How to re-pot Hechtia

How to re-pot Hechtia

    

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Brachychition

I don't know why I have these plants.
Brachychiton discolor

Information  about this tree from Australian Native Plant Society:
http://asgap.org.au/b-dis.html

Brachychiton discolor

Brachychiton discolor

Brachychiton rupestris

Information  about this tree from San Marcos Growers:
http://www.smgrowers.com/products/plants/plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=272

Brachychiton rupestris

Brachychiton rupestris

 

Bursera

One more lost tag Bursera  

Did not not see the flowers on this but this is the fruit or seed pod from it.

If you know what it could be, let me know.

Bursera simaruba: Gumbo-Limbo ê

Don't know why I have this plant

 Don't need any more trees.

Agave Mr.Woodrow

Agave angustifolia var. marginata was  discovered as an off-shoot of A. angustifolia var. marginata.
by Mr.Woodrow in 1967.

It's one of those plants you don't see around much.

 This is the only Agave I have that I enjoy.  I think I got it about 8 years ago. It is one of the slowest plants I have. In all that time it has only made 2 pups plus any new leaves are very slow in coming.

Like any new plant you look at it a lot but as time moves on, not so much. The more time passes the less you look at it. So after 8 years or so I started to look at again and thought it might be time for a new pot and remove the 2 offsets.

These 2 offsets have been around for 2 or 3 years but now they are on their own.

Dyckia Arizona (f2) #5

Dyckia Arizona and some of it's hybrid's have great color. 
The plant in the photo's is Dyckia Arizona (f2) #5

This Dyckia Arizona hybrid came from Michael's bromeliads in Venice, Fl..
It was a small plant when it came home with me.
As it gets larger it looking better and better to me.

6 inch pot

The photo's don't do it justice, it looks a lot better in person.  

 

 

 

 

 

To see more of the plants

Dyckia platyphylla

For some reason you don't see Dyckia platyphylla much around any more.

It's one of the few short with a wide leaf Dyckia's species.
I know its green but still has a place in your collection.

For me it doesn't offset much and I can't grow it well.
I also don't do well with Dyckia marnier-lapostollei and some of it's types.

The leaves are a little longer then Dyckia platyphylla with alot more of a white color too them.
To see more

Bromeliad meeting auction

This is what happen if I don't go to a Bromeliad meeting when they have a auction with my wife.

Aechmea 'Blue Tango' with a large pup

 She said she always want one, so now I have to take care of it.
Can you believe at Stokes Tropicals it go's for $104.95.

xEnchotia Ruby

 This plant was in the sales room and the auction at the WBC I didn't want because it gets way to big.
Take a look at this link of Ray with plant in flower.
http://nixwickedgarden.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/xenchotia-ruby.jpg

I have seen this plant at Tropiflora every time I've been there but I have not seen it with any offsets.

UPDATE Aug 11, 2013

Tropiflora had a few on it's VIPP for $75ea and in it's description it said that the 5 plants for sale came from  "offsets of the original clone". So I guess it does make offsets. Maybe they got them by stabbing the plant?

 

 Oh well some thing for ebay.

 

Neoregelia Luca

Don't know why she got this, she said no one wanted it, sooo she bid and won. I see why.


She comes home with plants she thinks I want and plants she wants but don't water or look at it ever again.

Love her anyway.

Jatropha podagrica

Seedling and more seedling.



Calibanus hookeri on the left Jatropha podagrica in the center of the photo, a Aloe on the right below that some kind of Neo and to the left of it is Stapelia gigantea .

 

I started with one that I did grow from seed over 18 years ago. When we moved to Fl. I planted in the yard. It's  descendants come up every where.  

How to mount bromeliads on wood

This is a old video I had from the Second International Cryptanthus Show in Chacago, Il. Sorry I don't remember what year that was.

The peolpe in the video are Audrey & Bill McCrory of Boggy Creek Bromeliads from Kissimmee, Fl

 

Neglected

Not all my plants in pots get what they need.
Normally plants in pots get watered and plants in the ground only gets water when it rains.
But the plants pictured below have been  neglected way to long.

