Anthuriums no. 0171, 0205, 0236, 0560

Well, it's been a busy week, folks. Between beginning to send Schlumbergera seedling cuttings out, trying to keep the weeds out of the garden beds (pending the annual planting of the Cannas), and finding out the husband and I are being sued (by both God and Jesus, even!),¹ it's just one thing after another around here. I've also been scurrying frantically trying to keep up with which of the Anthuriums have new buds, which ones dropped buds, which ones haven't dropped buds yet but look like they're going to, which ones have actually opened blooms, which ones that have opened blooms have been blogged previously, and so forth, I'm a bit lost.²

Almost all of the first-time Anthurium blooms lately have been red / yellow or red / white;³ none of the blooms are especially interesting, though they at least vary a little in shape.

Seedling no. 0171 "Genevieve la Difference"
Genevieve was one of the seedlings that dropped buds last summer after the white oil treatment. The bloom wasn't worth the wait, alas: it's the smallest of the group, plus it's mildly damaged by thrips or drought or something.

Seedling no. 0205 "Venus D-Lite"
Venus, on the other hand, has some potential. She's small too, but not as small as Genevieve, and the shape is a lot better. The spadix is weird (disproportionately small, plus I don't know what's going on at the tip there), but at least there's no obvious thrips damage, which is the main thing I care about lately.

Seedling no. 0236 "Roxanne DeBree"
Roxanne is probably the best of the group. Only slightly smaller than Venus, and the shape is more or less "normal." No marks from thrips, either.

Seedling no. 0560 "Jill O'Schottz"
Jill's okay. A little damage toward the bottom of the spathe on the right side, there, and she's a little smaller than Venus and Roxanne, but whatever. She's fine.

None of the leaves are remarkable, for good or bad. Going in the same order as above:

(Genevieve)

(Venus)

(Roxanne)

(Jill)
None of the leaves seem to be especially bothered by thrips, either. Jill has a problem with burnt leaf tips, as we will see, which is an unusual problem for my Anthuriums to have, and I'm not sure how to explain it.

The photos of the entire plants⁴ illustrate one other problem some of the seedlings have, which is that of internodal distance (= the distance between leaves, on the main stem). Genevieve has a short internodal distance, and so all her leaves appear to come from more or less the same point, giving a nice, compact-looking plant that stands more or less upright and doesn't get all tangled up in neighboring plants. I mean, Genevieve has other problems, but she does this part well.

The remaining three plants, though, are faster-growing and have a longer internodal distance, which means that over time, they start to look a little viney. That's fine in some contexts, but it doesn't look good on these: they're always flopping over and tangling and the stem gets curved from lying in one position too long, and it's just a pain to deal with. You can cut long Anthurium stems back, and if you leave a few leaves on the stem, they'll sprout new growing tips (sometimes you can even root the tops in water, though that's hit or miss), so it's not like there aren't ways to deal with the problem, but it's not something I like in my plants, and I don't do the cutting-back thing, in general. It takes so long for them to bloom in the first place, I don't want to force them to start all over again, slowly rebuilding until they're capable of blooming again. Plus it's not like I need to be starting new cuttings. Too many Anthuriums as it is.

(Venus)

(Roxanne)

(Jill)
You can also see the burnt-tips problem on two of Jill's leaves, in that last picture.

So I'd say none of the four are winners, though none of them are terrible. Better red/white or red/yellow than pink/pink, at least.


UPDATE: The suit has been thrown out. (Apparently the federal court system is not the proper place to determine whether something is sinful or not, and also one cannot sue millions of defendants merely by identifying an attribute they all share: one needs to go to the trouble of naming them. Good to know.)

Obviously this is sort of a relief, because it's impossible for me to find a plant-sitter. But it's also a disappointment, because one only gets just so many excuses to go to Omaha in a lifetime, and here I've just had one snatched out from under me.⁵

-

¹ Not really, obviously, as God and/or Jesus have not yet verified for the court that Ms. Driskell does in fact represent them. Though once that happens, obviously, we're gonna have to pick out something nice to wear and start calling hotels in Omaha, 'cause I bet they're going to fill up super-quick.
² Worse: I spotted scale on one of them (0267 "Natalie Attired") when I was flipping through photos on Wednesday. The news could have been worse -- the scale in question was small, looked like it might (might) also have been dead already, and wasn't on a plant I especially cared about, but obviously there's no perspective that makes this good news. I tried to determine whether the scale was also on any neighboring plants, with inconclusive results.
I haven't thrown Natalie out because she's in bud, and I'd like to see the flower before I decide what to do with her. Though I probably should: all indications are that she's going to be another pink/pink, and I certainly don't need another one of those. It's hard to work up the energy to do anything much about this particular problem, though, considering how long I've been dealing with the scale already and how many plans have failed to make it go away.
³ I plan to give the one non-red, 0580 "Marsha Marsha Marsha," its own post at some point in the near future.
⁴ (Because, yes, I was listening when the whole-plant photos were requested; it just takes time for that sort of request to work through my whole photo-processing-and-blogging system.)
⁵ For the record: nothing against Omaha. It's not actually someplace I dream about visiting someday, but that's not singling Omaha out for any special disdain: the list of places I think about visiting someday is very small. (1. Russia, because I once spoke poorly-accented broken Russian and can still read isolated words occasionally, plus I like the cold, though I have all but given up on that ever happening because they're not, like, super happy about the gays lately; 2. Sweden, because I have distant relatives and one friend there and I like the cold; 3. Denmark, because we're currently watching Rita on Netflix and I am pretending that the whole country is full of gay-friendly blondes with high cheekbones, nice furniture, and no problems any worse than teachers who just care too damn much about their students, plus now I can say "good morning" and "thank you" in Danish so I feel pretty prepared -- and I like the cold; and 4. Canada, because, well, there's the cold, and that's where we keep all the Canadians, plus I can say "good morning" and "thank you" in Canadian, too. But it's not like I believe I'm actually going to go any of those places ever; they just seem like places that would be more pleasant to go than some of the other options.) Omaha would be fine, though obviously I'd want to go in January.