List: Succulents Which Don't Need Full, All-Day Sun (But Might Nevertheless Prefer It)

The initial inspiration for this list comes from a post at Garden Web by someone whose apartment only gets partial sun, who still wants to be able to grow some succulents inside. The post has received one response (as I write this), and I mostly agree with what that responder said, but that's no reason not to write a post about it.

This is also a question I've had to face fairly directly myself, since the main flaw of the house is its disappointing lack of south-facing windows. (The few it does have are partly obstructed by the neighbors' house and our garage, alas.)

Most of the stuff in this list that I've personally grown still gets at least a couple hours of afternoon sun or all-day bright artificial light, so don't take this as the final word on what you can grow in these conditions -- it'll depend on how big of a window you have, how obstructed it is, and so on. But if you have a spot with some sun, just not all-day sun, you should still be able to grow:

Agave victoriae-reginae. I wouldn't believe this if I hadn't done it myself, but my largest, oldest victoriae-reginae has been in a west window for the last two years and is apparently just fine with that. (The leaves are perhaps a little further apart than they would be in a brighter spot, and I'm not sure if they're maybe not also a bit longer. But still. Doable.) It's not even very close to the west window. I don't recommend any other Agave species for anything other than full sun or extremely bright fluorescent light, though.

Beaucarnea recurvata. My Beaucarnea and I have only recently started getting along, more or less since I switched fertilizers. I've never really had the option to give it full sun, but it hasn't seemed to mind that too much, so long as it got some direct sun. It's presently close to a west window.

Cereus peruvianus. I've tried a lot of cacti here -- at one point, cactus-collecting was verging on becoming a full-blown thing for me -- and most of them just don't seem to be able to cope without a lot more light than I can provide. Cereus peruvianus is one of the few that can handle a west window without getting all etiolated and weird. They don't bloom, they don't grow fast, but the base of the plant remains roughly the same size as the new growth.

Dischidia ruscifolia. Dischidia ruscifolia seems perfectly content to live in a semi-obstructed east window in the husband's office, and has been doing so for long enough that I think it's safe to say that it could keep doing so for years.

Euphorbia NOID. I've been calling this plant "Euphorbia kokopelli" in my brain, because the shape sort of resembles the deity as he is commonly portrayed --


-- but you may or may not see the resemblance. The plant's height has forced me to try to grow it in less than ideal locations, and it's performed admirably in them. Currently, it gets only artificial light, and not even very much of that, yet it still grows, and it looks the same as it ever did.

I got E. "kokopelli" from someone through Garden Web, and have never had an ID for it, or even much of a guess as to an ID, so if you thought to yourself when you saw the above picture, oh, that's obviously a Euphorbia ___________, you should leave me a comment telling me what you thought.

The above picture that's a plant, not the above picture that's a humpbacked flute-playing fertility god.

Haworthia limifolia var. limifolia. Haworthias are pretty reliable plants for reduced-sun spots; I had one in a north window, where it never got any direct sun, for a couple years, and it did fine.

Ledebouria socialis. My history with Ledebouria is complicated. My plants have done better in a south window than in the west window where they currently reside, but fertilizer is a large part of that, and to be honest, they're also not terribly close to the west window, so I still think an east or west window should provide sufficient light for a Ledebouria.

Selenicereus chrysocardium. Jungle cacti are pretty flexible about light, as a group. My observations are that Selenicereus chrysocardium will grow faster with more light, but otherwise it behaves the same -- the stems aren't smaller, the color's the same, etc. My best results to date have been with the plant in a hanging basket, suspended below a shop light, but they've grown fine in minimal fluorescent light as well, just a lot more slowly.

Senecio rowleyanus. Senecio rowleyanus initially grew in a good spot in a west window, but it was slow, and stems periodically would just up and die for no obvious reason. The reason I know this wasn't a light problem is because it's been in the same spot this spring and summer, growing like a monster, and the only thing that changed was the fertilizer. (Again, I know. But fertilizer is sometimes very important.)

Stapelia gigantea (and probably other Stapelia spp.?). My Stapelia actually burned when I first brought it home, which you can actually see a bit on the stems in the picture. I thought I was being nice, giving it a spot outside where it could get all the light it could possibly want, but instead it burned. Ungratefully. So it came inside, and has been growing nicely in a west window ever since.

