Winter blooms and growth

[swords]

Hi folks, I will start to post here some pics of my winter growing (short days/cool weather) succulents, mostly from the South African region.

Conophytum minimum 'Witterburgenese' (at best guess)

Just after breaking out of their shriveled summer dormancy husks around August when I misted their mummies a bit too heavily.

Today 11-11 in bud. I took this pic incase I miss the blooms I've missed every Lithops bloom so far this year! Note the Cono has been divided and repotted since the image above with no notice taken by the plant other than making even better colors!

Adromischus mariannae 'Little Speheroid' look at that thick crusty wax coating on the old leaves! This guy never changes color as long as the light stays bright. The wax will scratch off so no probing fingers allowed.

Adromischus triflourus I wish the winter purples and silver didn't turn green in summer.
Anyway, the colored leaves indicate the newest growth.

I hope you like them so far!

I will add more images when I get decent shots of things here and there.

 

[seedjar]

Nice pics. Lithops seem fun, but I think I need to get the hang of dry potting mixes before I get started on them. Do you ID your miscellaneous succulents yourself or do you usually know what they are when you get them? I long ago gave up on trying to ID mine... Maybe one day when I have some free time and money for plant books.
~Joe

 

[swords]

Hi Joe!

Good luck finding succulent books!

Out of the several hundred plant books I've collected I only have three. One is a cheesy DK Houseplant succulent book full of plant-killing information, another is "Growing the Mesembryaceae" from a UK plant book club printed in 1940 and the last one is the latest revision of the genus Andromischus. Proper works on succulents seem notoriously hard to find and wildly expensive when you do!

However, Google and the web is the best thing going for free up to date knowledge on succulents!

I always get ID'd plants whenever possible but sometimes the seller doesn't know or has the wrong name. That Conophytum was sold as "Conophytum minutum" but C. minutum is an all green Cono with no pattern, mine most definitely has a pattern.

Conophytums are mesembs but they do have a pretty different life-cycle than Lithops. These guys are all easy as long as you use rapidly draining mineral soils so they dry up very fast. Most mesembs live off dew and costal fog and no actual rain but a few mm in winter so just mist 'em every day or two IF you wanna feel invoved with them, otherwise leave them alone altogether. You can pour a wee bit of water on them if they look a little shriveled now and then but otherwise hide that water can. I use 50/50 Napa Floor Dry (Shultz APS is a fine substitute but pricier) and turkey grit or pea gravel for weight with a very tiny, tiny bit of peat or coir (less than 10%) blended in just enough to bind the mineral particles and not let it fall out the pots drainage holes. I have no visible peat or coir in the "soil" mixes even on undressed pots but it does the trick to keep the soil up in the pot, they still dry out in 2-3 days if they ever should get doused with water.

As an example of misnaming, the next 5 plants were all sold labeled as "Titanopsis calcarea" at various locations and on ebay. Not one of these are T. calcarea: I still do not have this plant in my collection and I've bought it a number of times!

Titanopsis hugo-schlecterii

Titanopsis primosii

Aloinopsis malherbei amazingly it's putting on new growth and is as happy as can be. I have NEVER watered this plant in almost a year, only misted the leaves wet and its doing awesome. I have watered every other specimen of Aloinopsis and they melted into slime. It's being hugged by a Ceropegia armandii, maybe it just needed the hug?

This I call "Dino tails #1" I have no idea what the genus this or the next plant are in but they look related to me.

Here is Dino Tails #2 I hope it starts to do better this one is looking saggy lately. I may have accientally gotten water on it!

Here we have some real fave weirdos of mine called Pseudolithos who aren't related to Lithops at all. These are actually Asclepiads related to the Stapelias (corpse flower succulents):

Pseudolithos cubiformis becoming squarer with age.

Pseudolithos dodsoniana

Pseudolithos migiurtinus

White-sloanea crassa formerly Pseudolithos crassa

Duvalia elegans I think the shape of this plant looks as if one of my cats made an inelegant gesture in my pot...

Edithicola grandis AKA "Magic Carpet Flower" supposedly the big star-shaped bloom is patterned like a persian rug. I haven't seen one yet. This is one of the few/ (only?) branch forming vertical Stapeliads:

Here's a few Euphorbs:

Euphorbia albopollinifera, a member of the medusoid group

Euphorbia bupleurifolia this tongue-twister looks cool when the trunk gets taller, in like a decade or two...

Euphorbia platyclada the pink stick grows! A year ago it was just pink twig!

Next to the euphorbs is this weird, highly poisonous little thing
Tylecodon buchholtziana

Neohenricia sibbettii Where's Waldo?

a different waldo upclose

And we'll need to see some succulent flytrap looking things:
Faucarina tigrina this is the plain form I hate the mutant forms that seem to be popular.

Is this an Agave? whatever it is I like the teeth and the pattern it's ungodly slow to do anything. the latest leaf has taken 6 months to get that far!

 

[thez_yo]

Those are really nice looking! Euphorbia bupleurifolia is always interesting looking enough for me to have to get into the "no, don't buy it because you have enough plants already" cycle in my brain.

