Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Some photos from around the Garden.


Crassula green pagoda from above
Crassula Green Pagoda - front view

 Another newbie - not 100% certain of the name but it's the right family at least......

Aeonium sedifolium
Crassula Spring time finally flowered - and yes I have a problem with Winter Grass at the moment ;)

Crassula Springtime
Spring time is actually pretty fast growing - unlike the next one - Morgan's Beauty.  This one might take forever to get to a decent size.

Crassula Morgan's Beauty

This is a gorgeous Aloe I got last year - it now has 3 flower spikes, and has about 8 babies popping up.  Enjoying it, but must repot soon!

Aeonium Variegata
 This one I sort far and wide, and eventually found a pot at the last Garden Society Fair in South Perth.  A WONDERFUL place to find different plants.     I have since found one tiny pot at Bunnings as well.
Variegated String of Pearls - senecio rowleyanus

Monday, July 7, 2014

Just some Aeoniums

Aeonium 'Velour'

Aeonium smithii


Aeonium 'Suncup'

Aeonium tricolour


Aeonium 'Ballerina' I think at the top - not sure of the bottom one

Aichryson domesticum 'Variegatum' (left) & Aeonium domesticum variegata (right)

aeonium castello-paiva

Aeonium 'Starburst' & Aeonium 'Sunburst'




Aeconium cv 'Blushing Beauty'
Aeonium undulata (still taking root)



Aeonium tabuliforme

Aeonium Tricolour Crest


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Sedum Americanum cristata & a visit to a fellow succulent collectors house




 Every now and then you find something at Bunnings that just makes you go "WOW".  This was one of those days.  Was up at the new store opening on Monday and spotted these two....

It's definitely not variegated - but for $7 I thought it a bit of a bargain.  So much so I picked up a second one for a friend that took me through her gorgeous succulent garden on the weekend (as a thankyou gift).  This ones form isn't quite as appealing to me.  But still pretty cool
 
This is what Sedum Americanum normally looks like.  Cristata forms are when the growing head becomes linear rather than a single point.  As you can see it changes the growth pattern in very bizarre ways. 
This was a cristata form that I viewed at my friends place on Sunday
Must have been nearly 50cm across from one side of the head to the other.  The photo really doesn't do it justice - it was gorgeous.  This huge head supported on a thin singular growth.  Thankfully its propped against a shed, without that support it would just fall off.
 
 
The whole garden was full of "WOW" moments
 
 
 
I came home with my only little goody bag of babies to pot up - all ones that I didn't already own. 
 
Including a couple of baby echeveria cristata's (Echeveria Briar Rose).    Feeling very spoilt!

Friday, May 16, 2014

Rhipsalis Elliptica flowering

I picked this plant up from Rex Hardy here in Perth a couple of months ago. Hasn't grown much since then, but it has decided to flower. Lovely little things, remind me of fairy dresses

I tend to have zones around my house, out the back where I can't smell them (as far from any open window as possible) is the table with the stapeliads on them. 

Pool fence and surrounds are my ivy geraniums.

Beside the aquaponics system is my potting area - and my orchids  and out the back door near the laundry is my epiphyte section (rhipsalis/epiphyllum/zygos).  I must have over 20 different rhipsalis now, so I'll try and feature a few as they come into flower.  I do love these guys -weird foliage and gorgeous little flowers.









I wonder what colour the fruit will be on this one - I suspect just a clear white, but I will wait and see.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Stapelia leendertziae


 This one I'm told is a true leendertziae.  There are a lot of crosses of this one, but this is the classic bell shaped one that is so different from the open flowers of most of the stapelias.

The flower pod on these are the deep dark red, almost purple unlike most of their relatives which develop a green pod. 

Stapelia leendertziae - Bud

Above - just starting to open, below about 5 hours later.


And this is it fully open.

Smell - um STRONG.  These guys you do not plant near your eating area (well I don't suggest that with any of these - but especially not these ones).  The thing about the smell is that as the temperatures climb the smell gets stronger, and it travels further.   This cutting I received off a fellow collector in Floreat - and his was in a hanging basket with about 15 flowers open.  The smell could have knocked you backwards.  Looked absolutely gorgeous.  Good thing it has big flowers (about 5cm across) as that way you can admire from a safe distance!

And a view down the throat of the plant to show the corona.  Flies were busy yesterday and I could see them coming and going from inside while I was taking photos of the divaricata openting yesterday.



Saturday, April 26, 2014

Stapelia divaricata - waiting not so patiently...


Don't you hate it when you go out in the morning and you can see the flower is opening...
 So you keep checking on it (well about an hour or two later)
 and finally a single petal opens
and you start thinking it wont be long now till the next one, so you wait a bit longer


and you wait, and you wait a bit more
and then suddenly in a split second two more petals come apart



and this last bit is a LONG wait, in fact so long that DD12 has time to run inside to get her camera, take quite a bit of video and photos and then get bored (and wants to tickle the flower open - which mean mummy wont let her do - although I do offer to tickle her instead)
DD grows so bored she gives up and goes inside.
And you keep waiting.
and waiting
and waiting.....

until suddenly it pops.

Was it worth the wait ? 
Umm maybe.  It is a beautiful flower, and reallistically it all happened in under 30 mins (from the first petal popping).  But I think next I might see if I can run a time lapse video :D

Final update - it's about 5 hours later - the flower curls backwards now.  Still pretty just different.