Agave parryi v truncata is also one of the mezcal agaves, a true blue Agave. But it’s perfect tight round spiny shape allows for its Artichoke Agave fame and fortune. Very attractive!

It will get 3 feet across, and almost as tall, before spreading rapidly in a giant clump of rosettes.

I see we’re growing some very colorful Echeveria Hybrids this time of year.

While it’s true they are very colorful, they’re not really this colorful. There may have been some filtering going on with these photos too.

But so nice…

I see the Jewel Orchids are in spectacular little white blooms!

Haemaria discolor – Jewel Orchid

Terrestrial orchid, small white flowers, dark striped leaves and shade-tolerant!

I think they look like they’re made out of sugar. I’ll bet they’re too sweet to eat. Though you might want to try…

Let me know how it goes when you eat one. Send photos.
  

Echeveria “Rosy Ghost”
 
Hybrid
 
We found this growing in a flat of E. subsessilis, and believe it is a new hybrid. Should grow to 6″ rosettes. Rosy edges in full sun, bluish-white leaves.
 
Hardy to 25F? 
  
Full Sun
 
Cactus Soil
 
Low Water

Buddleia davidii “Buzz Sky Blue”
Dwarf Butterfly Bush
 
Asian Hybrid
Semi-Evergreen Perennial

Sun: Full Sun to Partial Shade
Water: Moderate
Size: 2 to 3ft.

Beautiful compact plant only 24″ tall in container. Stunning purplish-blue inflorescence. Great for patios and smaller gardens. Hardy to below 0F.

Agave schidigera “Black Widow”

Stemless rosettes to 24″ w/hairy leaf margins

• Hardy to 20F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Senecio jacobsenii is unusual. Such colors not seen since the 60s.

East Africa

Unusual pastel colored leaves in full sun. Low growing, good for hanging naskets or to trail over a mixed succulent pot. Will root along the ground as it trails.

• Hardy to 25F
• Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Sedum rubrotinctum “Aurora” – Pink Stonecrop – is the hottest new variety. Very spectacular and colorful and popular.

Mexico

Green jelly-bean leaves turn bright red in sun. Great for rock gardens and hanging baskets. Pale yellow star-shaped flowers.

• Hardy to 25F
• Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low to Moderate Water

It’s a Monday holiday miracle! The largest, most colorful Epi bloom I have ever captured on digital film.

Epiphyllums are often called Orchid Cactus, and sometimes called Night Blooming Cereus, but that last one would be wrong. Although some epi’s are night bloomers, most are not and none of the Epiphyllums are Cereuses. Cereus are Cereuses. And some true night blooming Cereus are almost as spectacular as this day blooming Epiphyllum. But then you’d have to wake up in the middle of the night for those, but not for these.

Opuntia basilaris v. caudata – Beavertail Cactus – amazing and beautiful.

Compact variety. Smaller pads than the species, often heart-shaped. Will stay as low as 1 foot tall, but will spread 4 feet wide.

• Hardy to 0F if very dry
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Prickly Pear season starts with Opuntia “Baby Rita”, a santa-rita hybrid with small and spiny pads.

Small pads, will grow 3 feet tall. Very spiny pads turn purple in winter.

• Hardy to 15F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

The blue varieties of the popular succulents are popular with the kids these days. Blue agaves are also popular with the oldsters these days. But here we have blue Echeverias. For you!

Echeveria “Blue Cloud” – moderately blue, some pink.

Echeveria “Blue Bird” – So blue….

Echeveria “Giant Blue Curls” – not so blue…

The Dudleyas are always a crowd-pleaser, what with the small chalky leaves and green leaves and long bloom spikes with pale small flowers too.

Dudleya anomala is our newest member of the California native Sea-Lettuce family. I wonder how it got a strange name like that? This one is pretty reliably green and doesn’t get too red in sun. Where in California is it from? Why its from Baja California.

Tight clusters of green rosettes with slightly red tips in full sun. White flowers on long bloom stalks.

• Hardy to 25F
• Full Sun to Part Shade
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Dudleya brittonii is the classic Giant Chalk Dudleya, also from Baja California.

18″ rosettes on single stems with chalky leaves. Looks best if dry through the summer months – avoid overhead watering.

• Hardy to 20F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Finally we have the very red Dudleya farinosa – Sea Lettuce, our own Northern California coastal succulent.

• Hardy to 20F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

We have 2 new Sundews at the nursery. The classic Forked Sundew and a new White Sundew. Nice!

Drosera binata – Forked Sundew

Native to Australia and New Zealand
Deciduous Carnivore (Evergreen if Grown Indoors)

Sun: Partial to Full Sun
Water: Daily, Distilled Water Best
Size: Draping, 12- 18″ leaves

Dew covered multi-forked leaves turning bright red in the sun. Sticky dew captures insects. It forms a large insect-catching bush. Best grown in 50/50 peat moss and sand. Also grows well in standing water. Hardy to 25F.

Drosera capensis “Alba” – White Sundew

Native to South Africa
Perennial Carnivore

Sun: Partial to Full Sun
Water: Bog
Size: Low-growing, 6″ across

White leaves are covered with sticky hairs, will move like tentacles to capture and digest insects. Thrives in hot and humid conditions, but can be grown outside.

Cephalopentandra ecirrhosa

East Africa

Caudex develops “pimples,” or fissures, as it ages. In the Cucurbitaceae family, forms wild-growing vines with large lobed green leaves and large yellow-green squash-blossom flowers.

• Hardy to 35F, Prefers to be warm in winter.
• Part Shade
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Bombax ellipticum (Pseudobombax ellipticum)

Mexico

Deciduous tree with succulent stems and large green/brown caudex, can form a tree over 10ft. tall. Large green leaves are smaller and red in full sun.

