We still have a few more orchids left, just in time for that last minute Valentine. And by that I don’t mean if you forgot to get a gift for your Valentine, like I have (my excuse is I’ve been sick the last week), but if you don’t yet have a Valentine, but expect to get one tonight, if you know what I mean. No? Well, let me spell it out for you, in pictures:

Oncidium “Tsiku Marguerite”

Here we are delivering this amazing Aloe speciosa specimen to Rockridge.

I can’t believe how pretty a plant this is. And the bloom stalk has been going for a couple months. Here it is looking like a snake head back in December. Same plant!

And now the blooms were just about to open when a customer bought the plant! Fortunately they needed it delivered of course, and that gave me just enough time to catch the blooms in the act of opening. And what a show it is!

The orange buds turn white before they open!

And then just before we delivered it, as more of the buds were opening, I got this shot. Thank god it’s been sunny.

Euphorbia anoplia

I’m not feeling well today, so I don’t have much to say about this plant with the aggresive common name.

Here, have a close up of the tiny inflorescence.

The special time for orchids is fast approaching, for all those who don’t mind the pressure to make just the right special purchase for Valentine’s Day.

It’s an unidentified Miltonia. The best kind! I just had one stay in bloom for 2 1/2 months.

Miltonidium “Rosy Sunset”

By Orchid Season at the nursery, I mean it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day of course. And by Miltonidium, I mean this is a hybrid between a Miltonia and a Cymbidium.

Leucadendron “Safari Goldstrike” had red leaves in summer, and then the tops leaves got all crowded together and then they opened up and look what was inside – a green cone flower with yellow sepals and tiny yellow blooms popping off the cone. Spectacular show!

I just can’t get enough of this plant.

Echeveria “Flying Cloud”

Click to see the closeup. Just look at those sepals!

It’s taken a couple weeks, but the Aloe thraskii blooms are now fully open. Here they were a few weeks ago. And a few weeks before that. Such progress!

That’s a lot of color.

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.

Wet Delosperma bud

I promised I would post the Aloe thraskii blooms when open. Here you are, my faithful followers who were all, to a person, waiting for this photo. Now you can go ahead a leave this gentle blog and visit one of the sites on the right column.

The Angel Wing Begonias are cute. This one is called “Benigo”.

It’s very exciting, the Cryptbergia “Red Burst” is getting ready to bloom. Will the flowers look more like the Cryptanthus part of the intergenic hybrid, or the Billbergia part? We’re all on a pins and needles waiting for the buds to open.

Of course, what makes this hybrid so exciting is that they took the hardiness of the Billbergia and added it to the shorter thicker leaves of the Cryptanthus. Hardy to 25 degrees! Deep red color in full sun! Multi-colored buds about to open!

Echeveria “Flying Cloud”

Dyckia “Black Gold” in bloom. It has yellow blooms! I thought they would be orange.

This terrestrial bromeliad is a bitch to repot, with all those marginal spines all up and down those sawblade-like leaves going off in all directions. Good luck. Although to be fair, not as bad as a Puya.

You can see in the photo that these have gone a bit green in winter, but they will get much darker in the summer sun, or if we had had a sunny winter they would have stayed a darker color. But the truth is that these plants will do just fine in shade if you don’t mind them being green.

Aloe bloom stalks look like snake heads.

Aloe thraskii – This first one is after the buds have already started popping out of the stalk, but haven’t opened yet to release their sweet sweet nectar to the hummingbirds. We’ve had some of these bloom orange, but always they’re deeply striped.

Aloe arborescens is open throughout Berkeley, but this one is a bit behind the curve. Very snake head like, and yet you can see the buds at the bottom of the bloom spike starting to peek out.

Aloe speciosa is a snake head supreme. Still weeks away from blooming. Fortunately the hummingbirds have the Aloe ferox to feed off of right now.

Albuca species “Augrabie Hills” succulent bulbs are back after a year. These are the smallest of any of the South African Albucas and when they sell out we have to wait another year for our parent plants to produce enough more.

Today we see the Aloe thraskii blooms are about to open. The hummingbirds must be so excited.

Protea flower about to open up, if its not too cold today.

Sansevieria “Futura Silver Offset”

We grow a few dozen varieties of Sansevierias, but they never come out for sale! We’re evil that way. We do try to bring a few out every year, and here’s one we haven’t been growing ourselves anyway. Maybe next year we’ll grow it.

This is one of the S. trifasciatas and is extraordinarily similar to S. “Moonshine” which we do grow. It should top out at about 30″, and will go green if you treat it like all your other Sansevierias and don’t give it any light.

Nepenthes alata is from Borneo. This is the first of the blooms to open on the long bloom stalk. Maybe I’ll get another photo with a bunch of blooms open, but it’s hard to photograph, so I don’t know how successful I’ll be.

Why, you ask, is it hard to photograph? Because it’s tiny. Less than 1cm. (More than 1mm, though.)

Manettia luteo “Candy Corn” is a vining plant we have as a terrarium plant that adds a really bright touch of color. It seems like it’s hardy outside here, if you want to try it out there, and will get about 3 feet tall if given the chance, which we don’t give it, since we have them in terrariums and such.

To follow up this morning’s trolling for Mono Lake Arsenic-eating Microbe search engine traffic, I have another picture I took this summer, of the Mono Lake Lupine.

Lupinus duranii

Clearly this is a classic lupine that grows in extremely harsh conditions, helping to reclaim lost land for the plant kingdom. Mono Lake does indeed have harsh conditions, harsh enough apparently that the microbes there are adapted to eating arsenic. I wonder if this Lupine eats arsenic too? Probably not.

Here we see the classic bloom of the Christmas Cactus, one of the Sclumbergera x orssichiana hybrids.

We have had a number bloom this early, all the same color. Here was the first Christmas Cactus to bloom for us this year.

I’m sure at some point I will have pictures of other colors in bloom too, but in the meantime, this is not only the only color of Christmas Cactus we have blooming, it’s the best color too.

Cereus c.v. monstrose “Minima” is one of many different monstroses out there of various Cereuses, usually C. peruvianus or the like.

It’s one we like to bring out at holiday time. It seems festive, although it is different than the very popular Fairy Castle Cactus, which is another C. monstrose cultivar.

Hap’s made a new style of living ornament this year – the mini terrarium. Lovingly filled with preserved reindeer moss and a cute-as-a-button tillandsia, these clear-glass terrariums can be hung from the tree with confidence knowing the colorful ribbon is a solid addition to your festivities.

Aloe ferox blooms are fully ready to start opening.

Anigozanthos “Bush Ranger”

Normally the blooms look very red, but up close you can really see the orange highlights.