Ordinarily I would pick out three of these to recommend especially at this point, but I'm fairly fond of all of the above plants, and I've already talked about them a little, so we'll skip that part this time.

Not shown:

• Albuca bracteata? (formerly Ornithogalum longibracteatum)
• Aloe 'Blue Elf' (may be A. x humilis 'Hedgehog')
• Aloe harlana
• Aloe vera
• Aloe 'Walmsley's Blue'
• Alworthia 'Black Gem' (will grow beautifully, though color will be green instead of brown/black; it takes a lot of light to turn one brown/black)
• Cissus quadrangularis
• Epiphyllum spp.
• Euphorbia milii
• Euphorbia tirucalli
• Euphorbia trigona
• Gasteraloe x beguinii
• Gasteraloe 'Midnight'
• Gasteria bicolor var. lilliputiana
• Gasterworthia 'Banded Pearls' or 'Royal Highness' or whatever it is; Gasterworthias in general, really
• Hatiora spp. including H. salicornioides
• Haworthia attenuata
• Haworthia limifolia var. ubomboensis
• Haworthia NOID maybe retusa
• Haworthia tessellata
• Hoya bella
• Hoya carnosa
• Hoya kentiana
• Hoya lacunosa
• Hoya polyneura
• Huernia zebrina
• Mammillaria spinosissima (though spines will likely be less colorful)
• Pachypodium spp.
• Pedilanthus tithymaloides (Euphorbia tithymaloides)
• Peperomia clusiifolia
• Peperomia ferreyrae
• Peperomia obtusifolia
• Peperomia pereskiifolia
• Pseudorhipsalis ramulosa
• Rhipsalis grandiflora
• Rhipsalis rhombea (ID?)
• Rhipsalis teres var. heteroclada (ID?)
• Sansevieria cylindrica
• Sansevieria hargesiana
• Sansevieria trifasciata
• Schlumbergera cvv.
• Sedum morganianum
• Selenicereus anthonyanus
• Senecio macroglossus
• Synadenium grantii (Euphorbia umbellata)
• Zamioculcas zamiifolia

Explicitly NOT recommended for windows without full sun (and in some cases, not recommended indoors for windows with full sun either):

• Aeonium spp.
• Agave spp. that aren't victoriae-reginae
• Aloe congolensis
• Aloe juvenna
• Aloe 'Minibelle'
• Aloe variegata
• Anacampseros rufescens
• Astrophytum myriostigma
• Astrophytum ornatum
• Bryophyllum daigremontianum
• Bryophyllum tubiflorum
• cacti generally (though there are a few exceptions)
• Crassula falcata
• Crassula muscosa
• Crassula perforata
• Crassula rupestris
• Echeveria spp.
• Euphorbia anoplia
• Euphorbia drupifera
• Euphorbia enopla
• Euphorbia flanaganii
• Euphorbia grandicornis
• Euphorbia horrida
• Euphorbia pseudocactus
• Hylocereus spp.
• any Kalanchoe sp.
• Lampranthus blandus
• Lithops spp.
• Myrtillocactus geometrizans
• Pachyphytum cvv.
• Sedum burrito
• Sedum rubrotinctum
• Sempervivum cvv.

I lack sufficient experience with these to say one way or the other, or have had mixed results, or it grows fine but isn't as colorful, etc.:

• Adenium obesum
• Adromischus spp.
• Alluaudia procera (gets a hesitant thumbs-up at the Garden Web thread, but I've never tried to grow it personally)
• Aloe arenicola
• Aloe brevifolia
• Aloe dorotheae 'Sunset' (definitely won't turn red; still seems to grow okay, though)
• Aloe ferox
• Aloe 'Fire Ranch'
• Aloe greatheadii var. davyana
• Aloe maculata (A. saponaria)
• Aloe striata
• Aloinopsis rubrolineata
• Argyroderma spp.
• Browningia hertlingiana
• Ceropegia woodii
• Cissus rotundifolia
• Crassula arborescens
• Crassula ovata
• Dischidia nummularia
• Euphorbia ammak
• Euphorbia bougheyi
• Euphorbia lactea
• Faucaria spp.
• Furcraea foetida cvv.
• Gasteria 'pseudonigricans'
• Hoya obovata
• Isolatocereus dumortieri
• Leuchtenbergia principis
• Pleiospilos spp.
• Portulacaria afra
• Senecio crassissimus
• Senecio jacobsenii