• Hardy to 25F if dry
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

And here’s another bloom picture. This is actually a different flower than the one above, though they were both open at the same time.

Billbergia “Hallelujah” – Queen’s Tears

Terrestrial bromeliad to 1 to 2 feet tall with very strongly variegated/spotted leaves. Glossy foliage, upright form, multicolored blooms. Grows quickly if not too wet.

• Hardy to 25F
• Part Shade
• Orchid/Jungle Soil
• Low Water

Billbergia elegans – a very elegant bromeliad with gorgeous flowers.

Brazil

Terrestrial bromeliad to 1 to 2 feet tall with subtle variegated pastel-colored leaves. Upright form. Multicolored blooms. Sharp edges with marginal teeth.

• Hardy to 35F
• Part Shade
• Orchid/Jungle Soil
• Low Water

Aloe ciliaris “Firewall” is a really good choice for planting as a firewall on the dry California hillsides that are subject to the fires, like right here in Berkeley and in the Oakland hills.

Vertical stems to 3 feet tall, spreads wide. Orange flowers in late winter. “This plant can be used effectively on slopes, and provides a great barrier against fires when planted in wide enough swaths because of the tremendous amount of moisture stored in its leaves.”

• Hardy to 22F
• Full Sun to Part Shade
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Aloe “Delta Lights” is the newest of the small collector Spotted Aloes that we are offering. They are hardy outside, but look like they want to be sitting on your windowsill at home anyway.

Strongly spotted variegated leaves are green in shade and white in full sun, can get a pinkish tinge on the edges. Rosettes to 10″, clumps to 3 feet across.

• Hardy to 25F
• Full Sun to Part Shade
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Agave parryi v. truncata is one of the classic parryis, even if not the one true classic. But it is the prettiest of the parryis when smaller. This has really nice form even right now. Just imagine when it gets 3 feet across – oh that’s nice!

• Hardy to 20F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

Aeonium urbicum “Rubrum”

A profusion of red-edged green rosettes, deeper red in full sun. Low growing – 18″ to 24″ tall, but very full.

• Hardy to 28F
• Full Sun to Part Sun
• Cactus Soil
• Low Water

The rosiest of the yarrows is the Rose Yarrow. So it would seem it has been correctly named, after all! But the common name and the cultivar name don’t match? What’s up with that? It turns out that Cerise (244, 0, 161) is just another name for Rose (255, 0, 127) in the color-wheel of plants.

Achillea “Cerise Queen”

Hybrid
Herbaceous Perennial

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low to Moderate
Size: Under 1ft. tall

Rose colored flowers. Drives the butterflies crazy. Remove spent flowers for a late fall rebloom. Cut flowers last a long time, look great dried. Hardy to below 0°F.

Agave “Kichiokan Marginata”

How dwarf? 18″ dwarfed. Sweet! Those bright red marginal spines look like horns. Goat horns. But really those are 2 different leaves with their end spines pointing out and I took the picture at just such an angle to cause it to seem like these Agaves have Goat Horns.

These Crown of Thorn spurges come in quite a range of colors. This one is Yellow.

Euphorbia milii “Dwarf Yellow”

We have a lot of new vigorous growth right now since we have had a very mild winter. It’s sunny and warm most days. There’s been no cloudy rainy days at all. It’s like an early spring! And the plants are going nutso for the sunshine. Maybe they’ll be caught in mid growth if winter ever does come and then that would be a bad thing for the plants. They could get damaged.

And just for the fun of it, a Salmon colored one too!

(I like the yellow one better. Less showy.)

Normally the California Native Lewisia cotyledons bloom in spring and summer, but we do always have a few that will bloom at other times of the year, like now.

In fact, we find that as these plants mature they can bloom up to 6 times per year! That’s a lot of blooms. You just have to dead-head them to prevent them from going to seed in case they were pollinated. If they go to seed then they are done blooming for the year.

Bonus picture of an Owl after the break… Read More…

All the brightly colored Christmas Cactus are out, and not a day too soon.

These are all hybrids from Brazilian species. Nobody knows anymore what the original species from the jungles were, but we like to think they are hybridized from Schlumbergera orsicchiana, which tend to be pendant and epiphytic.

All those green segments that look like leaves are really stem segments, and the cactus spines, as these are true cacti, come from the joints between the segments. The segmenting of the stems makes for easy cuttings.

Some would call these hybrids something along the lines of Schlumbergera orssichiana x truncata, but the truncata part of that was long ago gathered into Zygocactus, but then put back into Schlumbergera in 1967. So if you see these advertised as Zygocactus you should know that they are archaically sticking to the early 60s. Old people today.

Here are two very nice Parodias. Parodias are known for their yellow flowers, although not all Parodias have yellow flowers, but there is a yellow color known as Parodia Yellow so you can imagine that they are well-known for their yellow flowers.

Many people will argue over the shear number of Parodia species, even though many or most are really subspecies of only about 65 species.

Native to the South American Highlands. And Lowlands too.

First up is Parodia mueller-melchersii ssp gutierrezii, one of those cacti that have been wrongly categorized as separate species over the years, more recently known as Notocactus gutierrezii, a name that some cactus growers cling to out of tradition or anger or for the shear spectacle. Native to the Rio Grande do Sul in Brasil.

Next is the very attractive and slightly more common Parodia nigrispina, originally in the 19th century assumed to be part of the Echinocactus genus, but that’s ridiculous. These hail from the fine country of Paraguay, which I believe is in South America.