Guess who's growing?  H. purpureo-fusca!!!  Finally!!  I've had this plant for many years and I've always loved it.  It's grown, off and on, but my mother plant has taken down-turns a few times.  So I've taken cuttings and the cuttings have done ok.  I think I have two or three pots of it around.  But mother didn't grow much at all over the last few years.  Well, I took down the mother plant today to water it and it has all kinds of new growth on it!  Since I take it down at least every week to 10 days, that means all this new growth as burst forth rather quickly!!  I'm SO excited!  Maybe it will bloom for me this year.  It did bloom for me once long time ago, in 2009... 

I can't wait to see it bloom again!  I can't remember the scent...

Speaking of scent, something must be blooming in the GH.  I walked by earlier and the fragrance was so lovely!  I'll have to go on a search and see if I can't find it.

Got up yesterday to SNOW!  It's May, for God's sake!  What a weird spring.  Monday it got up to 84 and I turned on the A/C because it got too hot to be comfortable to sleep.  Tuesday morning, I turned off the A/C.  In the evening, they said we were going to have severe thunderstorms (possibly including large hail) that would bring in a cold front.  Here are some of the cloud pics I took...

Looked plenty stormy, even rumbled around a bit.  Got up Wednesday morning and nary a rain drop!  Of course, I had about 75% of my succulents out on the deck and really wanted them to get a big drink of rainwater, so I was disappointed.  Wednesday, it was supposed to rain all day - about 2.5" - and turn cold.  So I went to work, figuring hopefully by the time I got home, it would have rained and I could bring my plants in before it really got cold Wed. night.  Well, it did start raining an hour or two before I went home, but was still raining pretty good when I started bringing plants in.  Spent an hour in the icy rain getting all my plants back in. 

Then, Wed. night, it snowed.  Wow!!  It was 2-4" - probably closer to 2" here, but a very, very wet, heavy snow.  If it had been light and fluffy, I bet it would have been 10"!  Seriously, it was that heavy.  Thankfully, it melted off the walks fast 'cuz it was warm - I wouldn't have wanted to shovel it!!  Here's what it looked like Thurs. morning...

Can you believe this shit?  So now my GH is packed in again, and I'm feeling pretty claustrophobic!  It looks like the high Sat. is supposed to be 53, low 47, so I think I'll try to put them back out Sat. a.m. before I go to work...

It could be worse.  I sent out an e-mail to my peeps about our May snow...  On the news, they had said that since 1885, it had snowed in Nebraska only 5 times, last time in 1967.  The last measurable snow was in 1945.  And this was the most snow we'd ever had in May.  I was passing along those stats and...uh-hum...expressing my opinion about this BS.  Well, I got an e-mail back from Greg in Calif. this morning - it was 93 yesterday and the wildfires they're talking about on the news got within 1/4 mile of his house!  Here's the photo he sent...

I'll take rain and snow over that!  Scary!

Watching the morning news - windchill is in the mid 20's.  I'll say it again... IT'S MAY!!  This is just wrong.

H. 'Minibelle' is here in the computer room - a west window, gets very bright reflected light until noon, then a bit of sun in the afternoons before it goes behind Diane's house.  It's doing VERY well!  The leaves are deep green, firm and succulent, and some of them have some very nice flecking.  I probably mentioned that it has signs of growth, but it's sure taking its time!  Maybe it's gearing up to bloom first...

And here's something to get excited about!...

This is one of those Epi cuttings I got...was it last year?  I think so.  Maybe it was '11...  Anyway, the cutting itself is kind of rough looking - you can see one of the many brown "pocks".  But it's budding up.  This is one of two and it's starting to open - a lovely bright pink!  Much smaller than the flowers on my white Epi, but quite striking nontheless!

Well, the sun is up now, so I guess I'd better get out there and do some watering and inspecting...