January 1st Mesembs

I had this plan to take photos of my Mesemb seedlings the first of every month so I would have a record of their growth. I was doing well with my project but fell short these past few months.  I’ll try to start it up again (but no promises!).

Cheiridopsis glomerata sown 3/11/2012 and badly in need of being pricked out and given their own pots.  The problem is I have nowhere to put all those little pots! I am going to remedy that soon though.

Gibbaeum comptonii sown exactly a year ago today!

Muiria hortenseae also sown a year ago today. To tell the truth I am a little nervous to pot these guys up. They are supposed to be tricky and they are doing so well. I’m afraid if I mess with them they will all drop dead.

Oophytum oviforme are also said to be tricky.  They are very tiny and slow-growing too so that makes me even more nervous to pot them up.

Lithops optica var. rubra 

Honestly it is a miracle I have kept any Lithops alive a year and a half.  I have killed more Lithops than any other mesemb.

Mitrophyllum grande (left) and Monilaria pisiformis

These are also a year old today and have been potted up and growing outside since spring.  They went dormant over the summer and I am shocked that they Monilaria survived.  They were all just a few millimeters tall when they went dormant and nothing was left but a few wisps of papery dried up husks. But they sprang to life with the fall rains and the one pictured and a few others are already about an inch high. This one even branched already.

The story for Dactylopsis digitata is not as happy.   Another tricky one to grow they are not thriving since coming out of dormancy. Their old dead leaves are still clinging to them and they have put on little growth. This is supposedly pretty common. I expect they will just wither away.

Mitrophyllum dissitum however are doing really well. Sown 1/16/11 so almost two years old. This past summer was their first dormancy and I was surprised how huge they had become once the rains started in fall and they started growing again. For a while I was nervous about them because like the Dactylopsis their old dried skins were also clinging to them.  But the wet and humidity of a few rainy days in November seemed to do the trick and the old skins washed away.

I think I need to start up some new mesembs and other succulents from seed.  They are far more forgiving than regular herbaceous and woody plants so I can go out of town and not worry about them too much.  People are always raving about Mesa Garden so maybe I will place an order with them when their 2013 seed list comes out.

Away from the garden…

I’ve been in NYC visiting my family for Thanksgiving. Hopefully my garden is getting by without me. Looking at the weather report it seems Los Osos has had some rain so at least I don’t have to worry that anything is drying up.  Hopefully we’ll have lots of rain all winter so I can go to see wild flowers in the spring.

Before I left my little Frithia pulchra bloom finally opened.

The flower is bigger than the plant (which isn’t very big)!

Some of my Conophytums had buds when I left so sadly I may miss them if they bloom while I am away but it is a good sign that they have recovered from their time on my shady patio in West Hollywood.

Last night I went to an alumni reunion for the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.  It was really nice seeing friends and classmates that I hadn’t seen in a few years.

Back to California on Monday and hopefully some new projects and plants to post about! Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.

 

 

All the little things…

So some of you may have noticed it has been many months since my last blog post. There are a few reasons for that.  First of all I am not, and will never be, a fan of late summer and early fall. Too many memories of “back to school” as a child.  Most of my unhappiest moments took place in school and I carry those memories with me even as an adult.

But aside from bad childhood memories I’m also a bit gardened out by the end of summer.  All the mistakes I have made in my own garden are on display and it is really too late to do anything about it. All I can do is take notes and make plans to fix things in the fall and winter. Here in California the mistakes are even more evident as we have now gone about five months without rain and the garden is looking parched and dry. It is too early to start new plantings so I must wait patiently for the rainy season to begin.  Does anyone else have a least favorite time of the “garden year”?

I also received some very sad news this summer. In the interest of privacy, I won’t go into any details, but I have felt distracted and in a bit of a haze.  My creativity is low and I certainly wasn’t feeling very bloggy. I tried to talk myself out of my funk by thinking “This is a part of life and you know I really have had it pretty good. There are plenty of people who have faced far worse things that me in their lives.”  Well that wasn’t a very good idea. That just made me feel really awful for those people. So instead I am going to try to just focus on all the little things that make me feel joy and wonder. Things that bring me comfort or make me smile.

First of all my family! My father had a big party in August to celebrate retiring from his private practice.  That is my dad in the red shirt. I’m in the purple and my brother is the other skinny chap with glasses (people say we look alike but they are wrong!) and my sister is in the white dress. My father’s brothers are on either end and that is his sister in the blue. And my lovely cousin, next to me in the black, who I met for the first time that night. Even though I live thousands of miles away and even though they sometimes drive me crazy they are hugely important to me.

But this is a garden blog so it needs pictures of the flowers that make me happy!  Impatiens tinctoria has bloomed on and off all summer.

