Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I intended to do a Nina picture this week, but when I got the camera ready and pointed it at the terrarium, I couldn't find her. Tried blowing puffs of air in to startle her, so I could see where she was, but that just induced her to jump under the Pellionia thicket before I saw where she was.

I then crept back up on her later, but she saw the camera move or something and, again: under the Pellionia. And the next day, same thing.

I'm pretty sure this is me being clumsy, not Nina being jumpier than normal, but either way, it doesn't matter: I couldn't get new Nina pictures. So here's one from December 2010:

Pretty picture: Ascocenda Suksamran Sunshine

This was unfortunately destined to be a crappy picture -- the original was too washed out and blue, and my efforts to fix that only succeeded in making it too dark as well. But maybe this will help you appreciate the (mostly better) set from the 2012 show, which begin next Tuesday.


It's possible that the correct name is Sunlight, not Sunshine; Google has results for both, and the flowers look basically the same under both names, so after trying to figure it out for a while, I gave up.

Ascocenda is, as we all know, the name for crosses of Ascocentrum and Vanda. Google suggests that care for Ascocenda is basically the same as for Vanda.

New Plant: Osmanthus fragrans

It doesn't look like much, but the rumors are true: Osmanthus fragrans flowers smell pretty awesome.

I got this in the mail this week from Ginny Burton,¹ who has been pushing me to get one for a long time. (I would have done so on my own, had I ever seen any for sale in Iowa.)

The plant had a few flowers on it when it arrived, not all of which had a noticeable scent, but the ones that did smell very much like apricots. It's not strong enough to fill the whole house, as some on-line sources suggested, but then, it's still a small plant, it's been in a box for a few days, the flowers appear to fluctuate quite a bit in scent production depending on age and time of day, etc.


It still remains to be seen whether I'll be able to grow it in any kind of long-term way; I've never tried this plant (or any plant in the Oleaceae, for that matter) before, and I've only had this one since Monday. I'll keep you posted.

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¹ I ordinarily don't publicly identify people who send me plants, because publicizing opens up all kinds of possibilities for people to be swarmed by requests for cuttings, hurt feelings because I got a plant and someone else didn't, or . . . I don't even know. It's just simpler to leave people anonymous unless they specify otherwise. Ginny said it was okay, though.

Random plant event: Coffea arabica

I wasn't all that fond of Coffea when I first wrote its profile, back in 2008. I mean, I didn't hate it, either, but the foliage on my plant was pretty plain, it grew faster than some plants but not as fast as others, the form wasn't particularly exciting, it didn't flower, etc. I mean, it was a nice enough plant, but it didn't really stand out in the crowd for me.

That all started to change around this time last year, after I began using fertilizer with trace elements at every watering. I knew before this that my plant was probably not getting as much of something as it wanted, because the new growth was occasionally chlorotic, but I was still surprised at how rapid and extreme the reaction to the fertilizer was. A year after this picture was taken --

Coffea arabica, February 2011. Pot: 8" / 20 cm.
-- I happened to be pulling the plant out of its spot in the corner of the plant room, when I noticed two things. One, the plant has nearly doubled in height:

Coffea arabica, March 2012. Pot: ~11" / 28 cm.
Which is pretty cool all by itself. Second, though, I think I may be getting flowers soon, 'cause I noticed these buds:


And, I think the flowers are supposed to be self-fertile, so there's a decent shot at getting berries eventually, which interests me quite a bit. Even if there are never berries, I'll be pretty happy, though: I'm very interested in what the flowers smell like.

Whatever happens with the flowers and berries and so forth, C. arabica somehow managed to sneak onto my favorite plants list without me noticing until now. It's given me very little trouble (the aforementioned chlorosis, and a recent tendency of the smaller plants in the pot to get crowded out by the larger ones, but that's about it), it grows a lot faster when it has . . . nutrients available (*cough*), the leaves are shiny, and it's where coffee comes from. I suppose I could ask for something easier to propagate, but aside from that, what's not to like?

(P.S.: I realize it's hard to tell from those pictures that the plant's nearly doubled in height, but you'll just have to trust me. It's presently about 4 feet / 1.3 m tall, and has lived here for a little over five years, which is, one, just about exactly the height when they're supposed to start flowering, and two, a couple years late. Which is not surprising, given the whole lack-of-fertilizer thing.)

Pretty picture: Cattleya Mary Lynn McKenzie

The best I could do for a genealogy here was a site that said Mary Lynn McKenzie is a cross between Cattleya Bob Betts and Cattleya Swan. This isn't especially exciting information to know, and this is the internet so it's always possible that it isn't even true information, but I'm including it in the post anyway because really, the only commentary about this flower I can come up with is that it's awfully white. Which you already know, having seen the picture already.

I also kind of approve of the weird white-daffodil impression it's doing. It amuses me when plants imitate one another.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

Okay, obviously what's going on here is just a bad, blurred picture. But the longer you look at it, the weirder it gets -- the differently-sized legs, the different-colored eyes, the flattened ears with a ghost image of vertical ears, etc. -- so I was amused.