 

[swords]

I've got plenty of those "Aw, I shouldn't have bought that plant" too. For me it's mainly cacti - I don't really like them all that much - rather dull. About 1/2 my succulents are doubles or even quadruples, since leaves often break off and generate more plants when you pot up the broken leaves.

 

[thez_yo]

I've got plenty of those "Aw, I shouldn't have bought that plant" too. For me it's mainly cacti - I don't really like them all that much - rather dull. About 1/2 my succulents are doubles or even quadruples, since leaves often break off and generate more plants when you pot up the broken leaves.

I know the feeling...the kalanchoe tubiflora is the one that's spreading like wild-fire for me - not just the leaves starting new plants the plain old succulent way, but growing little mini-me's too! For perspective, I have to pick the baby kalanchoe out of the cape sundew pots .

 

[seedjar]

One is a cheesy DK Houseplant succulent book full of plant-killing information,

ROTFL - I think I have that very same book. It's helped me ID a few things, at least.
I still need to go looking for that NAPA stuff... that's a hell of a deal. Did I send you that E. platyclada? It looks like the same color form as mine, but mine is somehow leggier.
~Joe

 

[Crissytal]

Awesome plants swords! You certainly have some interesting varieties! Thanks for sharing.

 

[justjack]

Swords, gnarly plants you've got there, love 'em!
I've got some baby toes (fenestaria) that are getting pretty big. I've had them for two years at least and are the first ones I haven't killed. They're getting big but haven't bloomed ever. They're in a 2' terra cotta pot.
I want to repot, but am scared silly of touching them. I don't even have the guts to try to take a cutting off one of the dangly growths that look like they might jump off on their own. I would love some advice, including soil recipe, if possible. I would also looooove a cutting off that branching stapelia!

 

[swords]

Thanks all!

I should have some weird succulents for trade when the weather gets good in spring if anyone wants to do CPs for some succulents. Check my growlist, things in the succulent section that are marked with an " * " aren't up for trade at the moment but if all goes well maybe in the future.

Jack I use the same soil for all my succulents and cacti, Napa Floor Dry (product #8822) and quartzite cherrystone grit (turkey/chicken feed grit), with a very small amount of peat or coco coir blended so the rocks won't fall out of the pots drainage holes. You can't see any peat in my pots because I add so little it's almost none but it's enough to bind the minerals which is all I want the peat to do, not retain water at all. I used to use pure Shultz Aquatic Plant Soil (baked clay grit) but it was more expensive and the succulents seem to like the Napa more because of the likely high mineral content. Napa is expanded diatomaceous earth - like rock popcorn or perlite but colored naturally.

If you do buy Napa beware not to use it on anything like CPs or acid loving plants. I wiped out 3 dews in 3 days potting them 50/50 peat & Napa. The succulents love it however use the SHultz APS on the CPs if you want clay grit.

 

[seedjar]

Aw... Well, can't win them all. If I ever find some I'll try to get one of my chemistry-oriented friends to check it out for me. Did you ever try the vinegar test?
~Joe

 

[swords]

Don't be afraid to repot succulents are remarkably resilient. Some things to remember:

1) repot into dry soil, don't use a moist soil. Use a soil that will dry out completely within a few days. 25/75 peat & perlite might work good but I avoid peat as much as possible since it doesn't seem to dry out in my area. Fine for house ferns and things but it's a succulent killer for me.

2) do not water "water it in" after repotting you can mist the toes off if you like but use a hand mister and just enough to clean the above ground fleshy bits.

3) don't water the actual pot for at least 3 weeks but you can mist the fleshy bits once every day or two if you want so long as the water dries up rather quickly.

4) when you do begin watering a month or so after repotting do so lightly, just a splash the first time to "wake up" the roots, don't flood the pot. The next time in a week or so you can add a little more. remember these plants Mesembs (south african succulents) are asleep in the heat of our summer so don't water them heavily at that time or they will rot since they aren't using the water all that much at that time of year.

With mesembs like ithops, conophytums, fenestria & frithia (often confused with one another), gibbeums, titanopsis, aloinopsis... it's often best to not water until they look wrinkly and pull into the soil a bit. If they look fat and plump then don't water the plant. If you do water a fat plant sometimes they'll split open revealing their jelly filled insides. This doesn't usually kill the plant but it looks bad for a whole year or more until new bodies grow in it's place.

---------- Post added at 11:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 PM ----------

I haven't tried putting vinegar on it - it's supposed to foam or fizzle isn't it?

 

[justjack]

What's the vinegar test?

 

[swords]

IIRC if you pour vinegar on limestone or other high Ph mineral rocks it will fizzle because of the conflict between the two.

I don't have an aquarium testing kit since I don't keep aquatic plants anymore but I would be willing to bet this NAPA stuff has a Ph of 8 or maybe higher. Which is fine for succulents but not for things like sundews because a Ph 8 is about 4000 times more alkaline than a boggy Ph 4. No wonder the poor dews I tested in it just melted like a snowman in July! If you want an all purpose media that can be used for both go with the Shultz Aquatic Plant Soil since it's inert like the quartzite turkey grit and aquarium pea gravel.