Hummingbirds have visited all summer and always bring a smile to my face!  Salvia sclarea ‘Piemont’ and Nictotiana mutabilis were their favorites.

When I returned from my trip back home this Echinopsis ‘Spring Blush’ bloomed for the first time. I am not really a big cactus grower. I just have a few but a bloom like this is making me think I need to add a few more to my collection.

And here is a side view so you can see just how ridiculous the flower is in comparison to the plant!

Pelargoniums are best known for the common red “geraniums” that people grow in planters and window boxes.  But the family is quite diverse and has all sorts of interesting oddities. Like this Pelargonium tetragonum, I grew from seed this year, flowering for the first time. The plant is mostly wiry, succulent, stems with a few small leaves. Kind of an odd ball but with beautiful flowers.

Pycnostachys urticifolia started blooming in August and should continue to do so through the winter.

Does anyone know what this little guy is? Lizards are pretty common in California but not at my house. I think it is too cold here most of the time for them to be out and about much.  But on a hot fall day (it got to about 94 degrees which is 30 degrees more than the usual average temp) I found this little critter hanging out by my front door.

It is that time of year when I start coaxing my summer dormant mesembs back to life. I’ve shared pictures of this Monilaria moniliformis coming out of dormancy in the past and it is always such a joy to watch. Maybe this year I will get flowers for the first time?

And speaking of flowers for the first time, my first Frithia pulchra finally has its first flower bud!  This is the little plant that first got me interested in growing succulents from seed.  Since I couldn’t find any for sale I decided that growing from seed was my only option.  But it would have been silly to just order one pack of seeds.  So a new obsession was born. These little plants are almost two years old and finally I am going to get a flower.

Titanopsis primrosii have been much less stingy with the blooms.  I have about twenty plants and most of them have been blooming on and off since May.

I believe this is an Echinopsis. I’m not sure though because it was a plant left by a former tenant.  I haven’t really paid much attention to it since I lived here. I tend to be a bit negligent when it comes to caring for plants that don’t have an emotional attachment to.  So It got shoved in a corner and now and then I would splash a bit of water on it if I was watering my own plants.  Well now that I have seen it in bloom I think maybe I will lavish a little more care on it.  OK plant. You got my attention!

One of the things that really helped get me out of my funk was a garden that I designed way back in February that was finally installed in early October. I’m pretty excited about it.  It is a beautiful space, the clients were a delight to work for, and it has three different elements.  A succulent bed in the front of the house (pictured above getting ready to go in the ground), a mediterranean garden along the side of the house, and a shrub border and Carex lawn in the backyard.

Here is a panorama of the mediterranean garden.  Kind of fun how the new panorama feature on the iPhone distorts the image. This area is actually rectangular and not L shaped like the photo would have you believe. But it was a fun way to get it all in the same shot. I really enjoyed designing this garden and the installation came at the perfect time to cheer me up. I look forward to going back and taking pictures as the garden progresses. I think it is going to be really beautiful.

And one more panorama of the Morro Bay Sand Spit. I have to remind myself how much I love it here. I’ve had some crummy things happen both times I moved here but in the end it is all going to be OK and I think I’ll be really happy here on the Central Coast.  At least I have scenery like this to cheer me up, right?

Stomatium alboroseum

So very busy and likely will be for a few more weeks.  But some of my Stomatium alboroseum that I showed were in bud the other day opened today for the first time.  Just six months from seed to flowers.

Well this is unexpected.

I was out checking on my seedlings this morning and another mesemb seedling has a bud.

This is a Stomatium alboroseum and it is only six and a half months old. The seed was sown 1/1/12 right after I moved into my new place.  I had no idea they could reach blooming size so quickly. The seedling flat is in full sun all day and the plants are all in little two-inch pots so they are watered almost ever day.

Pretty neat huh? I’m not sure if the flower will open today as it is pretty foggy but I’ll try to get a photo when the bloom opens instead of just in bud.

Cool Plant of the Week!

Oh happy day!  My very first mesemb grown from seed to flower is Titanopsis primosii and so of course it had to be my cool plant of the week!

And at least five others have buds.  T. primosii is a South African mesemb with warty little leaves that camouflage it to look like pebbles or sand hidden among the rocks.

Here is a side view to show off the foliage.

Someone had asked with a previous mesemb seedling post if we could get a photo with something else for comparative size so here it is with my hand.  I have dainty little lady hands so the plant is quite small.

