Got the day off (Monday's my usual day off) and thought I'd try to make some plant observations. As the days get a wee bit longer each day, I'm seeing new growth on a lot of my Hoyas, Dischidias and others. Most of the Haworthias are looking pretty damn good, as they tend to do in the winter. On the other hand, I lost a nice Haworthia I'd had for a long time - it just dried up and died. **Sigh** Well, as Mom says, "Maybe plants, like people, just get old and die sometimes." I suppose that makes sense, but I wish I'd seen it coming so I could have propogated a baby to "live on"...

Hoya australis ssp. tenuipes has one last little flower cluster that decided to open a couple days ago. Three flowers in the cluster, yet it's scent permeates the north end of the GH. But in the process of inspecting that one to see if there were more peduncles budding up, I think I found one of the buds on macgillivrayii showing signs of budding!!!!!!! I'm so hoping I'm not imagining it, because that's going to feel like a REAL accomplishment when it flowers for me. I love the leaves and succulence of the leaves on "mac". But photos of the flowers absolutely make me drool! It's one of those very large-flowering species, and if it flowers, it will be my first of those types.

Got my new computer at the end of Dec. (the week after Christmas) and have spent a lot of time getting it set up, and then my old one at work set up. Kind of a hassle, and a lot of frustration. I'm especially having trouble getting McAfee set up right. I've spent literally hours on hold trying to reach someone. As it turns out, it seems that Dell sold me the wrong product, and it's still not completely resolved nearly a month later. Grrr...

Mid December until just recently, my Rhipsalis pilocarpa, which I got spring last year at one of the big box stores, was blooming up a storm. Beautiful little flowers, some solitary, but some had two and three flower heads. Here's one of the singles...

I don't have the easiest time making Rhips bloom, and grow them mostly for their interesting foliage, but when they do bloom, they're just lovely. This flower, mind you, isn't very big (though bigger than those on many of the Rhip species...) It's less than 1" across from tip to tip of the petals. And they hang straight down from the tips of the plant, so you have to look carefully to see the beautiful detail. You can see the "clippie" in the background that I had to use to stage it for a photo... On some of the flat-segmented species, though, blooming tends to leave little scars at the "scallops", which I think deters from the beauty of the plant. This one isn't one of those types. I don't think the blooming will leave behind any mars. Here's a photo of the whole plant...

It's a bit of a "wild" grower! And it's my first Rhip with a more "cactusy" look to it. But those "spines" you see are soft and furry, not pokey.

Hoya javanica (aka multiflora) is budding up again. And lacunosa continues to spit out at least one bloom at all times - sometimes more. The tsangii in the sunroom (the medium-sized one) is also blooming. The big one in the dining room just doesn't get enough light, but that one actually looks better. Not so much because of its size, but I think because the one in the sunroom gets so much sun that it dries out faster and the leaves just don't seem as nice and succulent. Seems like you always sacrifice SOMEthing to get more flowers! I'm sure I could get a lot more flowers if I wanted to put some Hoyas in my south picture window in the living room, but I don't like the "washed out" look you get from them when grown in that much sun. I prefer to have a lush, green, healthy looking plant with fewer flowers...

I've decided to participate in the David Liddle group order this year. A lady in Florida is doing all the "leg work." I've placed my order with David and he thinks he'll be sending them on to Joni in March. Per his suggestion, I'm setting up an aquarium to create an ideal rooting environment. After losing some cuttings last year, I expressed my hesitation at buying more cuttings. He gave me instructions for this aquarium setup and it sounds like a perfect "miro-jungle". If it works out well for me, I'll pass on the instructions on how to do it in the C&S club newsletter one month...

Oh, and lucky me! First, I found another Rhipsalis at Lowe's - a beauty called R. sulcata (took a lot of digging to come up with the species!) It reminds me of a very delicate paradoxa. Here's a photo...

I repotted it best I could without disturbing the rootball too much. It seems the soil isn't the usual awful EA soil, but it is a little "peaty." I got some of my coir in the bottom of the pot, so I'm hoping that will help with it not staying too wet too long... From what I see about the species, it's another white flowering Rhip. Here's some info about it... http://www.rhipsalis.com/species/sulcata.htm

Then, a few days later, I was at HD and found a potful of the silver flecked lacunosa. I got cuttings of this last summer from someone and they rooted ok for me, but it was such a small pot, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a potful of this lovely plant. I haven't taken a photo of it yet, but I'll post it in a future blog. I hope it grows for me as well as my plain lacunosa, which has gotten incredibly big. It's in one of the smaller EA pots - I'd say a 6" probably. But it's now nearly 2-1/2 feet long from the pot! And that's with it growing in a north window. Here's a closeup photo that shows how pretty and shiney the leaves are on the lacunosa...

Notice the peduncle forming a flower at the bottom - a bonus I didn't even know I caught in this photo!

I e-mailed Tom from the C&S club recently about possibly coming over and getting more cuttings and he said "sure!" I'm excited to get some more after I get my rooting aquarium set up. I lost quite a few (and a few are still trying to root) of the ones I got last fall. He says he still hasn't cleaned up the Dischidia collection yet, so maybe BJ & I can go over one afternoon and help him out with that... I have plenty of people I could send cuttings to!

Well, I really need to get some stuff done around here, so I suppose this should be enough for today. More photos to come as stuff gets going in the weeks to come!