So here's that photo of Mark that I promised in the last post. I have a good one of him with his HD, but it's on "his side" of the computer and I'd have to e-mail it to myself to get it on "my side." So this one will do. He was sitting at the computer playing poker when I took this one. See what I mean about him looking more like a "biker" than a "golfer"?

Anyway, so back to what's new in the GH... My plants are all growing nicely. Macgillivrayii finally took off (it's a late starter...) I took a pot of rooted cuttings of austrlis ssp. tenuipes that had gotten really rootbound and put them in a pretty squarish pot I'd bought a few years ago and put it in the sunroom, below a trellis I have nailed to the woodwork on the north side. I clipped a couple of the long tendrils to the trellis and, within a few days, there was already growth and upward twining! I can tell it will quickly cover the trellis and become a beautiful curtain of foliage. How exciting! I had put this pot of cuttings together with the intent of selling them at the annual auction my C&S club has, but they're doing it this year in KC and I'm sure I won't be able to make it, so decided to keep it...

And speaking of selling plants, because we had a slow May at work, I divided a butt-load of my Haworthias and other "pupping" plants, and Drimiopsis bulbs and made a bazillion little pots of these plants to sell at the show & sale in June. By the time the show rolled around, they all looked pretty darned good. I couldn't be there on Saturday (since I always work on Saturdays...), so Kathy (our club prez) was kind enough to offer to watch over my plants and handle the money for them. A few days after the show, she called for me to come pick up my "proceeds" from the sale. I had paid $30 for my space to sell and thought, well, if I make a little over and above that, I'll be happy. My sales totaled $215!! I about fell over! I hadn't added up what I had in the three flats, but they were mostly $1 to $3 plants - I had no idea they would add up so quickly! Amazing! I did also sell a few Hoyas, but I didn't put big prices on them, so that couldn't have account for the majority of it... Well, needless to say, I was pleased!

So my H. bhutanica bloomed for the first time. I found two peduncles budding up on the window-side of the plant. In the process of turning the plant (it's a BIG plant) so I could watch the flowers form, I discovered it had put on gobs and gobs of new growth, and it's a viner. I had to do a bit of untangling and gentle tugging where the new growth had gone up through between the shelf wires. When I got it turned around, the side facing the window looked absolutely fabulous. Here's a photo of plant and flowers.

I put my Rhipsalis' outside this year and they're all looking great. Pseudorhipsalis ramulosa, the flat-stemmed one I got from CBFM a couple years ago, then got some more this spring to add to it, had turned a beautiful red. I'll get a photo of it when I bring it in this fall. I hope it does well through the winter. The pieces I got this spring came with fruit on them that are still hanging on. Cool! Rhipsalis pilocarpa is putting on lots of nice, chunky growth, and it even went into a second blooming cycle.

Well, enough for today!