Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I don't post pictures of her that often, mostly out of embarrassment at how water-spotted her walls have gotten, but Nina is still here, and is doing as well as she ever was, as far as I can tell. The Pellionia has more or less taken over the tank, being more drought-tolerant than the Fittonia (though the Fittonia is still in there, which is good, because the cuttings I tried to take have failed, after malingering for months in the basement). I intend to replant the tank at some point, but you know how it is. It's never an emergency, and it's never my most entertaining option when I'm looking for something to do, so on the rare occasions when I think about it, I still don't wind up doing it.

Not that she seems to mind. I suspect she might actually prefer it this way, actually: the crickets are harder to find, but it's much easier for her to hide, when she wants to hide.

Sheba gets a bordetella shot on Monday, which is about all the news there is for her.

Sadly, I've discovered that the anti-vaccine people are opposing vaccines for dogs, too, though in this case it appears not to be about fears of autism (can dogs even be autistic?) as it is about selling people a specific brand of (I assume) high-priced dog food. No doubt this will do the same thing for pet dogs that it's done for children, i.e., result in more cases of completely preventable illness and death, while enriching the anti-vaxers.

*sigh*

As cynical and misanthropic as I try to be, I somehow never quite manage to be cynical and misanthropic enough.

Unfinished business: Cyclamen persicum

The Cyclamen has in fact been successfully rebloomed. (It even has more blooms on it than it did when I bought it!) So it can be done.

The plant still makes me kind of nervous -- I'm afraid that at any moment it's going to fall to pieces and I won't know why -- but I never expected to get this far with it, so I'm feeling a sort of anxious pride about this.

Not that I ever feel any other kind of pride, it should be noted.

Question for the Hive Mind: a Reader's Dieffenbachia

A reader e-mailed me to ask about a Dieffenbachia problem, which turned out to be something I hadn't seen before. Neither Google nor my books helped, and the few theories I came up with are mostly not borne out by the facts of the case, so I'm hoping someone out there has experience with this and can at least provide an ID, if not tell the person how to fix whatever it is.


The most alarming symptom is the weird bumpiness around the leaf midribs, often with a brown or tan slightly corky/woody top. This is reported on almost all the leaves, particularly the oldest ones, and are getting larger over time. It looks like the bumps mostly appear on the top of the leaf, but in at least one case, the reader provided a photo showing the woody/corky thing happening on the underside of the leaf too.


When I saw this initially, I thought maybe edema, or mechanical damage, but I couldn't find anything that talked about edema even happening on Dieffenbachia, much less an illustration of it, and anyway the environment would seem to be wrong for edema, since as far as I can tell, the environmental conditions are normal indoor temperatures and humidity.

My own plants have bumps like this on the midribs of some of the leaves, which I assume is mechanical damage of some kind (I've seen the same thing on my Anthurium "hookeri" and Zamioculcas zamiifolia), but in those cases, I already know the plant's been banged around a little, and the bumps are centered on the midribs and stems (particularly in spots where the leaf or stem has been bent, twisted, or stretched) and don't appear on other parts of the leaf. The reader says that the plant has not sustained any mechanical injuries while this has been happening, nor are there pets that might be causing this.




The reader also reports that the new growth is pale, yellowish, and sometimes shriveled, with margin burns on some of the leaves. (I didn't really see this in the photos, but bad-looking leaves could have been groomed off, I suppose.)

This has apparently been happening since spring, and is accelerating as it goes on.


There might be something like an insect or mite on the leaves, but it's hard to tell for sure; it could be dust or water spots. There's no webbing or stippling like one would expect from spider mites, and the specks don't look big enough to be aphids. The color and size is right for maybe an early mealybug infestation, but mealybugs don't cause leaf swelling and margin burn, in my experience. Thrips might leave streaky brown spots like this, but they wouldn't cause leaf swelling, and they're not known to be a particular problem for dieffs.

I did an on-line search for dieffenbachias with broad mites or cyclamen mites (which I at least know can cause weirdly distorted foliage and a dusty appearance), but didn't come up with anything there: if they infest dieffs, it must not happen very often. (Also, my understanding is that cyclamen/broad mite damage is mostly the result of the mites feeding on the foliage while it's still developing, not something they do to mature, developed leaves, as in this case.)

So I am stumped. Not only do I not know how to fix the problem, I don't even have any good theories about what the problem is. So I'm hoping someone else might have some theories. Even wild guesses would be better than nothing, at this point.

I asked the reader a few questions, hoping to find support for one of my theories (didn't get any), and the Q&A is below:

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Has anything fallen on the plant within the last few months, or has the plant itself been knocked over?
NO. I really am careful with them and I learned to give them time alone :)

Do you have a cat that might like to bat at the leaves, or is there anything else in the house that might pull at or twist the leaves sometimes?
NO ...and I'm a dog person :)

Is it in a spot where a lot of people passing by the plant would brush up against it?
NO, it's on a shelf in a dead-end balcony.

Have you had the plant for a long time, or is it fairly new?
Fairly new, I think this is the second year I got it as a little-thin-young stem, and the first year it grew thicker and stronger after repotting the upper-stronger part of the original plant.

Has it been exposed to any extremes in temperature?
Yes, I think so. There were some days last month when temperature approached 40C - 104F, but the problems started before that.

