Peter

Here are the three different types of plants my wife and I own. We are tryin to take care of them as besdt as possible, but were not sure exactly what to do. I know that one of them is an alo plant but i dont kno if its dying cause its starting to brown, and the one cactus is a mamillaria type cactus. do you have any tips or helpful instructions on how to take care of them?? we are trying to get help on identifying the flower shaped cactus.

Melanie

Melanie,
First, the pink succulent is an Echeveria “Metallica”. Second, It’s hard to tell from the photo if there is anything wrong with the Aloe.

For general advice, the Mammillaria wants a minimum of 4 hours of direct afternoon sun and should be watered about every 3 weeks – a little more when it is hot in the summer, and less in winter.

The Aloe would like about 2 to 4 hours of morning sun, and the Echeveria wants almost as much sun as the cactus. For the 2 succulents, you should water every 2 weeks, and again a little more when it’s hot in the summer and less in winter.

All 3 plants should be in a fast draining cactus soil, and from the photos it looks like there is too much forest product in your soil, so you may want to repot them into a better draining cactus soil.

When watering go ahead and drench the soil and let it drain away, never letting them sit in water.
Peter

Hiya guys,
Every bit of advice you’ve given me has been so spot on,
now I’m having a problem that is making me so mad.
APHIDS!
They are farmed by my many many ant colonies in the yard,
and every time any of my succulents produces a flower,
BAM! Black aphids cover it, and I just clip it off,
because it’s so nasty. Even my giant Kniphofia flower stalks are not immune.

What would be a good plan of attack so I can enjoy my succulent flowers
for awhile before the black aphid plague descends down upon them?

Thanks so much.
JBOT
PS. Your advice on Sluggo was great.
I have to reapply often, but the snails got the message.
Stay away from my succulents!

With Aphids on succulents you have a couple of choices:

Hose them off the blooms with a soft spray of water, being soft bodied insects they are easy to dislodge and then you can really blast them when they hit the ground. Think Aphid soup! I usually hold the bloom stalk with one hand and spray with the other. It is sort of messy, but usually works.

Use insecticidal soap, and then after they are dead you still have to wash them off, since they die in place, still piercing the plant with their vampire bites, their zombie bodies are still annoying. But the soap usually leaves eggs unharmed so you may need to retreat before the blooms are done.

Use a more aggressive insecticide like Pyrethrin which will kill them and most of the eggs, but is absorbable by you… so use with care and caution!

Of course as you know they are farmed like dairy cows by the ants, so you also need to work at knocking down the ant population which with the Argentine Ant Super Colony that is eating California will be difficult, try adding some ant treatments around the succulents as well.

Take care,
Hap

Hi Peter,
Can you please identify this Aloe for me?

Thank you!
Steve

Steve,
You have what looks to me like Aloe mudenensis. They are growing really nicely there. Sweet!
Peter

Hello Peter,

I hope you and Hap are both doing well and business good. I need some help with an offspring of our large Opuntia which has a white spoor like growth on it. The plant doesn’t seem to be hurt by it at all, but none the less I wanted to know what it is and what to do about it. Let me know if you have any knowledge or advice. As we need some small items I hope we can get up your way soon.

Take care
Ric

Ric,

The Opuntia has a bad infestation of Scale Insects. They are sort of Limpet-like vampires of the pest world. You should be able to get rid of them, but it will take a bit of work. First, spray the branch down with straight rubbing alcohol (or Vodka) and then loosen them with an old paint brush, the alcohol will dissolve the shellack they coat themselves with when they glue down as adults. After doing what you can with the alcohol and paint brush, rinse with a “stern” jet of water from the hose, this will help blast off more them. Follow up with a good spray of Neem Oil at 1-2% solution, you can get this at any good nursery, as it is used on Roses as a natural insecticide and fungicide. Respray with Neem after a week at least three times to break the life-cycle of any hold outs or eggs that survive. Make sure to spray the Neem in the evening and not during the hot sun, as the oil needs time to disperse as to not cause burning of the plant. You should also fertilize that plant and give it an extra drink to boost it’s natural immunities.

Take care,

Hap

Hi,
I am a subcriber to your newsletter and was refferred to you by a friend. She told me that if I email you a photo of a plant, that you would be able to identify it. Can you please help me identify this cactus and Please tell me what I need to do to make it green and healthy as it has been showing clorosis (yellowing) for sometime now. I rescued it off the street corner as someone was throwing it away. I have repotted it with cactus soil mix about 4 months ago.