Random plant event: Ledebouria socialis, again

I was selfish (and/or thinking of you, the reader), and didn't mail out the Ledebouria that had flower buds, because I wanted to see if I could take any halfway decent pictures of the flowers (and/or wanted to be able to show you, the reader, some pictures), and this is what I got.

It's at least halfway decent, yes. Maybe even 60% decent.

Side-note: if I'm supposed to be mailing you plants today, I will be e-mailing you at some point before noon CDT (I hope) to tell you they've gone out. I still have plenty of most of them; if you're interested in trading or buying, send an e-mail.

Random plant event: Ledebouria socialis flower bud

This happened from time to time at work, and I've seen other people blogging about it, but none of my Ledebourias have ever bloomed, so this is exciting.


Also, for some reason, Ledebouria socialis has been way more popular than I expected on the sell/trade stuff. That's not to say that a lot of people are interested (only two so far), but two is a lot more than I was expecting, and it's also half of my stock. (Agave victoriae-reginae is also 50% sold-out already, but that makes sense to me.) Maybe the profile was wrong, and they're not passed around from person to person on the sort of scale I imagined?

This particular plant is one of the ones I was going to sell (it's been under lights in the basement, which is probably also why it's blooming); if it's still here when the flowers open, I'll do a follow-up post. I've never gotten a good close-up picture of the flowers yet.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXVII

Hey, remember last Saturday, when I was complaining about how cold and dry it'd been so far this winter? Well, on Saturday and Sunday, we were having an actual blizzard, officially, with the National Weather Service issuing Blizzard Warnings and making increasingly overwrought pronouncements about the inadvisability of trying to go anywhere: slick roads (there was rain for a few hours before the snow started), strong winds (20-30 mph / 32-48 kph sustained, with gusts to 50 mph / 80 kph), heavy snow coming down and then blowing around creating "near-whiteout conditions" and life-threatening wind chills (to -20F / -29C) and so forth.

But: not only did most of the actual snowfall happen at night when I wasn't awake to watch it, but we hardly got any snow at all, maybe two inches (5 cm) at most. (They had been predicting 3-4 in / 8-10 cm.) And, now it's that much colder, so I didn't get a warm-up or a snowfall, thanks a lot, Mr. Blizzard.

So I'm shunning winter until it decides to straighten up and be more reasonable. At least for today, it's summer on PATSP. We've got sunflowers, crotons, cannas, corn, all kinds of summery stuff.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Helianthus annuus. Not much of a photo, but the leaves aren't the photogenic part of the plant.

Platycerium sp., perhaps P. bifurcatum. Mine isn't doing so hot lately: possibly this is not a good indoor plant. Or maybe it's a great indoor plant and I'm just growing it badly.

Phytolacca americana. I was really impressed with pokeweed last summer this summer right now, in the summer, summer being the season it is presently. Weedy, sure, but also impressively ornamental -- I saw at least one eight-foot (2.7 m) specimen that was either deliberately grown or deliberately not cut-down, and it looked good. Hot-pink stems, multi-colored berries, birds like it: we could do worse, for weeds, is all I'm saying.

Ledebouria socialis. Yeah, this one's just kinda ugly.

Zea mays. There's something kind of Op Art about Zea mays photos: all those parallel lines that aren't parallel. I like it.

Synadenium grantii. Yes, you've seen this plant's leaves before, but so what? I like it.

Codiaeum variegatum NOID (most likely 'Petra'). This reminds me of photos of the Sun's surface: all yellow and orange with a few dark spots.

Ficus elastica 'Tineke,' or similar cv. I'm not sure what to say about this one either.

Ctenanthe lubbersiana. I passed up buying this plant at Lowe's this summer, repeatedly, because 1) it was very large and I didn't have room for it and 2) I wasn't sure I could keep it happy even if I found a way to make room for it. Lowe's is still the only place I've ever seen one, and I wonder occasionally whether I made the right call.