These plants were sown last June so they have reached blooming size in just eleven months.  The seed was from Silverhill Seeds from South Africa and the germination was exceptionally high.  I ended up potting up many more than I normally would have because there were so many in good shape I couldn’t bear to cull them.  They are kept in my very sunny seedling nursery under netting to protect them from quail and other birds (a good move as the quail circle this area like sharks and they seem to love the taste of ice plants which are also mesembs). I water them pretty regularly because they are in such small pots in a very sunny and warm spot but I am probably over indulging them and may try to separate out the succulents from some of the herbaceous seedlings.

Anyway as I have said many times before growing plants from seed is one of the most rewarding parts of gardening for me and getting a small succulent to flower from seed is particularly exciting for me as I have not really grown them for that long.  Definitely worth trying out if you have a very sunny window sill or small hobby green house.

May Mesembs and Other Succulent Seedlings

May Mesembs and Other Succulent Seedlings, a set on Flickr.

It’s the first of the month again and time for a succulent seedling update. Click on the thumbnails to be brought to Flickr where you will find the name of each species and the date the seed was sown and other notes.  Each of these plants is pretty tiny.  Most are under an inch tall or wide.  The largest are the Mitrophyllum dissitum at about two and a half inches tall.

April Mesembs

If you remember from last month from now on I am just going to post updates on my mesemb seedlings at the start of each month.

My newest babies.  Cheiridopsis glomerata started 3/11/12.

Gibbaeum comptonii are a little creepy looking at this stage.  They remind me of Surinam toads which are probably my number one phobia in the world.  /shudder

Stomatium alboroseum

At just three months old I think these Monilaria pisiformis are ready to be transplanted into their own pots.

Mitrophyllum grande also need to be repotted.  They are overcrowded and starting to show signs of stress.

Oophytum oviforme

Muiria hortenseae are growing very slowly compared to the others.

Lithops optica var. rubra were sown last June.

Dactylopsis digitata are supposed to be a bit difficult to grow. Only three seedlings (sown last June) survived and this is the biggest.  It seems to be doing OK.  They have grown inside on my windowsill all this time but I think this week they are ready to go outside.

This is the mystery Cheiridopsis (I think) that was mixed in with the Dactylopsis that I didn’t have the heart to thin out.  It has grown huge and looks quite different from all the other Cheiridopsis I am growing.

Cheiridopsis cigarettifera is over a year old.

While I was photographing my mesembs I noticed these little mystery insect eggs neatly lined up on some bird netting.  Anyone have any idea what they are?  Hopefully something friendly.

Mitrophyllum dissitum is over a year old.  This is my nicest specimen.  Some of the others are a bit damaged as they try to shed their old growth and one looks like it might have slug or snail damage.

Frithia pulchra

This Cheiridopsis caroli-schmidtii is not one I grew from seed. I bought it a few years ago at a Cactus and Succulent show.  I noticed yesterday that it had started flowering though which is good news.  It is the first time it has bloomed in two years.  Conditions for all my succulents are much better than they have been while I was apartment living so I can expect to see lots of new growth and blooms.

Cheiridopsis purpurea was started last June.  Yellow is probably the most common flower color in mesembs so I try to find species with purple flowers if I can.

Titanopsis primrosii was also started last June. I had really high germination with these and they were so cute I didn’t have the heart to thin them out too much.  So I probably have about twenty of them. They have been growing very nicely.

Finally I just wanted to give a little update on my post last month on pinching seedlings. A few days after the post I went back and pinched again and now about ten days later they look like this:

Helipterum roseum ‘Pierott’ started 1/13/12

I’ll probably plant them out next week.

 

 

March Mesembs

Remember back when I lived in West Hollywood and I only had a balcony and the only pictures I had to share were my Mesemb seedlings?

Well things have obviously changed but I still love my babies.  From now on I am only going to take pictures of them on the first day of each month though.  Should be more fun to see how they change from month to month.

First batch is of the 3 month old babies that were started January 1st when I had just moved in to my new place.  Photos were taken with my (slightly) better camera so you can see the juicy water cells up close.  They look like little lizard scales made of translucent green pearls.

Mitrophyllum grande

Stomatium alboroseum

Gibbaeum comptonii

Monilaria pisiformis (so cute!)

Oophytum oviforme

Muiria hortensea (ignore the Mitrophyllum that snuck in on the right)

Haworthia truncata

 

My Mitrophyllum dissitum are over a year old and were recently potted up into their own little containers. Normally mesembs like this would have a dormant state (either in winter or summer) where they either rest or completely whither away and dry up and then when the rainy season begins they burst forth with new growth.  Seedlings seem to go through accelerated growth though and shed their old leaves fairly often.  I guess now that these guys are over a year old it might soon be safe to let them go through their seasonal dormancy but I need to research it further.  Recently a few of them have started developing new leaves and they look a bit like a lizard shedding or a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis (or hell maybe even some sort of alien parasite bursting out of its host).