Does it stay inside year-round, or do you put it outside for part of the year?
Only in the closed balcony. No low temperatures in the winter.

Do you leave windows open during part of the year, and if so are the windows screened?
Yes, but not wide open. There is only glass-filtered sun, and yes I use shades when sun gets too strong (3-4 hours in the second part of the day).

How long ago did you first notice it, and has it gotten worse, better, or stayed the same since then?
This sping. At first there were only few bumps and small. Now there are present on almost every leafs (especially the old and mature ones) and seem to grow steadily.
The general aspect of the plant is worsening. Leaves wither and partially coil, the color is paler and yellowish, and almost all old leaves developed on their brims yellow-brown dead areas. (see the pic in the message before).

My impression is that there is a systemic problem that affect the whole plant. Something metabolic. Coming from an infection or infestation or the soil.
I have to mention that I used universal solid fertilizer from COMPO. One stick, once (made in Germany).

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Any of this ring any bells? Anybody?

Pretty picture: Odontocidium Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl'

This whole week's posts, with the possible exceptions of Friday's and Saturday's, are all being written last Saturday, on 23 July, because I am hopeful that if I have a whole week to work on it without being sidelined by other blog posts, I might actually get the Ficus elastica post done by Friday. (UPDATE: I didn't. But it's up now.) (I still haven't figured out how to juggle the blog, profile-writing, and watering in a satisfactory manner.) I promise nothing, but that is my hope.


Meanwhile, are these not the most sickeningly cheerful orchid flowers you've ever seen?


I don't mean to disparage. I could use something sickeningly cheerful about now -- the heat wave for most of last week, the whole shooting/bombing thing in Norway on Friday, Amy Winehouse's death Sunday, plus whatever fresh new nightmares have happened in the world between Saturday and today. Feels like a good moment to go play with Sheba.

Random plant event: Pachypodium geayi lamerei

My Pachypodium lamerei (which I've been thinking was a P. geayi for years, but apparently not) has responded well to the fertilizer this spring. It's retained its leaves longer, and put on more vertical growth, than in previous years. The leaf tips still scorch, which I'm thinking is probably a signal that it's too hot or too dry (?), but aside from that, it looks pretty healthy and happy. I noticed on Friday while watering that it's even growing a new side branch (circled above).

I was slightly shocked when I checked the spreadsheets and found out that I've had this plant for a little over four years now. I got it at Wal-Mart in May 2007 for 53 cents, though it was tagged $3.97. Never did figure out what happened there, but it's probably the best plant-related 53 cents I've ever spent.

Pretty picture: Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee'

Two years ago, when we moved into the house, I bought some Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee' plants along, which performed nicely and which I enjoyed. At the end of the season, I went out and collected a bunch of seeds, intending to plant them the next year and see what happened, and then last summer I didn't wind up planting anything anywhere, for what were no doubt noble and logical reasons, so the seeds wound up sitting in my file cabinet. This spring, I remembered that I had this container filled with hundreds of seeds, and figured that even though they were probably no good anymore, I could try to sprinkle them around outside and see if anything grew. If it worked, hooray, and if it didn't, at least I'd emptied out the container.

I didn't get very many at all: maybe 20 or 30. And the ones I did get all look like the originals, which is both good (I liked the originals) and bad (unsurprising). But that's still better than I'd expected, so I'm happy with this. Next year I'll know to try to start them earlier, inside, and have a designated place to plant them.

Random plant event: Canna flowers

I first noticed flower buds coming up on the Cannas last week, which surprised me: I wasn't expecting them so early. Yesterday, I saw the first open flower, too.


The reader may recall that I had started a bunch of Cannas from seeds; these are not them. The seedlings never made it out of the basement, because I couldn't come up with a good place to plant them in the yard. It was easy enough, though, that I figure I can do it next year, perhaps with a bit more planning. Or, you know, any planning.

Unfinished business: Oenothera (presumed biennis)

The possible primrose (Oenothera sp.) has started to flower, and is confirmed as a primrose. There may be some question about the species still, but O. biennis, the common evening primrose, looks enough like this that to make it the leading candidate as far as I'm concerned.


As to why it grew with multiple shoots, instead of the single upright stem that's (I gather) more typical of the species, I couldn't tell you. There are pretty definitely multiple stems radiating away from a central point, though.


Am I happy about having let it grow? I dunno. It's something new to me, and it was interesting to watch, if nothing else. I'm not sorry I let it stay.

It did attract Japanese beetles, which would matter more to me if I had anything else outside that Japanese beetles seemed to like, but as far as I can tell, there haven't been many and they've only been on the Oenothera. (No doubt the neighbors on the other side of the fence would prefer I not be attracting Japanese beetles.) I'll pull up any seedlings I see next year, but this was an okay experience.

R. I. P. Amy Winehouse

(Why this plant? See the Euphorbia bougheyi variegata profile.)

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

This week, I remembered that Iowa City has a library. More accurately, I remembered that the library has books. (We'd been using it for DVDs occasionally already.) So I checked the website, gave the husband a list (like I'm going to go out in a car with no air conditioning when the heat index is 114F/46C, get real), and have been happily reading things since.