Any info, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
Steve

Steve,
You have a Cereus peruvianus and as you say, it’s clear that you have “rescued” it. We use slow release organic nutrients (we sell our own mix, too), so if you haven’t fertilized yet, now would be a good time. (If you’ve used something stronger, that can possibly be a cause of the yellowing.) When our cactus look yellow after the winter, we also will add Kelp Meal.
Peter

I have several echeveria and graptoveria which I bought from you and have just finished planting in my new garden. They look so much alike that I’m wondering what is the difference(s) between them, especially differences in what the mature plants will look like. (I was hoping for flat to the ground hen and chicks appearance, but perhaps I won’t be getting that?)

Thank you.
Carol (Vallejo)

Carol,
It depends which species you have, but generally the echeverias are the hen and chick style, stemless and on the ground, while the graptoveria do sometimes get a trailing stem. If you send me photos, I can confirm what your individual species will do.
Peter

Hi Kevin,

When you have a chance, can you tell me what these are? I got them from different places.

The first one was given to us, has beautiful bloom;

Second one hitch-hiked with another plant I bought, with a big round root under all that tentacles and had a ring of tiny yellow flowers a while ago;

3rd one I got from Target, reminds me of someone wiith a bad hair day;

4th one spread like waves/snakes.

I cannot find these from any books I have, so thought you might be able to help. Is it OK to trouble you? or is there another source I can ask about plants?

Thanks!

Lillian

Here are the attached photos:

Lillian,
You have:
149. Crassula falcata, also known as the propellor plant.

536. is a crested Euphorbia, possibly Euphorbia flanaganii

537. is definitely Euphorbia flanaganii, also known as Medusa’s Head – would certainly qualify as bad hair…

538. Tephrocactus articulatus v. papyracanthus, or the Paper-Spine Cactus.
Peter

HI, I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of plant this is, and if it is unusual for it’s size. It was growing for some time then this tree like appendage came shooting out of it. It is well over the top of our 1 story home. Easily close to 2 stories high. Picture is included. Thanks for your response.

Mike
Vista, CA

Mike,

Your plant is an Agave that it is starting to bloom. It looks like it is an Agave americana or “Century Plant”. The blooms will open soon and look amazing, the stalk will eventually (over the next year or two…) dry out and be a sculptural corpse… Agave bloom stalks were often used as alien trees in old science fiction films. Agaves grow for a long time (but not really for a century) and then bloom and die. However there should be “Pups” or baby plants around the base of the blooming mother plant that will repeat the cycle, as Agave have a habit of cloning themselves before trying to do “sexual reproduction”. If there is another Agave bloom in you area and you have Agave moths, you might even get seed pods. If not the flower stalk will sometimes try another cloning strategy and grow plantlets where the blooms are, that eventually helicopter down and root in where they land.

Take care,

Hap

Hello,

My son is very worried about his cactus. He has had it for about two years and it started to turn black (please see attached photos) two weeks ago. We live in Wisconsin, and his cactus receives about 8 hours of sunlight a day. Any advice would greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Tony

Tony,

The cactus is mutant Gymnocalycium that is grafted on top of a Hylocereus stem (the green part). It is a chimera pair so that the bottom graft can feed the top bright-colorful part that lacks chlorophyll since it was likely exposed to gamma radiation to kill the chlorophyll and bring out the wild otherworldly color. The sad reality is the mutated part is generally short-lived because it has compromised immunities and can’t build all the proteins it needs.

The black infection showing in the photos is likely a fungal infection (it could also be a virus). If it is a fungus it may respond to being treated with a fungicide. We use Neem Oil, which is usually effective, while having low (to none) toxicity issues around mammals (us, kids, pets…). Neem Oil is used in toothpaste and cosmetics. You should be able to find a ready-to-use Neem Oil product at your local nursery. Follow the directions and spray it down well. Retreat after a week. Hopefully it will stop the infection, but the top graft will always be scarred. If the infection continues the top graft may fail and turn all black; if it does cut it off and treat the green base with Neem. The Hylocereus base is actually a cool jungle cactus that can be treated more like an orchid and if it starts growing new arms it can eventually bloom and even fruit, which are those cool and tasty looking “Dragon Fruit” you might have seen at the grocery store.

Good luck,
Hap

Hi, we had a cactus planted in our front yard about six months ago. It’s getting browned and hard at the bottom, but not mushy (which I thought would indicate overwatering). The browning is working its way up the plant, but if it IS overwatering, of course I don’t want to continue to contribute to that problem by watering it more thinking it’s too dry.

Any suggestions!? Thanks!

Matt B
San Diego

Matt,
It’s a little hard to tell exactly what I’m looking at there. It’s probably just barking, i.e. the plant is turning into a tree and creating a trunk at the bottom with bark. On the other hand, it could be an infection. The key question is: Is the area soft or firm? Firm is good, soft is rot and that would be bad.

