaves tapered up to 10″ long. This will start offsetting new plants as soon as it’s done blooming and then if you wait a little while you can easily pull them off to propagate more.

Echinocereus adustus

Orchid week continues with a Phalaenopsis with lots of extra painted-on colors.

Echinopsis leucantha. Looks like a barrel cactus, blooms like a Lobivia.

The cell phone photo wasn’t so good, so I instagrammed it so hopefully you won’t notice the flaws.

Benjamin’s litter-mate and whippet brother Whylie comes to visit from Colorado. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in 3 years.

Three whippets is a lot for one photograph. Hard to fit them all in. Benjamin is in back, Whylie is in the middle and that’s Jason in front. Jason is very happy to meet people and dogs that Benjamin knows and likes. If Benjamin knows someone Jason will act like he knows them too.

Here’s the whippet Whylie

As long as we’re talking about orchids on the blog just before Mother’s Day, we see that Plantgasm has had a Mother’s Day miracle!

It’s a Dendrobium seed pod, in a post called I Think I Impregnated My Dendrobium. Here’s the flowers.

My Solanum quitoense is fruiting. Very delicious juicing fruit, but the hairy outside of the fruit is difficult. Is it worth it?

Yes!

Today’s orchid is a Maxillaria. They come from South America.

I wonder if that’s true? Maybe I should look that up before I type it out on the blog, or rather maybe I should look it up after I type it up. Then I would have time to change it if I should so desire.

Hah! Never gonna happen.

Hi,
I have had this succulent for about 6-9 mos. After it was planted, I noticed some sand-like granules on some of the blooms. Sadly, it has spread, and the plant looks very sad now. Any suggestions to heal it? The whole plant appears to be turning a dark purple color. It is very beautiful when it’s healthy.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Kristie

Kristie,

The sand-like stuff on the blooms is Aphids, an insect that is feeding off the blooms. You can spray the blooms and try to get rid of them, but often the answer is to cut the blooms off. As for the rest of the plant, a Graptopetalum, it doesn’t look good. I think the plant may already be dead, though it’s hard to tell for sure from the photo. If it was the aphids, it would have to have been a major infestation to do that kind of damage. To me it actually looks like the plant may have suffered sun burn. Was it recently brought outside?

If it is still alive, the best thing you can do is get it afternoon shade, cut off all the bloom stalks, hose it off vigorously, and then spray it with an organic insecticide. We recommend Neem oil, diluted from 100%.

Peter

My Back 40 has been walking the Bernal Heights neighborhood recently and took a lot of pictures. Did I say a lot? I mean A LOT. Don’t click over unless you have a few minutes to stroll through the photos. Some nice succulents mixed in among all the other crazy plants and stuff.

Irises, Echiums, Aeoniums, Agaves, and a really giant Fremontodendron…

For some reason there’s even a Pittosporum.

Enough photos that all you people who have never walked through the gardens of a San Francisco neighborhood will get a really good idea of what that’s like.

Rikki and Hap have been very busy getting orchid arrangements together for Mother’s Day gifts.

This one has a Miltonia. And since we’re a real nursery and not a florist, all the plants along with the orchid are fully rooted in soil!

Now I’ve gone too far. Someone take away my filters.

This is Jacob. If it’s warm enough this weekend then he’ll be coming to the store, probably Saturday. I know a lot if you have wanted to know about it so here’s your fair warning. Tortoise weekend coming soon!

Now here’s something unusual for you.

A crested Aloe polyphylla. This is also known as the Spiral Aloe so I wonder if it will try to do some spiralling around the crest, and if so if it will form any interesting geometric patterns, like an oval spiral or a spiral dodecahedron?

What’s the latest trend in gardening? Growing your vegetables in the airport.

From Our Little Acre, pictures from O’Hare including ripe red tomatoes.

So do you agree that this is a trend? Am I on top of the trendspotting? Airport gardening?

This Cereus spegazzinii has the most unusual new branch started.

Funky!

Wanna know more about this plant? They’re sprawling, arching, spreading. Fast growing, they will climb up fenceposts if you have one or lie prostrate on the ground and root from the side of a stem. Night-blooming with giant white flowers, very pretty. They’ll turn a mottled purplish color if left outside in winter.

Dave sends along photos he took at the nursery last month.

Let’s see what we’ve got.

Yucca elephantipes

Nice color on the Aloe ferox

And finally that’s the nursery in bloom.

You can find him at Dave’s Photos.

I happened upon your blog while looking up some info on succulents and found it very helpful! I’m still a little unsure about watering succulent starts though. None of the nurseries I have talked to have been able to help me solve the problem. I have a few successful leaf starts growing and recently tried starting a few more. I’m having a hard time telling if I’m over or under watering them though. I’ve attached a picture of two sets I currently have (“Dying” and “Healthy”). One is pretty healthy (they are about a week old) and the others have completely changed colors (they are mostly from a purple graptopetalum). I’m thinking they are over watered. Is that correct? How often would you recommend watering these? I’m in Utah and these are outside in temperatures between 40 and 80 right now in partial sun. I think I may have gotten rather lucky that my first batch had some success, although quite a few of the leaves did die rather than grow.