The point in mentioning this is that one of the books I've gotten was Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz, which someone (don't remember who, sorry) recommended in the comments here, one Saturday after I said I wondered what sorts of things Sheba thinks about. I'm not done with it yet, but it's been educational so far.

Sheba, sitting more or less in the "garden," though that's maybe an overly optimistic word for it. Unless raising purslane is a garden-worthy goal, in which case the garden totally rocks.
I've also read Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood). For some reason I'd been unable to get into the first time I picked it up, but I pushed through this time and wound up reading it all in less than a day.

I love Atwood in general (Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride are both very important books to me), and I didn't dislike Oryx and Crake, but it bothers me in some way I can't quite put my finger on. Or maybe more than one way. I don't mean I find it unsettling in the way Atwood meant it to be (it is, after all, more or less a dystopia that turns into an apocalypse, which are things that should be unsettling), more that it feels like Atwood skipped important steps in the plot or the world-building or something. I don't know what it is. (Anybody else happen to read Oryx and Crake recently and want to talk about it by e-mail or something?)

Anyway. I'll let you know about Inside of a Dog.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum NOID

It's still way too hot out, but the situation is improving. Maybe not so much for those of you on the East Coast of the U.S.

I like this Paphiopedilum a lot. I mean, it's no St. Swithin, but it's pretty nice.

How to Start Anthurium and Schlumbergera seeds

Kind of a hopeful title, above -- I know this'll work for Anthurium, but I'm having to take the word of the internet for the Schlumbergera parts. But it'll probably work, and even if it doesn't, I'll give you an excuse to eat cupcakes, so really you'd be a fool not to try, right?

So. First you need to get some fruits, to take the seeds from. With Schlumbergera, that's relatively straightforward -- get two plants of different varieties blooming at once, transfer the pollen (usually white or yellow, on multiple stamens that stick out of the flower) from one plant to the stigma (there'll only be one of them, which will also be sticking out of the flower; usually the tip is fuchsia) of the other, and vice-versa if you feel like it. This is as easy as touching them together. The difficult part is the waiting for it to mature, which on my plants took something like 6-7 months.¹

Anthuriums are tougher. Though the flower² can stay on the plant for two or three months, the individual flowers aren't necessarily dropping or accepting pollen for a lot of that time, and the pollen, once dropped, doesn't stay viable for long either. So you not only have to have two plants blooming at once, they have to be in the right stage of blooming for this to work.

Anthurium flowers are both male and female, but never at the same time; they're female first, and exude tiny droplets of fluid when ready, which kinda looks like this:

(Cultivar is 'White Gemini.')
The bumpiness of the spadix is my main cue here, though for reasons I'll get to, I don't worry so much about getting the timing right.³

Pollen-shedding is a lot more obvious. I don't have a photo of it, but it's easily visible; it looks like white or cream-colored dust, and if the flower's sitting so the spathe is below the spadix, pollen will collect in the spathe. Pollen-shedding can go on for several days. (Couldn't find a reference for how long the flowers are receptive when female, but I think it's also more than one day.)

Since I have several different varieties blooming at any given moment,⁴ and since I'm not trying to breed for any particular characteristics, I just run around the house with a small paintbrush, brushing each spadix in a more or less random order, making sure to collect and transfer as much pollen as I can see. This worked so far, possibly even a little too well.

Anthurium fruits take about the same amount of time as Schlumbergera to develop, six or seven months.

When both are ripe, go buy yourself a dozen cupcakes. You don't have to eat them all yourself, but you need to buy several so they'll give you a clear plastic container with twelve cupcake-sized depressions in the bottom. (If they don't sell cupcakes that way, you can use pretty much anything that has a transparent top and a bottom that's at least a couple inches deep.)

When the cupcakes have all been eaten, relocated, or otherwise disposed of, fill the bottom of the tray with a couple inches (~5 cm) of vermiculite and moisten it. You want the vermiculite to hold as much water as it's capable of holding, but not more than that -- you don't want loose water sloshing around in the bottom of the tray.


So. You'll know Schlumbergera fruits are ripe because they'll change color (my pink/red variety formed fuchsia fruits; the yellow variety formed white fruits that eventually turned light pink). They'll twist off the plant without a lot of resistance.

Anthurium fruits begin the same color as the spadix, change to green as they begin to grow, and then are eventually orange. They're fairly easy to get out of the spadix. Some will pop out neatly if you wiggle them with a thumb, others (especially the overripe ones that have shriveled like raisins) might need a gentle tug with a thumb and forefinger. A substantial percentage of them, though, will burst on you if you try to wiggle them or pull them. The insides are sort of sticky/gummy, not juicy like you'd expect, and so you wind up with odd-smelling⁵ orange gunk all over your hands. If there's a good way around this problem, I haven't found it yet.

Ripe (?) Schlumbergera fruit. I made it stay on the plant for another three months after this picture before removing it, just to be sure.

Anthurium 'Gemini' spadix with ripe fruit.

Removing the seeds from Schlumbergera is simple. You cut the fruit open --


-- then scoop out the seeds. I washed mine off in a glass of water first, to get as much of the pulp off of them as I could (it can't help anything, and it might cause fungal problems later), which means I can show you how tiny they are.



