Unfinished business: Haworthia NOID

About a year ago, I posted about some odd behavior from a few of my Haworthias. They're some of my oldest plants, and had never done anything particularly weird before, but all of a sudden they decided to go from looking like this --

-- to this --

and I wasn't sure what was going on. I still don't know, but a recent comment on that post prompted me to share an update. This is what they look like now:

Which I guess is improvement, kind of. It at least seems like a more natural look than either of the first two photos. But the whole process was a little scary, and I'm not sure what to do with them now. Perhaps I ought to propagate?

By reader request:

A reader has requested that I let you know I'm okay, after all the weather.

I'm okay. There were tornadoes in Iowa, but mostly in southwest Iowa. The closest one to us was near West Des Moines, which is a solid 125-150 miles away. (There was a tornado warning issued closer to us, but they apparently decided later that it was not in fact actually a tornado. And also it was still a good 70 miles or so.)

Benjamin, who was a lot closer to the action than I was, is also fine, he says in today's post.

The severe weather action is again supposed to be close to us, but not that close: the NWS forecast has the biggest danger area today somewhat to our north, in NE IA / SE MN / SW WI, so we'll probably get through that fine as well.

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.

Unfinished business: Hibiscus, Alocasia, Anthurium

Some odds and ends to take care of. First, I have finally obtained pictures of the Alocasia 'Frydek' I mentioned previously, for those of you who wanted to see it. The color is more true-to-life in the second picture, but the first picture does a better job of showing off the velvety texture:




If it were any genus besides Alocasia, I would have one of these already: they're so damn pretty. But I have all the spider mites I need for now, thanks.

There was also a request on last week's really big Anthurium leaf post for a picture that showed the context, as the leaf in question blocked view of the rest of the plant. So here you go.

Anthurium "hookeri." The really big leaf is pointing to the right in this picture.

I also tried to get a picture of the Anthurium "crenata" I mentioned in that post, but they don't appear to have one any more. There is still a very large Anthurium where I used to work, though, which is probably more closely related to my "hookeri:" it was sold to them as Anthurium 'Red Line' or 'Redline' or something like that, and allegedly gets a red midvein in bright enough light. Their plant didn't have the red midvein when it arrived, and hasn't developed it since, but it's a pretty impressive-looking plant regardless:


And then finally, I was asked for a picture of the Hibiscus flower that went with the buds in Wednesday's post, so here you go.


I have some buds on my other Hibiscus now, the pink one with the orange border, so there will likely be more Hibiscus pictures coming up soonish.

By request: Coffea arabica

In the comments on the Coffea arabica profile post, Anonymous has asked for a picture of my plant now, as opposed to the picture that was there previously, which was from October 2007.

I'm afraid the comparison isn't very good.

Then:


Now:


Some of this is the season: it dropped leaves during the winter of '07-'08, and then dropped another round this past winter. I'm not sure it's finished, actually, with the leaf-dropping. But if I remember right, the leaf-dropping stopped at more or less the precise moment when new growth started up, and we do have new growth on it now. It's even branching, which I guess is good. I'm not sure.

In any case. Under good conditions, they're fast-growing, but apparently my apartment is not what the plant considers good conditions. Not really surprising.