If it is soft, then given the location of the rot, you probably need to cut the plant down and get rid of the root mass. You can then save the branches, let them dry in shade for a week or two, and then plant them in a fast draining cactus soil.

A warning: This is a Euphorbia and it has caustic sap. Wear protective clothing, long gloves and eye protection. Don’t get any of the milky white sap on you.

What rot in a Euphorbia looks like.
Peter

Peter, I really appreciate your response.

It’s hard – very hard – and inching upward even though I’m not watering the plant at all, so it sounds as though it’s barking.

Again – thanks so much!!
Matt B

Hiya guys,
I just got back from my tour of the US,
and my buddy gave me some cow’s tongue opuntia when I was passing thru New Mexico.
I was wondering if the fruit is edible and the same as standard prickly pear.
I never see this in the Bay area, is it rare out here?
Thanks!
Jay

Jay,
All opuntia fruit is edible, just some taste better than others, some are less spiny and easier to get at than others, and some are already bottled in fancy sweet vinegars made in Italy.
Peter

Peter,

I’m heading to a wedding and would like to bring a hand-made succulent arrangement as a wedding gift.   What are some succulents that can survive the lack of sun that Eugene has most of the year?  Are there good resources that show which succulents would work well in that climate zone?

Thanks!
Jordan

P.S.  I’m thinking it can be an indoor arrangement to help regulate the ridiculous amount of rain it would get otherwise outside in Eugene.

Jordan,
The best options for low-light succulents are the Haworthias. They tend to be small, but there is a lot of variation in the look. Also, there are a number of Crassulas, green Aeoniums, and even some Aloes that can handle fairly low light levels, though not full shade. For outdoor in Eugene, there’s a book called “Hardy Succulents” that list lots of succulents and the colder zones they can handle.
Peter

hello!

I had this cute lil plant that was doing just fine until a few days ago i decided to let it have some direct sun for a few days. I’ve had them in the pot for about 2 months on my back porch which gets mostly indirect light all day rather than direct blasts of sun. I haven’t watered it for at least a week and a half, if not longer.

Over the weekend, I brought it out on a little table in the backyard and it seemed fine Sat-Sun. Today was my first day in the backyard since Sunday and poor little plant- what’s happening?? It’s all yellow and limp, looking sad… Is there such a thing as too much sun? Can you help me figure out what’s going on, and if there’s something I can do to help the situation?

Thank you!!
Christina

Christina,
Your plant has a sunburn. Generally, you cannot take plants from shade or from indoor into direct sun – they need to be “hardened off” which means getting them a little sun at first, and gradually bringing them out into more sun over a week or two.

At this point, its hard to tell if they will survive, but get it out of the full sun, into a bright location, and hope for the best. It will definitely lose most of its bottom leaves, but hopefully there will soon be new growth from the tips of the plants.
Peter

We saw Euphorbia Characias ssp. Wulfenii and Euphorbia x martini on your blog. Are they evergreen plants? Since they’re listed as perennials, we’re worried that they would die back or be half-dead in the winter. Our project is in San Jose, where winters can get down to 24 degrees F.

Thank you,
Carrie

Carrie-
Both of these are hardy and evergreen in San Jose, and we do have E. martinii in stock (as well as a bunch of other evergreen spurges). We do have some other Euphorbias that are deciduous, but not these. Perennials here in California are often evergreen; we use the designation perennial (survives year after year) in distinction to annual (survives only one year), and we also refer to whether plants are evergreen or deciduous.

Actually, we don’t use the label “annual” on any of our plants, since this is California where lots of plants that are annuals elsewhere are perennials here and we choose not to grow any outdoor plants that don’t survive the winters.

Peter

I purchased this lovely little variegated agave (Tag just said Agave ‘mediovariegata’) on a recent trip to California. One pup was visible at the soil surface. When I pulled it out of the pot, I found half a dozen more pups trying to grow out the drainage holes (see attached photo). How is best to handle the subterranean ones? Can I separate them now, or should I put it in a bigger pot and let them make their own way to the surface?

Much thanks,
Joseph

Joseph,

The name is Agave medio-picta “Alba” and it will eventually get 6 ft. across. Congratulations on all the hidden babies. You can go ahead and separate them all now if you want, and get each pup into its own pot with a fast draining cactus soil. Gently pull them off, and they should separate without needing to cut.

Peter

Hi Hap,

Hope you’re doing well.
I had a couple of aloe vanbalenii that had root rot. I trimmed off as much as I could to expose some white/green flesh. Can I just plant them into the ground now (the soil is well draining and dry).