(Close-up.)
Getting them back out of the glass of water was tricky, by the way, but at least they had the courtesy to float.⁶

Anthurium fruits each contain only one or two seeds, embedded in the orange gunk, and the orange gunk sticks to them terribly, so I had to wash them off in the cup of water again. They sink, which is convenient: you can stir the water hard and knock off the pulp, then pour the water and pulp into the sink, then fill the glass again and stir. Repeat until you feel like you've gotten enough pulp off, then pour the seeds out onto a paper towel.


Both Schlumbergera and Anthurium seeds need to be in close contact with the vermiculite, so they'll stay moist, but not necessarily buried by it. The Schlumbergera seeds are small enough that I just fished them out of the water with a plastic rod and touched them to the vermiculite until they stuck; with the Anthurium seeds, you can move them around with your fingers. I did press some of the Anthurium seeds into the vermiculite lightly with the plastic rod.

After that, you put the cover back on, set the container in a suitable spot (bright indirect light or filtered sun, between 75-85F/24-29C) and wait. You should see some growth within about a week on the Anthuriums;⁷ I haven't tried Schlumbergera before, so I'm not sure how long those take, but everybody on-line says they germinate fast and then don't do anything for a while.

The Anthuriums can sit in the container until they start to touch the lid, at which point I recommend removing them gently and potting them up in a decent potting soil, ideally one with some coarse, unchopped sphagnum moss mixed in (about two parts potting mix to one part sphagnum). You may wish to pot several seedlings together, as individual plants tend not to be very full-looking and this will hedge your bets in case some of the seedlings die later. I read on-line that it usually takes 3-4 years for a seed-grown Anthurium to flower, and indoor-grown plants may be a bit stunted from being inside, so it could take even longer, making this a long-term project. On the other hand, when they do bloom, you should have a variety of interesting colors, sizes, and shapes to look at, particularly if you take the sort of anything-goes approach I do with my own crosses.

Schlumbergera seedlings in good conditions should be large enough to take cuttings from in about a year; they'll also take 3-5 years to reach flowering size, though cuttings may flower sooner.

None of this is especially practical stuff -- for the time and effort invested, you'd be better off going to the store and buying a couple dozen plants yourself (especially with Schlumbergera, which tend to be cheaper than Anthurium). I'm bothering to try because both plants do well for me, and I like starting stuff from seed, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of seeing something new and different. Even if I'm probably setting myself up for a disappointment, it's a disappointment that won't hit until at least 2014, by which time we'll be so deep in the zombie apocalypse that I won't even care. Until then, I get the hope of seeing something really cool in the future. Seems like a fair payoff either way.

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¹ My understanding is that fruit development depends on the temperature. Fruits in warmer spots ripen faster than those in cooler spots. I should possibly also note that just in case the seeds from this attempt all succumb to mold or something, I've only started the seeds from one fruit, and have three more left if I need them.
² Technically an "inflorescence," not a "flower:" Anthurium flowers are made of an insect-attracting part (the colored bit, called the spathe, which is actually a modified leaf) and the many tiny flowers, which are packed tightly together in a column (the spadix). I've never tried to count the number of flowers on an Anthurium's spadix, nor do I recommend that anybody else try ('cause really, don't you have better things to do with your time?) but my estimate is that a couple hundred is probably pretty common.
³ It's probably also important to mention that a number of websites I looked at while writing this emphasized that fluid production usually takes place in the early morning. I don't function particularly well in the early morning, but I've gotten Anthurium seedlings anyway, so I don't think this is probably that critical of a detail, but I read it, so I'm passing it on.
⁴ At the moment, I have thirteen varieties, seven of which ('Gemini,' NOID pink, 'Orange Hot,' 'Pacora,' 'Pandola,' 'Florida,' NOID purple) have flowers. I also have a flower on A. crystallinum 'Mehani,' but I don't expect to be able to hybridize 'Mehani' with any of the others: I think it's not closely related enough to the cultivars I have (which are mostly hybrids of A. andraeanum, A. amnicola, A. lindenianum, A. antioquiense, and A. scherzerianum, in varying combinations) to be able to cross. Though I'm trying anyway.
⁵ My closest point of comparison on the smell is that it smells like corn pollen: sort of an innocuous, barely-there smell that's pleasant without having any real qualities you could pin down.
⁶ Sidenote of interest: I tried tasting the fruit once I'd gotten the seeds out, and it tasted like something once-interesting that had been watered down to the point of unrecognizability. I didn't actually chew any, just touched my tongue to it, so there could be a more pronounced taste if you chew them. Maybe I'll try chewing when I do the next three fruits.
⁷ In point of fact, some of the Anthurium seeds may have the beginnings of shoots when you take them out of the fruit. This is normal, and just means those are more eager than the others.

*whimper*

Source: National Weather Service.

Unfinished business: Abutilon

The good news is that the Abutilon seedling I wrote about last week, the one with the flower buds, has opened one of the buds, so the question that's been on everyone's lips for the last year -- What color will the seedlings turn out to be? -- can be answered. I was expecting pink, since the only candidates for ancestry were white, pink, or red-flowerers, but instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see light peach:

It's prettier in person; the color is tough to photograph.
In retrospect, this is maybe not as surprising as it first seems; the "white" flowers are really more of a pale yellow, and the yellow is strongest when the flowers first open. So these will probably be peach that fade to a light pink. But I'm not complaining. I think this is still pretty neat.

