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.

Self Sown

Self Sown Seedlings, a set on Flickr.

So I talked to an inspector today about the sewer pipes that are going in and the news is not good.  While he was not one hundred percent certain it is likely that my garden is in fact going to mostly end up destroyed.

But lets pretend all that isn’t going to happen and instead enjoy pictures of all my little self sown seedlings that are popping up after our fall rains.

Click on the thumbnails to be brought to Flickr where I have labeled each seedling.  Wordpress has a new way to put images into a post and it is buggy as hell so until I either figure it out or they fix it I am going to have to just use Flickr thumbnails for my blog posts.

Lots of cool California natives and other neat mediterranean seedlings coming up. Lets just pretend that they aren’t all going to be destroyed by a backhoe some time in the near future.

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.

Building My Garden: Part 6 – Finishing Up the Mediterranean Beds

Since the garden bed expansion project I have been slowly planting and finishing off the various beds.  I’ve been taking my time because I am busy and also kind of wiped out.  I’ve done a lot of work on this garden and think it looks pretty good considering it was only started in February.

The mediterranean garden is now made up of two long beds.  The large one near the street and the narrower one along the chain link fence.  I am hoping I will get the drip irrigation and mulch down and finish the path with decomposed granite some time this month.  We’ll see how much energy and money I have.

The entire planted part of the yard is approximately 70 x 40 feet. It’s a pretty good size.  In the fall I hope to expand the garden further with the side yard which is also 70 x 40 feet.

Over the course of the next year these plants should fill in enough so that barely any soil is visible.

The only things that remain unplanted are the backyard bed of shrubs and odds and ends.  Frankly I’ve just been too tired to tackle this and needed to give my back a break.  But I’m getting sick of looking at it and may try to get it started tomorrow.  Some Salvia, and Grevillea, and a Cotinus coggygria ‘Golden Spirit’ will be the stars of this bed along with a few different Ozothamnus that I am trying out (since I know nothing about them).

I’ve planted many lavenders in the expanded medit beds including several different cultivars of Lavandula stoechas like ‘Willow Vale’ and ‘Boysenberry Ruffles’.

Lavandula stoechas Coco™ Dark Pink is a very unfortunate trademark name. Sadly it seems the cultivar name is L. stoechas ‘Cocdap’ which is just a horrible morph of the trademarked name and not much better.   It is a pretty, compact, dark pink L. stoechas so I guess I’ll put up with the generic name that is meant to appeal to the broader public.

Berkheya purpurea

I first saw this plant in Beth Chatto’s gravel garden but it wasn’t quite blooming yet so I wasn’t sure what it was.  The mystery was solved when Andrew Keys over at Garden Smackdown blogged about it and I recognized it from his photos.  I ordered mine online at Dancing Oaks Nursery and they sent me two for the price of one!  I love free plants!

Artemisia ludoviciana ‘Valerie Finnis’

Early on in my gardening career, my experience with Artemisia on the east coast was that they melted in the heat and humidity of summer.  So I don’t know much about them.  They seem much better suited to my new coastal climate so I am trying out four different types to see how I feel about them.

Artemisia pycnocephala ‘David’s Choice’

This artemisia is a selection of one that is native to coastal California.  It should form a nice low mound but as you can see it has these weird ropey inflorescences so I am not sure how I feel about it.  Maybe it will not be as weird looking once the plant grows a little and they can be pruned out, but pretty much every picture I found online the plant had these weird alien looking blooms flailing about.

Frankenia thymifolia

This is an unusual little groundcover that is sort of like a cross between a thyme and a dwarf conifer.  It has these teeny little pink flowers.  The poor things have been sitting in the ghetto for the past two months and were looking a little raggedy. But they burst into bloom a week or two ago. I finally got them planted today so hopefully they will settle in despite the abuse.

Gaillardia ‘Oranges & Lemons’

I’ve been seeing this Gaillardia on wholesale lists for a while now so decided to grab a few to finish off the edge of the medit bed.  I’m a sucker for anything daisy shaped and the colors are pretty great.  I have a more compact one called ‘Gallo Red’ too.

Another project I finished today was fixing up my seedling nursery.  I wanted to make it a bit more professional looking.  I need to cover the young seedlings with bird netting, but I was using stacks of bricks to hold them up over the plants, which looked awful. I figured I could create some sort of frame with PVC pipe but had no idea how to go about making it.  Just in time, Clare over at Curbstone Valley Farm, saved the day. She posted pictures of a structure that she made with PVC, to create a humidity tent for her grafted heirloom tomatoes. I’m not very handy with tools and building things so the pictures made me feel a bit less insecure.

I started out making a rectangular frame base big enough to contain a dozen nursery flats. I cleared my old nursery bed near the vegetable garden and pulled up all the weeds and then put down weed cloth.

I added four T’s to the frame to create supports to hold up the netting.  Overall a pretty easy experience and much more professional looking.  It also holds the netting higher over the plants to give them a bit of room to grow.  Now I just need to get some PVC snap clamps to hold the netting more securely.

So the garden is coming along.  Hopefully soon I’ll have a post about irrigation and mulch!

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.

Beautiful Things

My first two Helipterum roseum ‘Pierrot’ flowers opened today.  It is a pretty great feeling when something that you grew from seed blooms for the first time.

In other news a pair of quail have taken residence nearby.  I’m pretty sure they are nesting somewhere in the shrubs across the street.  The male often hangs out on my fence.

Look how pretty he is!  I think I’ll invest in a ground feeder for my backyard now that I know they are hanging out here.  There is another little covey of four that hang out in the side yard by the street but they don’t really venture into my front yard like this new pair does.

Of course this also means I will have to put some bird netting over my strawberries sooner rather than later.  Quails can be quite destructive in vegetable gardens.  They are nibbling some of my new perennials in the mediterranean garden but most of them are big enough that they should be able to handle it.

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.

 

 

Pinching Seedlings

For some reason I always dread pinching back young plants and seedlings to encourage bushy growth even though I know it is the right thing to do.  It does create a slight delay in plants so that they will bloom a bit later but it also creates sturdier growth that is less top heavy and less inclined to be weighted down by heavy flowers.  Also the more stems you have the more flowers you will have in the long run so it is well worth doing.

Here is my flat of Helipterum roseum ‘Pierrot’ seedlings growing very nicely. (please excuse my ghetto nursery facilities. The bricks are to hold the bird netting over my seedlings).

But you can see up close that each one has one strong central stem and lots of little ones at the base.  This is caused by apical dominance.  The plant hormone auxin suppresses the growth of the lateral side shoots creating one strong sturdy stem or trunk.

Just snip out that dominant stem and you basically release the side stems from their bondage!  It is so painful to do though when you have nurtured and babied your little seedlings.

But look at how dramatic the results are.  Just nine days later and the side shoots have tripled in size.  I may pinch them again so that smaller shoots at the base are released to grow but I think I’ll wait a bit longer and see how these do.

Look how much bulkier all the plants look in their flat in just nine days!  Quite a change from the first picture.

I should mention that this is generally only needed for plants with a strong upright stem.  In the photo above the Nemophila menziesii ‘Penny Black’ on the left and the Gilia tricolor on the right form flat rosettes so there really isn’t anything to pinch.  You could pinch out early flowering stems perhaps, if they are blooming too soon and you want more energy to go into plant growth, but the effectiveness of this varies from plant to plant.

All these seedlings in my nursery are really doing well and are almost ready to go into the ground.  Which is good news because I have several new batches ready to go out and I am running out of room!

 

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.