Mitrophyllum dissitum new growth emerging.

For some reason instead of the normal two leaves this one only formed a solitary, silly, phallic leaf.  I’m curious to see if the new leaf will be the same or will it be normal.  Can’t really tell yet.  It does have two new branches forming at its base which is pretty neat.

And finally this one has completely emerged.  The old leaves should shrivel up over time.

My Frithia pulchra are either sort of dormant or just unhappy.  Apparently they want acidic soil and water.  They got regular cactus mix and whatever my tap water is.

Cheiridopsis cigarettifera. I highly recommend Cheiridopsis if you want to try mesembs from seed.  Very high success rate from seed and very easy to grow on.  Look how branched they have become in just over a year.  They are already becoming sizable little clumps. Most of them don’t seem to have any tricky cultural requirements as adults either.

I’m eager to see what changes next month brings. All the babies in the first pictures are currently growing in a western windowsill in my office and the yearlings are all outside. I did harden them off the first few weeks by bringing them in every night.  There is a frost threat tonight so hopefully they will be OK.

 

Sick Sick Sick!

That is my excuse for not updating for a while.  Of course I don’t get just normal sick. I get all melodrama, end of the world, hypochondriac sick.  So my sore throat feels like I’ve swallowed a handful of single edge razors and my coughing is so violent I am convinced I am doing internal damage with every loud hack.  When I lived in a house full of people I would go up to the living room when I was sick, collapse on the floor, throw my hand up to my forehead and sigh really loudly so everyone could hear me.  Now that I live alone I just cough huddled up on the couch watching RuPaul’s Drag Race and feeling sorry for myself.

But I am on the mend and I have managed to keep myself a little bit busy the last week or so despite feeling feverish and delirious.

Back in July Gabe introduced me to an overgrown front yard in a place called Varian Ranch that needed some designing.

Just look at this nonsense.  The original landscape was about twenty years old and all the nice stuff had died and been overtaken by the really hardy overzealous stuff.  See that sold wall of green hedge?  That is Correa (aka Australian Fuchsia) and I’m not having it.  Aside from the fact that I don’t think it is particularly exciting I am the sort of plant snob that doesn’t want things in my yard that can survive an apocalypse without losing a single leaf. Give me some precious little dainty that drops all its leaves when you give it a mean look and I’ll give you a knockout garden.

Continue down that path and after about seventy feet of Correa hedge you come to an equally ridiculous rosemary hedge.

Now this was back when I was still living down in West Hollywood so unfortunately Gabe wasn’t able to arrange a meeting with me and the homeowners so I had to do a little investigative research to determine what sort of garden they might like for this space. They had dogs in the backyard, a tortoise(!) pen in the backyard, and lots of bird feeders. I pressed my nose up against the glass of the front door and saw Audubon prints hanging in the living room so I figured that they were probably animal lovers.  Perfect! I had been wanting to design a wildlife and bird attracting garden for a while.  And amazingly they were happy with the design. Though upon some reflection they wanted to preserve the beautiful hill views that surround them so my choice of toyon and California waxberry were deemed too tall and concealing.  So this week I went back and made a few modifications. Toyon became much smaller Ribes speciosum, Eriogonum grande var. rubescens, and Muhlenbergia emersleyi. California waxberry became several cultivars of low growing Manzanita.

Right now all those silly hedges have been removed and the hardscaping is being finished up.  The new plants go in next week.

In other news some villainous winged creature decided to munch on some of my seedlings and when those didn’t prove to be filling enough it moved on to my Conophytum collection.  My Conophytums look like they have been stabbed with a tiny knife.  The whole thing looked like some sort of weird alien crime scene.  I’m actually more sad about the seedlings.  Echium pininana and Chionochloa conspicua seedling were destroyed but at the same time relieved that the mesembs I grew from seed and recently potted up were unharmed.  They were on the shelf right below the Conophytums and are looking very juicy and tasty right now so it easily could have been them.  I bought some netting and rigged up a protective screen around the remaining flats of seedlings and some of my choicer little succulents. Normally I am a huge bird lover and in fact I would be feeding the birds if it wasn’t for the fact that bird seed is criminally expensive.  But if I catch the bird that did this to my plants (I suspect it is a scrub jay) I will bite its little head off. I really need a greenhouse but that is an expense that is rather far away at the moment.  Aside from my new garden expenses I also just spent about $650 getting my car in order so it would pass its smog certification.

So hopefully no relapse in the near future and perhaps a trip to Annie’s this week or next so that I can start planting my own garden.  And maybe some updated pictures of the above garden when it is installed next week.