The bad news is that we're beginning a heat wave that's going to last for the next few days at least, and maybe until the end of the month, and although the house is insulated as well as we can possibly make it, and the air conditioner runs non-stop all day long, the house heats up anyway. This makes me exhausted and edgy, so I'm thinking blog posts are probably going to be scaled back this week. As if that's not bad enough, I've been trying to figure out how to get rid of a virus on my system (one of the Google redirect viruses; it's been with me for a while now and hasn't caused any noticeable problems -- I can still use Scroogle fine for searches -- but I don't know what it's doing that I can't see.), and haven't gotten anywhere so far, so I'm going to work on that if I think I can handle it emotionally.

So. You're not going to want to hear me whine about everything, I'm not going to have the energy to do it, and so it's probably best for both of us if I keep to myself a bit more for a while. There'll still be at least one post this week (there was one previously-scheduled for Friday), and probably at least a couple, but it looks like a slow week for PATSP.

I'll still check e-mail and approve comments and stuff, though I might be slower than usual in dealing with them.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

The intent here was to get a picture of her running, but obviously that didn't exactly happen. I like Abstract Sheba, though, so that's what's up this week. Like it or don't.

This week's been kind of rough on me; I couldn't get to sleep on Monday night, so I didn't go to sleep at all, just stayed up all day Tuesday. This was great, in that I got a lot of urgently-needed picture sorting done, but bad, in that I spent all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and the latter half of Friday with a headache. Not really worth it. And then I spent several hours taking more pictures, during those three days, until my camera overheated (it's since recovered, but it really did overheat -- sitting in the morning sun on a hot day on black fabric will do that to a dark-colored camera: now you know), so I now have more photos to sort through than I had when I started the week. Also? I didn't even take all the pictures I was hoping to get, and now a heat wave is going to settle in for a week and a half and keep me from finishing the job.

Also, for those of you who have been following the story of the guy who fell off, and then got hit by, a telephone pole near us -- the husband went to the man's place of business (a cable company) on Thursday and asked them if they knew how he was doing. They only knew that he was still alive, and still in intensive care, where he's apparently been since this all happened. (We've also heard, from another source I don't recall, that he's in a coma, which is consistent with intensive care but also less reliably sourced.) The husband and I are still pulling for the guy, but I'm starting to get worried again.

By request: Crassula ovata

The more I think about the Crassula ovata problem I mentioned on Wednesday, the more I'm thinking that even if it's possible to save the plant, I don't necessarily want to. It's not as though I don't have plenty of its offspring, and it's never been exceptionally beautiful or anything. I mean, I still want to know what's going on, so I can do something if it begins to happen again, but saving this particular plant is maybe not a high priority. Just so we're all clear.

(Though I suppose it may be necessary to save this plant, or at least try to, in order to know how to save plants with this problem.)

Anyway. Pat had asked for a photo of the whole plant, so here's a photo of the whole plant:


This may or may not tell you what you need to know. For one thing, I cut off several branches when I took the close-up pictures, because I figured it was better to cut off the worst-afflicted branches than to keep them on, so the effective size of the stems and leaves is bigger than this. But then there's the issue of the root ball being much smaller than it should be for the plant's (previous) size, because whatever happened to it did away with a lot of the roots.

I also wanted to try to clarify something about the watering: ordinarily I determine whether to water a plant by feeling its soil with a finger, and if it's an ambiguous situation then I lift the pot to try to determine how wet it is by weight. If it's still questionable, then I usually go ahead and water, because the cycle is such that I won't come around to give the plant another shot at water for two weeks. With the plant in question, most of this determination was thwarted: the original pot was plastic, and large enough that I knew the soil surface could be dry while the interior of the root ball could be wet, so I tended to try to err on the dry side. I also had a lot of aquatic soil mixed into the potting mix, to promote drainage, which means that the plant tended to be heavier than it would be with a more standard mix, so when I tried to gauge moisture by weight, I probably tended to think it was wetter than was actually the case. (Also soil mixes with a lot of aquatic soil tend to be more difficult to stick a finger into, so I might not have been able to judge the surface moisture very well either.) And if it was ever questionable, I tended not to water, on the grounds that waiting an extra couple weeks wouldn't hurt it that much. So I think I thought it was staying wet for a long time, but it may not have been.

Pretty picture: Vanda Pakchong Blue

One of my favorite photos from last year was of this same variety of Vanda. Indeed, since both photos were taken at the Quad Cities Orchid Show on consecutive years, there's a good chance it was even the same individual plant.


I don't know that either of these photos are better than the one from 2010 -- part of the pleasure of the 2010 photo was the surprise at how well it had turned out -- but they're pleasant enough. It's hard to go too wrong when you're working with a subject like this.

Question for the Hive Mind: Crassula ovata

I am beginning to think that maybe the entire Crassula genus is just not for me. First there was all that business with C. rupestris and C. muscosa, and my C. arborescens is acting weird lately (dropping leaves, not growing), and now the parent C. ovata from which all my other C. ovatas come is being strange.