Canna 'Tropicanna.' Holy crap. It's a little over the top, I'll grant you, but this is my favorite. None of the others are even close.

Site-related: Difficulty numbers

Back in November, I sat down in front of the computer with the difficulty-numbers spreadsheet and started anew, plugging in whatever numbers seemed appropriate without consulting the old numbers first. This took a stupidly long time and failed to accomplish anything meaningful: most of the new numbers came out pretty close to the old ones. However, in a few cases, the experiences I'd had with a plant since generating the old difficulty numbers meant that the new difficulty numbers were significantly different. So I've had vague plans to change the numbers over to the new ones for two and a half months now, and I've decided to do this today. The sidebar list has already been put into the new order; I'll be going into the profiles to change the numbers there over the next day or two. This is unlikely to affect you in any way whatsoever, though in theory if you click on the right profile at the right time, you might see no number at the top, or something like that.

I won't give you the full list of changes, since, as I said, most of them were pretty similar to the old numbers anyway (and in a handful of cases, they were exactly the same), but here are the biggest movers, and reasons, where applicable:

Went from easier to harder:

Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold,' without flower.
Clivia miniata (3.2 to 4.4) -- I think the main change here has to do with the fairly extreme switch in care between summer and winter, though I also may have initially underestimated their capacity for getting bugs. (Mine don't have bugs, knock wood, but I've seen mealys on other people's Clivias often enough that I'm taking it more seriously as a risk.)


Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana.'
Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana' (1.2 to 2.6) -- still an easy plant, overall, but I've had a lot of weird little things happen that make me think I was overestimating it before. Growing tips have died and resprouted (a side effect, I think, of watering from overhead; they don't like to get water stuck inside the growing tip), sprouts from the side of a cane have suddenly blackened for no reason, that kind of thing.


Begonia rex-cultorum 'Harmony's Red Robin.'
Begonia rex-cultorum (8.0 to 9.6) -- subsequent bad work experiences, plus the realization that nobody else is that great with these either, leads to Begonia stealing the most-difficult spot away from Gardenia. Though I still like my 'Texas Coffee Star,' or whatever it is, and it seems not to hate me nearly as much as every other rex begonia I've ever met.


Ledebouria sp.
Ledebouria socialis (2.2 to 3.9) -- Had some watering problems last summer. I still haven't figured out whether I was watering too much or not enough, but whichever it was, they weren't happy about it. It probably didn't help that I'd divided my plant into three last spring.


Dracaena sanderiana.
Dracaena sanderiana (1.1 to 3.5) -- Part of this is sheer unreasoning hatred: I've never liked these. But I've also had some problems with a plant that used to belong to the husband, that I've taken over care of. Some of the growing tips are dying, the soil has springtails (or something), I've seen lots of other people's plants just up and die over nothing. They're not good long-term plants.


Aspidistra lurida 'Milky Way.'
Aspidistra lurida 'Milky Way' (1.1 to 4.8) -- I recently lost my third A. lurida, in the winter, to unclear cultural problems. I thought I had it figured out the first time, but then the second died. So then I bought a third one, and it stuck around for an admirably long time, but it's died too. AND I DO NOT KNOW WHY. So I hate this plant. No more Aspidistras, ever. Even A. elatior, which I've never even tried before. Just because it's related.

Went from harder to easier:

Cissus quadrangularis.
Cissus quadrangularis (2.4 to 1.2) -- I don't actually know what numbers changed here to make this jump happen.


Pilea cadierei.
Pilea cadierei (6.0 to 4.8) -- Though still more difficult than your average plant (mostly because it needs more warmth and humidity than most), I think I was overcautious when I came up with the original numbers. It doesn't appear to have particularly unreasonable humidity requirements, and it's been growing fine in the basement all winter, so temperature isn't that big of a deal either.


Alworthia 'Black Gem.'
Alworthia 'Black Gem' (3.3 to 1.8) -- I have yet to have a problem with these. It's likely I was being more skittish about overwatering than has proven to be the case. (Though some of my success there may be because I have a really lean soil mix; I'm not sure if I'd be as confident if I were using Miracle Gro or something.)


