Question for the Hive Mind: Aloe variegata

It got cold here (officially 35F / 2C in Iowa City) last Saturday (22 Sep), so I'm currently in the throes of trying to reintegrate the plants that got to summer outside into the plants that didn't. This is, of course, wreaking merry havoc on the collection, spreadsheets, husband, and myself: it's like solving a Sudoku while having to live inside it.

Slightly before this happened, though, one of the three Aloe variegatas I had outside went all weird on me, and I'm unsure about the reason why, so I thought I'd pitch it to y'all. That, and I didn't have anything else to write about today. (Enormous photo backlog. I'm working on it.)

The weirdness.

Alternate angle.
This only happened to one of the three plants, and only the Aloe variegatas. It happened before the freeze, though we'd been getting cold nights for a while prior to this. (The Aloes would have been left outside in the garage if it was going to be above 55F/13C at night, and brought inside otherwise. I believe I was pretty consistent about this.) Since coming inside, some of the bleached and shriveled areas have dehydrated, but it doesn't appear to have spread any. There are no signs of any pests that I'm familiar with.

My guess is cold damage, but since I've never actually seen this before, I'd appreciate it if someone could either confirm this or offer an alternate theory.

Pretty picture: Dendrobium Spider Lily

I wish that I could have taken this picture without all the background clutter, but alas. I didn't shrink this photo down as much as usual, so there's a fair amount of detail there to be seen, if you open it in a separate window. Alternately, you can just check out the photos of this plant from previous shows: (2010) (2011).



Scalepocalypse 2012 update:

Callisia fragrans (25 Sep 2012, basement) -- discarded.

Music Video: Titus Jones "Dance Alarm" (Nicki Minaj / Eminem / Britney Spears / Dev / Taio Cruz / Lady Gaga / Owl City / Carly Rae Jepsen / Cascada / Avicii / Etta James)

So Titus Jones has a new "album"¹ out, as of last Friday. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to listen to it yet, so I'm not sure which tracks, if any, will turn out to be my favorites, but this looks like it'll be one of them.² Conveniently enough, this is also the only one for which a video has been made.

The video is a little . . . much, just to warn you.³



That was a pretty representative bit of the album as a whole, so if you liked that, you'll probably want to download the whole thing from Titus Jones' site. (It's free.)

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¹ Does the word "album" still mean anything? Discuss.
² "Close to Blowin' in the Deep" is also an early favorite, as is "I Wanna Believe in Fire Love." It's possible that I may just like Adele.
³ Hell, Nicki Minaj's outfits alone probably qualify the video for "a little much" status, never mind all the strobe-light editing and effects and shit.
I suppose that puts the video as a whole somewhere in the "way the hell too much" category.
Perhaps I'm just getting old: I was warned that this sort of thing would happen.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum Lynleigh Koopowitz

Lynleigh Koopowitz is Paphiopedilum delenatii x P. malipoense, according to its tag at the show. I was so pleased that someone had included the ancestry information that for a long time I was afraid to look it up, for fear that they'd gotten it wrong. Eventually, though, I steeled myself, went to Google, and -- it's accurate. So I love you, whoever it is who tagged this orchid. Bring more orchids to the show next year. Bring all the orchids to the show next year, even.


As for the flower itself, I suppose it's okay. Doesn't do much for me, but that might be the photo more than the flower. Some flowers are not improved by back-lighting.