Bishop's Cap

Bishop's Cap

Bishop's Cap

Ariocarpus ?

Euphorbia ?

Euphorbia knuthii

Neoglaziovia variegata

 I have tried to grow this better but no matter what I did it never looked that good to me.

Neoglaziovia variegata

 The plants what are neglected in the ground (see photo's below ) still do well and flower every year, they just don't look that nice.

Pachypodium

Pachypodium ? and Cyphostemma juttae

 Do you think one of them needs a bigger pot?

All of the Euphorbia's you see I did not plant, they all came from seed from a plants that were potted.

 

Old News

Has anyone noticed Iv been recycling some of the older post?

 

Dividing Dyckia's Video

Some people may not know how to divide some of their Dyckia's so I did 2 videos a few years ago to show how I do it.

Yes we have no bananas today

But my next door neighbor does and his bananas is in my yard.

Every year I try to keep his bananas in his yard,

but the bananas come over or under his fence.

They are small but tasty.

Aechmea Aztec Gold

This has been a hard plant for me to keep alive, but try and try again. I have tried different ways  of growing it with no luck. Until I de-potted (is that a word?) it and removed all the soil and potted it with just volcanic rock. It has not flowered for me yet but it has put out 2 offsets. I have high hopes.

 

 

The story of this plant, I cut and paste(d ?) it from:

http://fcbs.org/articles/a_Aztec_Gold.htm

AECHMEA RECURVATA 'AZTEC GOLD'