Senecio macroglossus.
Senecio macroglossus (5.4 to 3.9) -- I still don't especially like the plant, but I suspect the watering problems I talked about in the original profile were partly a matter of bad soil and overpotting. I probably also wasn't giving the plant enough light, then. They seem fairly resilient, if still a little more difficult than the average houseplant.


Homalomena 'Emerald Gem.'
Homalomena 'Emerald Gem' (5.6 to 3.8) -- We've reached some sort of agreement, is all I can say. It's possible, again, that overpotting was part of the problem originally; it always threw leaves after I watered, and then stayed wet for a long time. Lately, though, it's been getting much better about this. It wilts slightly when it needs water, I give it water, and then it sends up three new leaves in quick succession. It still doesn't look as good as it did when I bought it: by this point, the stems are getting kind of leggy, and all the leaves are pointing straight up, because I have it under a fluorescent light and it doesn't really get any light from the side. But the new leaves are large and increasingly abundant, and there are even some new suckers. So we've turned a corner.


Synadenium grantii.
Synadenium grantii (3.5 to 1.7) -- Aside from some understandable trauma very recently (I transplanted some cuttings to a large pot, and they dropped leaves), and occasional dropped leaves to let me know I waited too long to water, I've never seen Synadenium grantii have a problem with anything. Not sure how it got the 3.5 rating to begin with, but I think 1.7 is about right.


Hylocereus sp.
Hylocereus undatus (3.1 to 1.2) -- It's a fugly, fugly plant, even when it's more or less healthy (and mine actually is a little etiolated, which doesn't make it prettier), but it's not hard to grow. I actually kind of wish it were a little harder to grow, so I had more of an excuse for the extreme hideousness.

Community Organizer (Ledebouria socialis)

Ledebouria socialis really is kind of a sociable plant, though I don't mean this in quite the same way the scientific name does. The idea behind the scientific name is to underline the fact that this plant is a profuse offsetter; a single bulb can produce a good seven or eight daughter bulbs more or less overnight (in my experience, usually in the spring, after a very long spell of doing nothing at all), which is fairly impressive work for a bulb about the size of your thumb. Then all the little bulbs hang out together for some period, talking about whatever it is that plants talk about, until such time as someone or something separates them.

"So, wow, crazy weather, huh?" "You said it, boy. I've never seen a year like this." "Dude: you're only five months old." "Okay, but still. Crazy, crazy weather." "Sure is."¹
But there's more to it than just that. Many of the sites that I found talking about this plant mentioned in there that this is seen as more of an oddity than a proper plant, the sort of thing that might appeal to a collector or a hard-core enthusiast, but not the casual houseplant buyer so much. I don't know whether this is true or not, but it does kind of make sense; they may be unusual, but they're also small, and easily overlooked unless you're looking for something new.

I picture a secret cabal of houseplant enthusiasts setting little pots of Ledebouria around their homes and workplaces as a shibboleth to identify other houseplant enthusiasts. Anybody who comments favorably on the plant would automatically be, in this fantasy, One Of Us, and would be whisked away to a secret houseplant enthusiast facility, where they would be shown the secret handshake and given a few Ledebouria bulbs of their own before being returned to their homes. Or something like that.

Ledebouria spp. are also grown outdoors, in places with milder winters, though they apparently don't do that well in the U.S. (They're supposed to be hardy for zones 9 and 10, though some sites go further and say 8 to 10. The problem is that they need dry winters, which don't happen often in the southeast U.S., and so bulbs planted into the ground there tend to rot. In the southwest, the problem is more likely the intense sun and heat: they're tougher plants than they appear, but the leaves are fairly thin, and I expect probably cook in hot conditions. Though maybe not: Aiyana apparently made it work last August, in Arizona. Maybe they're more common in the U.S. than I think.). The plant is originally from South Africa, like so many other low-maintenance houseplants I've covered.