There are two things going on, one I think I understand and one I don't. The one I think I understand is this:


To me, this looks like a fairly open-and-shut case of fungus or mildew (also a fungus) or whatever. I don't really understand how it happened -- the plant in question is in a spot with better air circulation than the cuttings I've taken of it, and similar temperatures and humidity, but the cuttings are fine. I'm not happy about it, at all, but I feel like I understand it.

The one I don't understand is this silvery/cracked thing, which is happening on the same plant:


We used to get questions about this at the garden center every once in a while, and I never knew what to say. The plants we were selling did it occasionally, but it never affected the whole plant at once, it happened at about the same rate year-round, and it went away on its own, so I never developed much of a theory about what was going on.

Since my plant is doing it now, it's occurred to me that maybe I could ask y'all for theories about what's going on. If it helps, the plant was bone-dry when both of these things happened. (I pulled it out to check the roots. Not only was the soil completely dry, but there weren't nearly as many roots in it when I pulled it out as I know there had been when I first put it in that pot.) It had been in a west window, where it got some direct sun in the afternoon. It was watered about every four to six weeks, and was in a plastic pot. (Which is why it was only watered every four to six weeks -- it seemed to stay wet forever.)

I'm sure someone out there must have an answer about what this is. And if you could work in a cure that would also take care of fungus at the same time, that would be awesome. For the moment, I've put it outside (under a chair -- we don't have suitable shady spots), on the theory that the extra light will either vaporize the fungus or kill the plant outright, which solves at least some of my problems either way.

List: Houseplants Which Have Pink Flowers

"Pink" is a tougher color to define than most, because it shades into a lot of other colors. Differentiating between "pink" and "lavender," "coral," or "red" can be tough sometimes. And then there are the problems with whether "fuchsia" is pink or purple or its own color entirely, and so on. You get the picture. Didn't have these sorts of problems with the yellow-flowers list or the orange-flowers list.¹

As with previous lists like this, I'm looking at the plants from an interior-decorating perspective, not botany. So yes, I know that bracts aren't flowers, but I'm assuming that most people who find this page by Google search or whatever are looking for stuff that works visually, not scientifically.

Adenium obesum cvv. (only some varieties; most fall somewhere on the white-pink-red continuum, though)

Aechmea fasciata (the pink parts are the bracts; the actual flowers are blue-violet)

Cyclamen persicum cvv. (only some cvv.; white, red, lavender, striped, and two-tone flowers are also available)

Dracaena fragrans (seems to vary with culture; I've seen some photos that looked pink and others that looked white or cream-colored)

Euphorbia milii cvv. (The true flowers are yellow-green; the colored parts are bracts. Bracts may be white, yellow, red, or two-toned, though red and pink seem to be the most common)

Episcia cvv. (only some; red seems to be most common, but orange, coral, and yellow are also available)

Gymnocalycium baldianum and other spp. (most are white or very pale pink, though baldianum seems to be the exception)

Mandevilla cvv. (some; most are somewhere along the white-pink-red spectrum, with red being most common as far as I've seen)

Rhododendron cvv. (only some cvv.; most are in the neighborhood of white-pink-red, but lavender also happens. Plants sold for outdoor planting cover a much broader color range than those sold as tabletop plants, in my experience.)

Tradescantia sillamontana. (Always pink as far as I know.)

For recommends and anti-recommends, I've had positive experiences with five of the above (Aechmea, Cyclamen, Dracaena, Euphorbia, Episcia), bad personal experiences with two (Adenium, Tradescantia), bad professional experiences with two (Mandevilla, Rhododendron), and not much experience at all with one (Gymnocalycium).

Assuming that getting flowers out of the plant is important, my top recommendation would be Euphorbia milii: it does require a lot of light and regular fertilizer, but it's otherwise easy to bring into bloom, and a durable, forgiving plant.

Second recommendation would be Episcias. Since they don't all have pink flowers, it's important to be sure you know what you're getting, but once you have one, it should be fairly easy to keep going. (One does have to restart them regularly, but they produce plantlets on runners all the time, so restarting is mainly a matter of cutting off a plantlet and sticking it in a pot.)

Both the Aechmea and Dracaena are wonderful plants, but they don't bloom often, so I'll have to go with Tradescantia sillamontana as the third recommend, even though I've had bad luck with it personally. Again, it needs bright light to flower, and the individual flowers don't last long, but they're normally rugged plants (my experience notwithstanding), and in bright enough light the foliage will also turn pinkish.

For the anti-recommend, I'll go with Rhododendron. No doubt there's someone somewhere who keeps them going indoors for long periods, but the plants that are usually available for sale have been pushed hard to bloom, and consequently provide a very intense but brief show. At work, we mostly had trouble keeping them cool and wet enough. They'll defoliate dramatically if they get too dry, which is really easy to do in a container, and new growth is slow to come back on. They're pretty, but don't get attached.

Not pictured:
(If you know of other plants that would belong in this list, or believe that one of the ones I've included is here by mistake, leave me a comment.)

