Succulent Ramblings: Two two-ty two...

...In other words, the 22nd of February! I've always said that twenty would more logically be pronounced "two-ty". Think about it - "forty" sounds like "four" with "ty" on the end. Sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety also all make sense. "Thirty" should be "three-ty", "fifty" should be "five-ty" (ok, that one sounds a little awkward...) And the teens would be a little weird, I guess... Onety-one, onety-two, onety-three...and so on. Ok, I know, my brain is a little weird!!

So I've been watering and grooming, assessing what has maintained over the winter, what has suffered, what is already growing. I'm overall very pleased with what I'm seeing. Oh, a few I'm very sad about, but I haven't given up hope on anything yet.

All my long-leaved varieties are looking OUTSTANDING! I took some photos... My two wayettis... this is the one growing above the sink in hydroton:

This one cascades so beautifully... It's outer pot is a pretty oriental pot and I have it on a tall candle stand and it's like a waterfall of leaves down one side. Then I have another that hangs in the west kitchen window. That's my original EA plant from 2003 (all others have been cuttings off of that one) and it has really taken to that window. I took it down to water and the side facing the window was just stunning...

And look at the new growth!...

I am such a fan of these long leaved Hoyas! So I took down shepherdell and gave it a good watering and examination and, viola, lots of new growth on that one, too! Shepherdell is a cross between carnosa x shepherdii... I got my shepherdell in 2007 - I got a cutting in a trade, and I liked it so much, I ordered a plant from CBFM.

And then we have 'Minibelle' - I got mine as a cutting from Yale in Illinois back in 2006. It's leaves are SO similar to shepherdell I have to keep the tags in them to know which is which. The one difference is that 'Minibelle's' leaves tend to be a bit inconsistent, and what I mean by that is that they sometimes have a little bump out on a leaf. 'Minibelle' is a cross between shepherdii x carnosa... This probably explains whey 'Minibelle' and shepherdell are so similar. I assume the difference in the way the cross is written is due to the pod parent - I think the pod parent is the one named first.

Then we also have the old shepherdii, or the String Bean Hoya, which was in one of my very earliest trades (before I was diligent about keeping my database), so I'm guessing it's 15+ years old.

I have a few others whose leaves aren't nearly so long, but I still find them so appealing, like siamica, which is still small...

Longifolia is another one. I thought I'd lost it and took it off my list, but it came back and now I don't know where it came from! So now, when I THINK one is a goner, I put it on a list called "lost?" and I can move it back to the main list if it comes back. Here's longifolia...