In other Sheba-related news, she caught a squirrel a couple weeks ago. I don't remember why I didn't write about it when it happened: I suspect it was just that I'd already written the Sheba/Nina picture post for the week.

I didn't see it happen, which I regret because I've seen her chase squirrels unsuccessfully so often and it would have been nice to join in her moment of triumph, but whatever. The husband convinced her to drop it almost immediately (which is weird, 'cause we can never convince her to drop the glowy ball -- on more than one occasion, she held on to it for more than 45 minutes before we could retrieve it¹ -- and it seems like a squirrel would be way better than a ball), and later disposed of it.

Sheba has, so far, declined to comment.

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¹ We would just let her carry it around as much as she likes, but 1) it was expensive, for a dog toy, and if destroyed would be a bigger deal to replace, and 2) the packaging said not to leave the dog unsupervised with the ball, which implies that it might hurt her if she ever did figure out how to tear it apart. So we throw it as long as she returns and drops it promptly, but if she starts to take longer to relinquish, then fun time is over. Occasionally I throw the ball one too many times, and then we wind up following her around the house for 45 minutes, waiting for her to drop the ball so we can grab it, wash it off, and put it away again. This is tedious enough that we don't break out the glowy ball that often, which if Sheba would only realize this and act accordingly, she'd get to play with the it way more than she does.

Pretty picture: Mammillaria (?) NOID

Okay. I feel a little better. The orchid show pictures were a little easier to sort through than last year's, because 1) the lighting worked out better or something -- more of them were decent to begin with -- and 2) I didn't take as many shots of each flower, so I didn't have to do as much agonizing over which shot to use. Some of them still didn't turn out that great, but what they may lack in quality, they make up for in quantity: I now have 91 orchid posts scheduled through March 2013, with the pictures already in place (if not any text yet). So I'm pretty sure you'll never have to wait more than 5 days between posts, even if I don't write another post for a year. (We still have 2 pictures from last year to burn off first, but after that, look out.)

Meanwhile, some cactus flowers, from the ex-job. These pictures were taken at the end of January.


I suspect Mammillaria, but I'm not positive, so if anybody has any guesses, feel free to share. Perhaps the stripes are a clue?

Random plant event: Senecio cephalophorus 'Blazin' Glory'

Between trying to keep up with watering the plants, propagating new plants, keeping up (poorly) with e-mail correspondence, sorting through all the orchid photos I got on Saturday,¹ trying to make decisions regarding the book (which is looking increasingly like it will not be a book, but something shorter), writing the blog, and working on half a dozen small side projects of various kinds, I'm getting very close to the point of being so overwhelmed by my list of things to do that I'm unable to do any of them. Consequently, posting is going to be light for . . . a while. I don't know precisely what I mean by "light," or "a while:" time will have to tell, but I figured I should let you know this is coming, and apologize for it. In previous years, things had normalized again around mid-June, but this year may never actually settle down: if I find myself with time again, I may have to use it on writing the "book" (or whatever the hell it's going to be) instead of posting more to the blog.


Oh, and there's also a plant. I don't know much about Senecio cephalophorus 'Blazin' Glory,' except that it's a Proven Selections² plant and the ex-job has some this year. (I think this is the first year they've had them.) The plant in the photo is just barely more than a plug;³ I'm not sure how big one can get in a single season, but I bet large quantities of 'Blazin' Glory' are impressive outdoors when they're all in bloom.

The Proven Winners website claims that 'Blazin' Glory' can be grown indoors as a houseplant. That's probably true, but I'm positive that I don't have a bright enough spot for one. (That's been a problem for other Senecios in the past, as well.)

Plant List says that the correct botanical name for this plant is Kleinia cephalophora. The Timber Press Guide to Succulent Plants of the World (Fred Dortort) says that not all botanists agree about splitting some Senecios off into the genus Kleinia, and that in any case Senecio is the name most accepted in the horticultural world.

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¹ You'll probably see a lot of orchid posts during the next year. I got pictures of somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 different plants, and unlike last year, most of those turned out well enough that I can probably use them without too much manipulation.
By comparison to the last year of orchid show photos, Paphiopedilum fans will be pleased; Cattleya fans will be disappointed.
²The difference between a Proven Winner and a Proven Selection, according to the Proven Winners website:

Proven Selections® are regionally accepted, but not great performers in all locations.

Sometimes plants that are known to be very good, but generally available become Proven Selections®. Most gardeners are not aware there is even a difference in these two types of plants. However, this is our way of trying to focus great plants into the parts of the country where they will do their best, rather than sending them willy-nilly everywhere, which will not help gardeners succeed.

³ Many annuals are started in trays containing hundreds of small cylindrical pockets of soil and then are shipped to the retailer once they've rooted in the tray. A solidly-rooted plant will pull out of the tray along with its cylinder of soil; these small plants are called plugs. As soon as plug trays arrive, we repotted the plugs into the pots we were going to sell them in (usually 4"): potting up plugs is one of the major February and March garden center tasks.