• Abutilon cvv. (some)
• Acalypha reptans (more of a pinkish-red than a true pink)
• Aeschynanthus 'Thai Pink'
• Aloinopsis sp. (some spp.? Very light pink or white)
• Anacampseros rufescens (pinkish-purple)
• Anthurium cvv. (some)
• Ardisia elliptica (flowers infrequent indoors, and very pale pink)
• Argyroderma spp. (some spp.; pinkish-purple)
• Begonia cvv. (many, esp. cane-types and rhizomatous types, though not all bloom pink, and some are reluctant to bloom at all)
• Bougainvillea cvv. (some; pinkish-purple)
• Brugmansia cvv. (some)
• Bryophyllum tubiflorum (coral-pk? I haven't seen the flowers in person, and Google image search was only somewhat helpful)
• Calliandra emarginata (not sure it really counts as a houseplant, though)
• orchids in the Cattleya alliance (some; they also have a tendency toward pinkish-purple, rather than true pink)
• Ceropegia woodii (both pink and purple)
• Chirita cvv./spp. including C. linearis (most Chiritas tend to be blue or purple, though)
• Cleistocactus spp. (some? pinkish-orange)
• Clerodendrum x speciosum. (the actual flowers are red, but the bracts are pinkish-red)
• Codiaeum variegatum (rarely: usually flowers are white, but sometimes they're light pink. The flowers aren't particularly ornamental either way.)
• Cordyline fruticosa (also not hugely ornamental, but the flowers are pink)
• Crassula alpestris (very light pink)
• Crassula 'Buddha's Temple'
• Crassula coccinea
• Crassula ovata (barely; mostly white, with only a hint of pink)
• Crassula rupestris (sometimes?)
• Crassula sarcocaulis
• Cymbidium cvv. (some cvv.)
• Dendrobium cvv. (some; usually more lavender or pink-purple than straight pink)
• Echeveria cvv. (some; flowers are often pink or pink-orange with a yellow "mouth")
• Echinocereus cvv. (some; those that are pinkish tend to lean to the purple/lavender side)
• Echinopsis cvv. (some; usually either white or very light pink)
• Epiphyllum cvv. (few; most of what's available appear to be white, but there are red and red-pink varieties out there)
• Euphorbia pulcherrima (some; bracts; true flowers are yellowish-green)
• Ferocactus spp. (few; pinkish-purple or pinkish-red)
• Fuchsia cvv. (most; reddish-pink)
• Gasteria cvv. (few; pinkish-orange)
• Gerbera cvv. (some, though I wouldn't necessarily call it suitable as a houseplant)
• Guzmania cvv. (a few varieties have hot pink or pinkish-purple bracts)
• Hatiora cvv. (the ones called "Easter Cactus," and not all of them. These were formerly called Rhipsalis or Rhipsalidopsis.)
• Heliconia cvv. (bracts on a few varieties are pink; usually bracts are red and/or yellow)
• Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (only some varieties)
• Hippeastrum cvv. (some varieties)
• Hoya archboldiana (pink and white)
• Hoya bella (most of the flower is white, but some is pink)
• Hoya carnosa (usually pink and red but variable)
• Hoya compacta
• Hoya darwinii (light pink)
• Hoya davidcummingii (pink and yellow)
• Hoya globulifera
• Hoya megalaster (dark pink)
• Hoya obovata (dark pink and light pink)
• Hoya pubicalyx (variable; flowers are some combination of pinkish-red, dark pink, pale pink, and white)
• Hoya purpureo-fusca (pink and yellow)
• Hoya rubida (dark pink)
• Hydrangea cvv. (sometimes; I wouldn't call it a houseplant, but some people do.)
• Hypoestes phyllostachya (pinkish-purple)
• Impatiens cvv. (some varieties)
• Jasminum spp.? (occasionally, some of the Jasminums we had at work would produce blooms with a slight pinkish tinge to them, but I don't know if that was cultural or a particular variety or what)
• Justicia carnea (maybe not a great houseplant, but flowers are vivid pinkish-red)
• Justicia scheidweileri (the bracts are hot pink; true flowers are purple)
• Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (some varieties)
• Kalanchoe eriophylla (variable; some white or lavender)
• Kohleria cvv. (some varieties, though usually Kohleria flowers are red, orange, or purple)
• Lampranthus blandus (after trying it myself, I'm not convinced that this should count as a houseplant, but the flowers -- which I've never seen in person -- are pinkish-purple)
• Mammillaria spp./cvv. (some varieties are pinkish-purple or dark pink; others flower white)
• Medinilla cvv. (most are pink; lavender and orange also exist)
• Melocactus spp. (most; hot pink)
• Mimosa pudica (arguably more lavender than pink, but sometimes they photograph as pink)
• Miltoniopsis cvv. (most have some pink somewhere, usually dark pink)
• Musa cvv. (few; bracts)
• Nematanthus cvv. (few; pinkish-orange or pinkish-red)
• Neoregelia cvv. (actual flowers are violet-blue, but in some varieties, the leaves at the center of the plant flush hot pink when flowering begins)
• Nerium oleander (some; maybe not really a houseplant, though)
• orchids in the Oncidium alliance (some, though it's not the most common color)
• Opuntia spp. (few; most are yellow)
• Oxalis triangularis (variable between pink, white, and lavender)
• Pachypodium spp. (few; most flower yellow or white)
• Paphiopedilum cvv. (few I'd call true pink; most are white/purple/yellow/brown, but some have smudgy pink areas between white/violet)
• Parodia cvv.? (most are yellow, orange or red)
• Passiflora cv. 'Banana' (maybe other cvv.?)
• Pelargonium cvv. (some)
• Pereskia grandifolia (flowers pinkish-violet, though other Pereskias don't; may or may not be suitable as houseplant)
• Phalaenopsis cvv. (some; more pink-purple than true pink)
• Phragmipedium cvv. (a few)
• Pilea mollis 'Moon Valley'
• Pilosocereus leucocephalus, P. palmeri (pale pink)
• Pinguicula spp. (a few; most are purple, lavender, or blue-violet)
• Pleiospilos nelii (most Pleiospilos flowers are yellow/orange)
• Plumeria cvv. (a few; arguably not a houseplant)
• Portulacaria afra (I was surprised too.)
• Ruellia makoyana (pinkish-purple; have never seen it grown indoors but I'm told people sometimes do)
• Saintpaulia cvv. (some)
• Saxifraga stolonifera (barely: mostly the flowers are white and yellow)
• Schlumbergera cvv. (few, more pinkish-purple or pink-orange than straight pink)
• Sedum burrito (uncertain; there weren't many photos, but the flowers sure looked like a dark pink-purple)
• Sempervivum cvv. (most/all?)
• Sinningia cvv. (few)
• Spathoglottis cvv. (some)
• Stenocereus thurberi
• Streptocarpus cvv. (few; most seem to be white, lavender, purple, or blue)
• Stromanthe sanguinea (dk pk to red; not especially attractive but they still count)
• Tillandsia cvv. (air plants) (I've seen at least one with pink bracts and lavender flowers)
• Tillandsia cyanea (hot pink bracts, blue-violet true flowers)
• Tolmiea menziesii (not ornamental; small and sort of a weird pink-brown color)
• Tradescantia pallida
• Tradescantia zebrina (usually)
• Vanda cvv. (some, pink or pink-purple)
• Zantedeschia cvv. (some; spathes)
• Zingiber malaysianum (bracts vary in color from yel to pk, though blooming is unlikely indoors)