Believe It or Not

By John Catlan, Bromlink Jul/Aug 1997

'Aztec Gold' is really the story of trying to produce a desirable plant by swinging the odds in the grower's favour by manipulation of growing conditions. One day in 1981, a friend of mine found a plant in a group of my Aechmea recurvata plants with a good clear yellow stripe on one of its leaves. The variegated leaf appeared on a fully mature plant that had failed to flower that year. It was the unanimous lament that plants of friends as well as our own had shown partial variegation that had not been passed onto the pups. The low averages to almost non-existent were definitely against success, but with this plant we hoped it was possible as the variegated leaf was low down on the butt of the plant where the pups originate. After researching the material available, looking for a magic wand I found that there was none, or more precisely, none that I could find. Now was the time to put into action three lessons learnt while observing our plants. One day while sitting on an old stump, with a shovel in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, trying to get inspiration to clean up and level off our rubbish dump, I noted just how hardy bromeliads really were. There were dozens of discarded plants lying on their sides with their pups happily sitting up ready to grow into new clumps.  Lesson 1: If a plant falls over and then a pup forms, nine times out of ten the pup will start on the top side of the plant. Like most bromeliad growers with more plants than room, I would take pups off and sit them in a pot of very open mix to keep them upright until potting up time. If you were too long, you would wind up with a solid ball of roots. This resulted in tearing them apart and damaging the roots when potting. Gradually it dawned on me that the root system initiated from one side of the pup, the opposite side from the heel piece that was attached to the mother plant. The rule became: face the round side to the center of the pot. The roots all grow to the outside of the pot and are easier to separate. This explained to me why in a clump of bromeliads the pups are generally grown on the mother plant furthest from the grandmother. I reasoned that the roots on that side absorbed the nourishment and gave slightly more food to that side of the plant. I foliar fed the plants on one side only and this resulted in a very high percentage of pups from that side.  Lesson 2: If you liquid feed a plant by foliar feeding it on one side, you increase your chances of getting a pup from that side. I remembered one year, there being not enough bench space for all the plants, that some were placed under a bench. Being winter, the sun was low in the sky and light penetrated very well in under the bench as it faced north. Spring arrived and busy-busy-busy then well into summer. Lo and behold! There were the bromeliads with all their pups, like soldiers, facing the path. At that time I thought it was rather convenient for the removal of the pups. Remember light is a source of food for plants and in a clump of bromeliads the outer-side of a plant should be receiving more light than the side facing the clump.  Lesson 3: If the plant is denied light on one side, it will throw its pups on the side facing the light source. The time had come to bite the bullet. We laid the plant at an angle of 45 degrees facing away from the sun with the leaf with the yellow stripe being on top facing the sun. A few weeks later at an angle of 90 degrees to the yellow stripe appeared a green pup. This pup was removed with a sharpened screwdriver. Our theory was that the pup had started its growth cycle prior to our meddling with nature. Be patient and wait. Success immediately followed by disaster. The pup was there but it was pure yellow. We had only one variegated leaf and the pup was right under it. So all we could do was leave it as an interesting experiment. A few months later when the pup had grown and we looked and wondered, for there on the upper side of the leaves was a solid green stripe. A phenomenon of this plant is: all pups appear as plain yellow, but as the plant develops the green stripe improves and it turns into a sturdy, vigorous grower for a variegate. To promote the growth of 'Aztec Gold' we left it attached to its parent. This promoted vigorous growth resulting in a mature plant that produced 10 pups over three years. Any pups appearing on the green parent were cut off so that 'Aztec Gold' received all the energy. We were aware that with some variegated bromeliads that too much fertiliser had the ability to cause a plant to lose its variegation, for just prior to 'Aztec Gold' we had over-fertilised some variegated Neoregelia seedlings and the variegation disappeared for ever! So this time we took fertilising very cautiously with our original plant. Some variegated plants can take fertiliser and some can't and there are variegated plants that only seem to flourish when they are fertilised well and on a regular basis. 'Aztec Gold' was grown in 170mm hanging baskets potted in a very open mix and hung 18cm from the roof. They had plenty of light and nine-month Osmocote as fertiliser. They were watered regularly, but they were very well drained and had plenty of air movement. The growers who have had trouble growing 'Aztec Gold' are probably giving it too much water and not enough light and air movement to keep up with the watering. When the pups were taken off the original 'Aztec Gold' they were given the code A, B, C, D, E, F, etc. When plant A threw its pups they were numbered Al, A2, A3, etc. When plant Al threw its pups they were numbered AlA, A1B, A1C, etc. When plant AlA threw its pups they were numbered A1Al, A1A2, A1A3, etc. All this information was written up into a book so you had a complete family tree of the descendants of 'Aztec Gold'. By looking up the family tree you knew what to code the pup and you entered it into the family tree. The plants were kept all mixed up in one area and all watered and fertilised the same. 'Aztec Gold' E2 bred like a rabbit. Its descendants dominated the whole breeding program. For months we looked at "E2" and its descendants but they all looked the same to me and everyone else who was asked. I then separated "E2" descendants and put them on the one bench. It was immediately obvious the central green stripe although it was the same width was a slightly deeper green and the yellow a touch more golden and this made the difference, more food faster and more pups. Pure white is the only colour in a bromeliad leaf that does not manufacture food - from sunlight. Yellow is in fact able to manufacture food as it has chlorophyll in its cells, which to us appears yellow.

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http://fcbs.org/

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Didiereaceae Family

I do like plants in the Didiereaceae Family but only have a few.
They are:
Didierea madagascariensis
Alluaudia comosa
Alluaudia procera
Alluaudia dumosa


Wikipedia says, Didiereaceae is a small family of just four genera and 11 species of flowering plants endemic to south and southwest Madagascar.

Alluaudia

Alluaudia ascendens
Alluaudia comosa
Alluaudia dumosa
Alluaudia humbertii
Alluaudia montagnacii – probably a natural hybrid of A. ascendens and A. procera
Alluaudia procera – quite easy grown and the most frequent species in cultivation

Alluaudiopsis
Alluaudiopsis fiherensis
Alluaudiopsis marnieriana

Decaria
Decaria madagascariensis

Didierea
Didierea madagascariensis
Didierea trollii

 Alluaudia comosa in a 6 inch pot ↑

 Didierea madagascariensis in a 3 gallon pot and about 3 feet tall ↑

 Alluaudia procera in the ground at about 9 feet tall ↑

Alluaudia procera ↑

Alluaudia dumosa in a 6 inch pot ↑