Ledebouria can also get surprisingly old, for such a small plant. I ran across this comment at davesgarden.com (scroll down to CherryUSA's comment):

Our family has one of these that is over 100 years old. For Kansas, USA, women to have an exotic plant like this must have been delightful. It was in my great-grandmother's household. When my grandmother came on a train to the eastern plains of Colorado, USA, to join her homsteading husband living in a sod house, yes a "soddy," she brought this plant on her lap. It grew all those years, it moved to Denver, CO, where it resided until 2001 when my mother died. It now is in Erie, CO, and part of it is being separated into 14 small plants to give to relatives this Christmas. I don't remember it ever blooming, but it could have. We have protected this plant a long time. Ours is obviously a rather pure version, and the leaves are thinner and longer. All else is the same. It has suffered 3 months without water (mom's health was deteriorating and I didn't realize it wasn't getting watered); too much sun in a south window, too much cold too close to the window and other assorted disasters, like being dropped and the entire pot exploding. Frankly this plant must be bullit proof for us to keep it alive this long! I may post a picture later, the part I have is not the best, the big one is with my son, daughter-in-law and my granddaughter who is the sixth generation to take care of it. MERRY CHRISTMAS
[all errors sic]

I find the image of the woman riding a train with a Ledebouria in her lap charming.² I rode a train with a box turtle in a gym bag once, but that's not so much charming as eccentric, possibly veering dangerously close to weird.³,⁴

If you leave a clump to its own devices, repotting when necessary but not dividing at all, it'll persist, though the end result looks weird. It's hard to describe; I've only seen it once, at a consignment store here, and I didn't see it for very long then. My recollection is that it looked like the stems had just continued to get longer and longer, even though the older leaves were still falling off as fast as new ones were growing. So the end result was of a mound of bulbs, with mostly-naked stems bouncing off the mound in various directions. It might sound interesting, but really it just looked kind of exhausted. I suppose I don't actually know that it had been getting good care, only that it was clearly old. But it did make me wonder: Oh. Are mine going to look like that later?

The part about older leaves falling off as quickly as new ones grow seems to be typical for plants kept indoors. In the greenhouse, they'll stay pretty compact, but at home, it's unusual for a bulb to have more than three leaves at a time. There's a bit of a trade-off, though, since the color is much better on indoor plants: the ones in the greenhouse always look slightly washed-out. I'm not positive that this isn't because they're of different species, but for various reasons I think it's the same plant, getting differing care.

I think this is a L. socialis, though it's possible that it's a different Ledebouria species. I can't remember if mine looked like this when I bought them or not. It was kind of a long time ago; there's been a lot of soil under the bridge since then.⁵
Ledebouria socialis has relatively few real demands: it's not a slob, it doesn't eat a lot, it doesn't mind if you miss some waterings here and there, it has no temperature requirements that are likely to cause a problem indoors, it's extremely easy to propagate (by division of the bulbs, at any time of year), and it doesn't mind low humidity. So all of those are good things.

Pests are a little bit of a problem: I hadn't thought that pests would be much of an issue with Ledebouria, since I've yet to see any on one, but then I read a post somewhere on-line where someone was saying that they'd lost their plant to spider mites. So they can be hit by spider mites, at least. I don't lose sleep worrying about it, though: the plants at home and at work have both been in the middle of raging spider mite infestations without having any detectable problems.

Water and light are the only real issues here. Ledebouria can be flexible about water at some times of the year, but too much can be very bad. They don't need much anyway, but one should be especially careful in fall and winter, when they go dormant. If planted in a very fast (well-draining) soil, this will be less of an issue. I water mine when the soil is totally dry, and that's worked fine; I suspect I could water more frequently than that in spring and summer, but don't see the need to experiment.

And while we're talking about water and soil: don't plant the bulbs below the ground. They'll rot. One can't organize a community when one can't see the community, after all.

Light needs to be bright, though there's some confusion about how bright. My own plants are front and center in a south window, and seem to be perfectly happy with that. There are, however, a number of warnings on-line about putting them in too intense of a position, so maybe I should pull mine back in a little. (The spot is on a shelf just a few inches below another shelf, so they don't get full full sun; a lot gets blocked by the plants above them. But still.) I don't know how dim one could go before it had problems; I tend to think bright indirect light is probably the minimum requirement, but I haven't tested this.

