Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

Another kind of rough week for Sheba, the most noteworthy event of which was a bit of carsickness on Wednesday. This photo isn't from that trip, but it easily could have been: this seems to be one of her favorite sleep positions.

New (old) plant: Salvia elegans

We've been without a pineapple sage here since last fall, when my only surviving plant fell to a surprise frost before I could try to get cuttings to overwinter. There had been backup plants, of course, but those all pooped out because of drought or spider mites (or both), so when the one outside died, that was my whole stock.

Naturally I questioned whether or not I wanted to try to get another one. I mean, it had been a plant I liked, before all the unpleasantness, but nobody else seems as interested in it as I am, the mite thing was really annoying, and it grows a little too fast to keep up with effectively, so I wasn't going to.


But you know how it is. You run into one another again, exchange pleasantries, start feeling those feelings again, and before you know it you're going home together. (Also some money changed hands, which kinda ruins the metaphor, but whatever.)

Pretty pictures: Epidendrum Rose Valley 'Caribbean Dream'

The orchid show had two different-looking plants that were both identified as Epidendrum Rose Valley 'Caribbean Dream,' which was confusing. One is the one shown here:


And the other [EDIT: NOT SHOWN IN THIS POST] was the same shape and size, but the flowers were orange-red instead of pink.


Both colors show up in a Google search, so it could be that there's a pink form and a red form of the same flower. Which would be strange, but it's hardly the strangest thing I've ever heard of from the orchid world.

(The orange-red version gets its own post, but that's scheduled for December.)

Another sale/trade preview post

I'd hoped to get this year's sell/trade post up a couple weeks earlier than I did last year (25 April), but it's looking like I'll be lucky to post it at the same time. Deciding which things to offer took a very long time on its own, and then everything had to be photographed, and I spent a day trying to make sense of the USPS's shipping charges from last year, in hopes of coming up with a better approximation for this year, so on and on it goes.

But! I do at least have a few early pictures, which I may as well share, since I don't have much else going on anyway. Prices are still being determined, and obviously I'm selling more than four kinds of plants (about 80, with another 10 that aren't ready yet but will be by the end of the summer -- or at least I hope they will be), and I may as well admit now that these are some of the better-looking plants I have to offer, and they don't all look like this. But as a taste:

Episcia NOID.

Gasteraloe x beguinii.

Hatiora salicornioides.

Nautilocalyx forgetii.

Peperomia pereskiifolia.

Pereskia aculeata var. godseffiana.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum malipoense

Whoops. This was supposed to have gone up yesterday; I forgot.

Maybe I've been watching too much RuPaul's Drag Race, but I can't help but think of what a strange shoe design this could become, in the right hands.

P. malipoense is sometimes called the "Jade Slipper Orchid;" there were two at the show, and neither one looked green to me, but the greenish color is more obvious in some of the other photos on-line. The species wasn't described until 1984, and is from China and Vietnam (this link is more specific).

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

The Pellionia pulchra is really getting out of control. I have plans to replant the tank, honestly I do, and I feel like a terrible lizard father every time I look at it. Replanting is a big production, unfortunately, so it's difficult to find the time to do it.

Also still trying to get the availability list presentable, so the selling can commence. Not doing a terribly good job on that either.

Walkaways Part 18

None of these are quite as unusual as the Tillandsia dyeriana, but I thought they were interesting.

Anthurium 'Sensa.'

(close-up of flowers: new on left, old on right)
Anthurium 'Sensa' is the one I most wanted to buy, which makes little sense, really, since I already have a lot of Anthuriums, including a couple with similar spathe colors. I just have a hard time resisting Anthuriums, I think is the deal. It's still a nice color, though, and Anthuriums are particularly tempting to me now because I'm trying to cross mine and start seedlings, so I see a plant with a newly-emerged flower and all I can think about is all the pollen it's going to be producing, and how desperately I must have said pollen.

Sedum indicum var. yunnanense, crested form
Plant List says that the actual name is Sinocrassula yunnanensis. This didn't do a lot for me, though I suppose I can see how someone might find it interesting. From the internet, I see the main use of S. yunnanensis is as a rock garden plant (they're hardy to zone 7, googlegedly), but I ran into a few pictures of them in containers. They apparently never do much more than this, forming little clumps of rosettes.

Dieffenbachia 'Delilah.'
This picture didn't turn out anywhere near as well as I'd hoped it would. (There's a better one here.)

I probably shouldn't try to grow Dieffenbachias. It's not that I can't: with a few exceptions ('Camouflage,' 'Sterling'), they grow fine for me, as long as I keep them out of direct sun and warm, dry air.

Instead, the problem is that after growing well for a while, they'll reach the point where they're too tall and leggy to fit in their spot, or they're always threatening to fall over, or they just don't look good anymore, and then I have to decide what to do with them. I don't have the patience (or experience) for air-layering, so I've always just cut them back and tried to root the tops. Occasionally this has worked, but usually it doesn't. And the stumps are supposed to resprout: occasionally that has worked, but usually it doesn't. (Some varieties seem to be better about rooting and resprouting than others: 'Tropic Snow' does well, as does a NOID that resembles 'Triumph.') So 'Delilah' is appealing, but I think I'm going to have to wait on getting more dieffs until I've figured out how to air-layer them.

Adromischus maculatus.
I had a bad experience with a plant I think was an Adromischus, a few years ago when the plant obsession was just starting up. It stayed alive, but the new growth was weak and pale and it was obviously not getting enough light, so I gave up on it after about five months. I could probably do better now, because although I don't have southern exposure, I do have artificial lights. Perhaps someday.

Guzmania NOID.

Same plant, from top.
Finally, a Guzmania coloration I haven't seen before, and think is really pretty. No ID tag, though. Of course.

The good news is that Guzmanias are pretty easy to keep alive. The bad news is that their strong will to live means I don't treat mine particularly well, so they're not very big and they've never rebloomed. (I know about the apple trick. I just don't think my plants are strong enough to bloom, so I haven't pushed.) This is a fascinating (to me) variety, though: I really like the white/black/orange combination.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis NOID

No tag at all, but that's okay, since it's just a Phalaenopsis. I mean, I know Phalaenopsis cultivars have names too, but it's so rare to find one that's identified that I've more or less stopped expecting IDs.

As for the flower itself: I kind of like these varieties with the big dots, even if Phalaenopsis don't do much for me in general. Has anybody ever seen this in a color combination besides white and purple?