-

¹ The color I will really hate doing is white: I won't have any trouble finding pictures, but the list of houseplants with white flowers is going to be huge.

Unfinished business: Abutilon seedlings

The Abutilon seedlings I started almost a year ago are finally big enough to be thinking about blooming. Odds are the flowers are going to be pink, since the only possibilities for parentage flower red, pink, or white, but it's kind of exciting anyway. It's at least been a long time coming.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

Nothing particularly interesting here. Sheba's a little freaked-out by fireworks, but we already knew that from last year. Nina got a new cricket delivery (though I have no idea how she's going to find/catch them -- I still haven't cut back the Pellionia). Same as it ever was.

Possibly of interest to the readership: I ran into an article at skeptifem this week that I thought was interesting, in light of how Cesar Millan has come up a few times at PATSP. The author's not one to mince words, as you can tell from the post's title: Cesar Millan is an asshole. I'm not necessarily endorsing this view -- I don't know Cesar Millan, I don't know anything in particular about dog training -- but she did manage to put a finger on something that's bothered me about his show but that I couldn't quite articulate, which is his tendency to come up with reasons why his techniques don't work for the dogs' owners only after they fail, rather than giving them more specific instructions first. It's very heads-I-win-tails-you-lose.

That's not the only criticism she makes, just the one that resonated with me. Go check it out (if you're so inclined) and let me know what you think.

Random plant event: Cyclamen persicum

It looks like the whole Cyclamen experiment is going to be at least technically successful -- as you can see, all indications are that I'm going to have a rebloom at some point in the next few weeks. I suspect that the story would be different if I hadn't brought the plant downstairs and put it under the shop lights.

In other news, I found a short article in the Iowa City paper about the guy who fell from, and got smushed by, the telephone pole across the street; according to that, he was still alive as of last Sunday, but there were no details about his condition, or even a name. The pole is still lying in the yard across the street from us, and the blood stain is still visible (so I guess they didn't do as good a job washing the street as I'd thought).

One of the weirder aspects of the incident is that since Saturday, we've had a lot of people doing slow drives by our house. Wednesday afternoon, somebody stopped in front of our house, got out of his car, took several pictures of the stain, and then drove off. (I was watching from behind the Synadenium thicket in the living room window.)

I'm not sure how to process this. On the one hand, very little happens here, so it's a big deal when something does, and I can understand that. On the other, it's kind of ghoulish. And on the third hand, some of the people surely have good, occupational-type reasons for coming by. I mean, I'm assuming that someone's going to get sued over this sooner or later, plus the pole needs to be replaced, all that good stuff. So it's hard to be mad at people for driving by, but at the same time, I have this weird feeling that the scene should be private, that people are intruding, by slowing down to look at a spot on a public street. Not sure how to account for the feeling, but it's there anyway.

I did get a picture of the base of the post, not that anybody was clamoring to see.


I can't really tell anything about what happened from looking at this, though I suppose we can rule out beavers, axes, and chainsaws. The husband thinks rot, which is probably correct. (The only other option I can think of is termites or other insect attack, and I don't see any tunnels in there.) Which means that the responsible party would be whoever owns the pole, and I'm not sure who that would be. (City? Utility company? Landowner?)

Anyway. Figured I should add this, since it's more information than I had in Saturday's post, if not by much.

Pretty picture: Zygopetalum Jumping Jack

Ack. Running late again. Here's a couple orchid pictures.