 

Cassidy

Cassidy,
I can’t tell you how to grow them in your climate as it is so different than ours. In general, you can expect a certain amount of loss, and it should take a year or so to get small plants. It’s probably better to grow them inside. And it’s probably better to use a succulent soil, rather than the bark based soil you are using. Finally, I would bury the cut tip of the leaf into the soil a bit, rather than just set them on top. All that said, I do not know if it is overwater or underwater, too much sun or soil that isn’t drying out, or some other possible problem – that’s the joy of propagating – learning your conditions and how to get the plants to grow locally. You’ll need to do some tests treating different groups differently and see how they grow.

Ferocactus glaucescens, or the famed Blue Barrel of Hidalgo, is blooming!

And it’s a multi-barrel, so there are more flowers along the side too.

That’s a lot of blooms all at once on this one particular plant.

I have a new feature in our Monthly Email (You are on the monthly email list, aren’t you?). Monthly Gardening Tasks! Karen N. asked for it, and now you all get it. It’s for the Bay Area in particular; Northern California in general, and as far south as Southern California if you’re too lazy to look up your local gardening tips and tasks for spring. On the other hand, if you live in Minnesota or Albany, NY then you can take the task list with a grain of salt. Interestingly, we have a very similar climate to Rome, so if you live in Rome you can follow the list quite closely.

MAY

• If you’ve already fed your bamboo early for spring, you can feed them again now and get a real boost of growth for summer. If you haven’t yet, then what are you waiting for?
• I suspect you’ve already started your veggie gardens, since April is the top month for veggie gardening, but May brings a lot more varieties out so don’t forget to add more, spaced out through the next few months. Coming mid May – Melons! They don’t always work in the Bay Area because they need some heat, but we’re very hopeful this year. It’s warm enough to be planting Basil and the warmer climate Tomatoes. Corn! Beans, too.
• If you have any of the Ice Plant type succulents in your garden and they’ve had their first blooms already then you should go ahead and dead-head them – which means trimming off the spent blooms – so they can rebloom later in the summer. Alternatively they have edible fruit so you can let them ripen too, however you won’t get more blooms if you do. You’ll have to watch for the ripe fruit because if you don’t pick them in time you’ll lose them to the birds. And finally, if you get them in time then you can make jam. That’s all they’re good for.
• Olives! Now you really must fertilize your Olive trees, if you have fruiting Olive trees.
• It’s time to start in on bloom food for plants that will bloom in July and August, so I would definitely get right onto your terrestrial orchids like the Epidendrons and the Cymbidiums. Cactus are mostly summer bloomers if they haven’t already budded out for spring, so bloom food for them now too. Lewisias, Dudleyas, Penstemons, Mimuluses….
• As the cold nights turn warm, watch for caterpillars and aphids. Take care of them early.

On the other hand, the SF Chronicle also has a list of gardening tasks for May, and they tell you to:

– Weed.

– Continue to pursue slugs and snails.

That’s not as much fun.

Chris sends along a link to some cactus seating.

The Canapé Cactus sofa and matching Tattoo ottoman feature a graphical print of the spiny succulent on bi-elastic fabric. The seating set is made of high-density structural polyurethane foam over an internal steel frame.

So that’s a couch. Really!

Ottomans are interesting too, especialloy if you scatter a few of them around your empty room.

While you might think twice about taking a seat at first, I think it actually looks pretty cushy!

By Maurizio Galante for Cerruti Baleri.

That’s 3, count them 3, Parodia scopa’s in there. Keith insists he doesn’t like to add the little terrarium ornaments we have, so none in this little glass gem. He’s a purist that way.

Nice!

Sempervivum “Hopewell” has some amazing colorway. These are the 1 gallon sized plants, but the 3″ plants we have also have the same remarkable colors.

Huzzah!

In case you were wondering (and db was wondering…) the photo, like all my photos, was taken with natural light only. I don’t even know how to use artificial lighting. Light switch? Never heard of it. Fluorescents? Hah! I spit in their general direction.

Mimulus “Jelly Bean Dark Pink”

Rikki made a new terrarium at the store.

Here’s a detail shot.

Howdy cactus jungle,
My crested aeonium has developed some brown spots on its leaves, but everything else seems fine. There’s even healthy looking new growth/rosettes. Should I be concerned? Should I give it a neem oil treatment?

Thanks for any advice you can give,
Tony

Tony,
I wouldn’t be too concerned since the new growth looks good. It was probably freeze damage or hail damage. On the other hand, it could be mites. Check for tiny insects, for barely visible webbing. If it’s mites then it does need to be treated with neem oil.
Peter