LOLFicus

I transplanted the Ficus religiosa seedlings a couple weeks ago, because they seemed potentially kind of crowded, and also because the flood was approaching and I didn't want to leave them all at work to die: I figured I could take a couple home to keep and hedge our collective bets. But then I wound up taking them all home anyway, when I was told the water was going to be four feet high in the greenhouses.

It was all too soon. Immature roots being disturbed, plus a change in environment, and now we're down from ten seedlings to four. And, frankly, I don't like the looks of the four, either.

Growing plants from seed, it would seem, is stupid. Mostly they don't sprout, and when they do sprout they don't grow. Presumably if they both sprout and grow, they end up looking like crap and you're still better off to buy them fully-grown from a grower.

I'm not saying I've given up on the seeds I have, and the Echinopsis seedlings, the four that came up, are still technically among the living. But the Great Annual Seed Project, or GASP, isn't going to be annual. I'm not doing this again. Not with my own money, anyway.

Random plant event: Ficus religiosa seedlings

Of the gazillions of seeds I got from seedman.com, back in April, very little seems to be working out so far. I got four Echinopsis peruviana seedlings still, which aren't really making any huge strides in any particular directions but which have, at least, grown enough to have their first thorns:

Photo: 30 May 2008
And then I got ten of the Ficus religiosa seeds to sprout, by bringing them to work, this being the biggest one:

Photo: 31 May 2008
Since I don't need ten Ficus religiosa seedlings, I was planning on bringing two home (one good one, and a spare in case something happened to the good one) and then leaving whatever else sprouted to be sold at work, kind of as payment for letting me use the space there.

The sucky part is that that's all there's been from the GASP (Great Annual Seed Project) so far. And I know the seeds, a lot of them, were supposed to be uneven germinators and everything, but I really thought I would have seen more than this by now. I'm not giving up on it, just disappointed. But I'll try to be patient, I guess.

Random plant event: Ficus religiosa seedlings

A little more news from the Great Annual Seed Project today. I kept most of the seeds at home, but brought the Ficus religiosa to work, because they're supposed to be unusually difficult to sprout. I figured the extra light and heat couldn't hurt anything. I don't yet know whether that was the right call, but as of Thursday, there were two seedlings there, so something's going right:




Meanwhile, nothing at home seems to be working except for the Echinopsis peruviana / Trichocereus peruvianus. I suspect I need more heat and light, but most of the seeds in question are supposed to be reluctant sprouters anyway. So I'm being patient for now. The only thing I could really do at this point would be to put a heat mat in the mini-greenhouse where I've got the seeds, and I'm a little worried that a heat mat would wind up cooking everything: there's no real air circulation to speak of, and a lot of potentially melty plastic. So for now we hold.

Question for the Hive Mind: NOID succulents

Looking for identification on two plants today, plus there's an early result in the GASP project:

Succulent NOID #1:


NOID #1 has been around for at least a couple years; presumably it's looked better than this before. I'm assuming it's a succulent, even though it doesn't look much like one, because WCW says it's been grouped with the succulents since it arrived. She's never known what it is, and neither of us have seen anything like it before.

There's been talk of cutting it back and letting it, you know, get more normal-looking, but WCW and I don't want to do that until we know what it is. I did have a piece break off spontaneously, which I managed to root for a little while, though I think the cutting in question has been lost to rot already. Not sure. In any case, this has been bothering me for quite a while, so I'd be grateful if somebody had any ideas.

UPDATE: A reader has proposed Plectranthus ecklonii by e-mail, which seems to be in the right general neighborhood as far as leaf, leaf margin, and leaf arrangement, though the stem color and shape don't work, and it'd take a very unusual Plectranthus to grow so slowly and never flower in greenhouse conditions. P. ecklonii is also supposed to be a caudex-former, which we never saw in the two years or so that the plant was around, but there were a number of other cauduciform plants around, that had also been in the store since before I started working there, and our supplier did often do stuff like send boxes of "assorted" unidentified plants. It's plausible to me that this could have been in a box of "assorted cauduciforms," and that would explain why nobody knew what it was. (Explaining why a cauduciform plant didn't have a caudex is more complicated, though.) So I'm inclined to say that it's probably not P. ecklonii, but that P. ecklonii could be in the right neighborhood as far as genus or family.

(Close-up of leaves for NOID #1)

Succulent NOID #2:


NOID #2 actually does look a little familiar, but I can't place it. It's been in the same 6-inch hanging basket since I started working in August, and it was rootbound enough that you couldn't really water it: the water would run around the rootball right away without ever penetrating the soil. The plant didn't seem to mind this terribly, but I've felt bad about it, so yesterday I moved it up to the 8-inch pot in the picture. It has white, annoyingly sticky sap. The leaves turn slightly pinkish in full sun, and are tough but not very thick.

UPDATE: Was identified as Dischidia ruscifolia in the comments.

(Close-up of leaves for NOID #2)
Finally, the very first thing to happen with the GASP project is underway: I noticed this tiny, tiny sprout of Echinopsis peruviana (=Trichocereus peruvianus) yesterday. It doesn't look like much of anything in the picture, which is totally accurate: it doesn't look like much of anything in person, either. But it's still a sprout, so we're guardedly happy.

The Great Annual (?) Seed Project, or GASP

I don't know if this is going to be a regular feature or not, but let's pretend, because without the "annual" part in there, it's a sucky acronym.

I bought some seeds about a week ago from seedman.com, which I intend to sprout at some point though I'm still undecided about whether I want to do this at work or at home. But I've started soaking the stuff that's supposed to be soaked, so I guess I'll have to make a decision relatively soon. Also in the future: a decision about whether or not I endorse seedman.com. This is my second attempt with them, but the first one (which failed: Cissus rhombifolia and Pandanus utilis) was probably my fault.

The below pictures are kind of for crap, because I just took them this morning and didn't have time to do an especially good job, hence the weird lighting and the blurriness and so forth. But I tried. It was either that or wait to post until lunch.

So but here's our cast of characters:

Aloe assortment

Carludovica palmata, which when I bought the seeds I thought was equivalent to Asplundia 'Jungle Drum.' But odds are it isn't.

Cereus peruvianus, which seedman.com calls "Trichocereus peruvianus" but is probably the same thing. Trichocereus peruvianus, which davesgarden.com and Wikipedia list as Echinopsis peruviana. Hat tip to anonymous in comments. Though I am also a bit disappointed, 'cause I was hoping for Cereus peruvianus.

Cordyline fruticosa

Ficus religiosa

Haworthia pumila

Schefflera: I'm hoping that the species is actinophylla, not arboricola, because when it comes right down to it I don't really like arboricola very much. But either would be okay, I guess.

Updates as they become relevant. Actual planting probably begins tomorrow (11 Apr 2008).