Aside from those few issues, this is a really uncomplicated plant. They'll bloom in winter, though I've not been overly impressed by the blooms I've seen at work --

The flowers in this picture aren't fully opened yet, but they didn't get any more interesting than this when they were open. They're just tiny little bell-shaped white things. The leaves are better.
-- there are more impressive pictures on-line, though, so perhaps the work plants were just unhappy.

Propagation is insanely simple. Just pull it out of the pot, break off a bulb, and set the new bulb on some soil: it'll get where it needs to go. I bought one plant in April 2007 and divided it right away, into one clump and two solo bulbs. There was no significant offsetting until about March 2008; whether that's because offsetting is a seasonal thing or because that's just how long it took them to recover, I'm not sure.

There's at least one cultivar of L. socialis: Asiatica Nursery has a variety they call 'Pinkie,' which has a pink stripe along each edge of the leaves. There are also a few other species which are also grown; the one I find the most appealing personally is L. cooperi, which has striped leaves instead of spotted ones, and L. ex barberton is also cool, if less describable. I don't know whether care for these other varieties would be as easy; I've never grown them, or known anyone who's grown them, or even seen them in person.

Finally. Ledebouria socialis has at least been introduced to the Galapagos Islands, which I suppose some introductions are probably inevitable but it's sad to see it happen in the Galapagos. (They're not especially attractive places for human settlement, and they're isolated, so the possibilities for studying the native species, and their interrelationships, is about as pure as you're going to get. Jonathan Weiner has written a wonderful book about a couple who have been doing just that with the native finches, called The Beak of the Finch, which I enthusiastically recommend.) I haven't seen any mention of Ledebouria spp. causing any problems, on the Galapagos or anywhere else, but invasives are sort of automatically a problem, in that any space occupied by an invasive is space that's not being occupied by a native, which means fewer available resources for the natives, or at least different resources.⁶

I don't blame the Ledebouria. No doubt they're just trying to network.

-

Photo credits: all my own.

¹ I'm guessing plants mostly talk to one another about the weather. Maybe once in a while they might tell one another scary cow stories or something.
² Actually, I tend to find any historical plant kind of charming. Schlumbergeras that were passed down four generations, and that sort of thing. Not sure I could explain why.
³ It was especially weird when the turtle got out of the bag and started crawling around the car. I'd left the bag open for air, and the turtle was in a box in the bag, 'cause like most animals they do poop, but the turtle was apparently stronger than the box was, so I take a nap for a bit and the next thing I know, somebody with a kind of bemused expression is asking me if this is my turtle. Oh. Yeaaaaah . . . that's mine. Sorry.
⁴ (I was told once, by a high school English teacher, that I was "weird, but likeable." As best as I recall, my response was something like "Oh! That's what I aim for!")
⁵ (What? Where do you put your soil?)
⁶ City dwellers and farmers can, perhaps, be forgiven for not seeing the problem, since there's no room inside city limits, or on a farm, that's useful for native species. No bigger invasive species than Homo sapiens, after all. I'm not making any judgments; regular readers are already aware that nobody's more susceptible to the allure of a sexy new houseplant than I am, and last I checked, there weren't very many species of plant native to my apartment. Also there's the whole deal of a lot of people having to starve to death if all the invasives disappeared. But we don't do what we do without consequences to some species, somewhere, at some point in time. Everything else being equal, we'd do well, I think, to tread lightly. Though you'll get my air conditioner when you pry it from my (extremely) cold, dead hands.

Random plant event: Ledebouria socialis flowers

I bought a Ledebouria socialislast April, and divided it into three plants, and then it did nothing all summer. Recently, all three divisions have been producing new bulbs, but nothing's blooming, and nothing seems likely to, either. How much do I mind? Ennh. Not that much. It's fine. But still, I'm glad that some of them bloomed at work, so I could see what that's like.



If there's a scent to the flowers, it's really subtle; the plants in question are near a fan so it's hard to be sure that there's nothing, but it's not anything that's going to knock you on your back or anything.

Also, some of the plants have flowered, and others didn't, even though they're all in more or less the same conditions and getting more or less the same care. Not clear what that means, but I'm guessing it must be an age / size thing.