Thanks
Zac

Zac,

Yes, replant in fresh fast draining soil and keep on the dry side for the next few weeks. They should reestablish pretty quickly if the weather turns back to be warm and sunny… if it stays stormy and cool they would likely prefer to be potted and under a rain shield of some sort for the next month.

Take care,
Hap

But wait! There’s more! Read More…

Hi,

I was looking for some help about my coral cactus. I received it as a gift a month ago. I’ve only watered it two or three times and I leave it by the window with the most light. Today I noticed the plant browning between the stem and white fan. I don’t know if it can be saved or not…any advice on how to care or save the plant? I also attached pictures.

Thank you so much!

Debbie

Debbie,

I am afraid to say from your photos that the graft looks like it is infected and well on the way to failing. The plant should be allowed to dry out completely and treated with a fungicide. We use Neem Oil, a natural easy to use and non-toxic (to people or pets) product which is an effective fungicide and insecticide. It is not as aggressive as synthetics, but much safer to use. If you use a more aggressive fungicide, read and follow the directions carefully and make sure to wear chemical resistant disposable gloves.

Sorry I do not have better news. Good luck and take care,

Hap

A: Cut the wire.

Hi,
I’m hoping for a little help regarding an issue I have with a very large and beloved peruvian apple (cereus) cactus. This cactus is probably 20 ft tall with a large trunk (about 2-3 feet in diameter) and many, many, many branches. The previous house owner bolted a wire to the house and then wrapped it around the cactus trunk (about 3 ft up from ground) and back to the house. The issue is of course… the cactus has grown and the rubber tubing around the wire has disintegrated allowing the wire to begin cutting through the cactus. Probably 1/4 to 1/2 inch divot into the trunk. So my question is… should I cut the wire and pull it out of the cactus? And is there anything I can put on the damaged area to prevent infection? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
MJC

Yes, cut out the wire ASAP! It can girdle the cactus and eventually kill everything above the wire by strangulation…. Any injury to the skin can be painted or sprayed with standard hydrogen-peroxide to disinfect and help seal up the damage. If the green “Skin” is cut all the way around you may loose the top so make sure to take your time and remove the wire carefully so not to do any additional damage. If you can email us a photo we will try and give you more complete advice.

Good Luck,

Hap

Hi,

I just found your blog today off Plants are the Strangest People Blog.

I had stopped at a garage sale one day looking for pots. I saw an unusual plant and asked the lady if I could have a cutting. She couldn’t find the cutting she thought she had, so she ended up giving me a pot of the plant. She said she did not know the name of it but it has a red flower when it blooms.

So, I have looked thru books and on the internet. I think it is a Epephyllum, but I cannot find one that has a red flower. It looks like Epiphyllum anguliger, but the book says that has a white flower.

Can you tell me what it is? I have attached pics of it.

Thanks for any help you can give me. I looked through your blog all the way back to last May in hopes of finding my plant posted.

Jan

Jan,
What you have there is a Cryptocereus anthonyanus, which is an epiphytic cactus from Mexico, much as the Epiphyllums are, however unlike the Epi’s, there are not 100s of cultivated varieties.

It looks like you have a beautiful specimen with lots of healthy green growth. In general you can treat it like an orchid. They prefer bright indirect light, and we would grow them indoors here in Northern California. Water about once per week, no more than that, and add bloom food in the spring to get those big red flowers.
Peter

We mix our own cactus soil, designed for everyone who lives other than in the desert, so there’s no sand in it at all, which is a good ingredient if you live in the desert, but we don’t. One of our regulars asked a question about the ingredients in our mix.

Hi Hap,

I was looking at your pre-mixed soil for sale (the one that’s recommended for a very fast draining soil for cacti); I noticed that there is a percentage of COIR in the mix. Doesn’t that retain moisture, thus, creating a less desirable draining vehicle. Maybe it has some other attributes that justifies it’s addition to the mix…

Thanks,
Faraz

Now, I would answer this differently than Hap, who does a good job of just getting down to basics. I would have said something along the lines of Yes, it does hold some moisture – all plants need some moisture… But that would have been rude of me, so it’s a good thing Hap answered instead.

Faraz,

Our soil mix is mostly lava and pumice, the organic materials are coir and composted rice-hulls. Both of them are nice and rot resistant, both being the seed-husks of water transported seeds, means they are filled with natural anti-fungal properties, which leads to long term soil stability and healthy plants. Coir and rice-hulls can last eight to ten years in potting soil. Commonly used peat only lasts about two to three years, and has a host of other drawbacks as well…. The coir and rice-hulls are both “long fiber”, so they do hold moisture, but not too much. They also “bond” nutrients well, so the slow release complex organic fertilizer we add has a good life span in the soil mix.

Hap