Clothes Brands 18 18 18 18

Well, this is a surprise. I didn't think it would flower in the summer, unless it can do that at different times a year. Winter was my guess for two reasons. First, I got it with a dried up flower. Second, Steven Hammer writes he has successfully created hybrids of Neohenricia and Titanopsis (Neonopsis) which would mean they flower simultaneously, i.e. in winter. Maybe the plant is just confused like the fulviceps, it's only one flower after all. So far. Nevertheless I'm excited to see it. :) The flowers should be odoriferous. But I guess there need to be twenty of them to notice something. Here's a picture with my finger still in it to show how tiny it actally is! PS: Avonia alstonii has developed flower buds, too. I'll be away next weekend - hopefully both plants will bloom before (or after) that. 

Aaaah so pretty!! .... and then it got weird. An overachiever? :) (Fulviceps flowers tend to do that)

Yesterday evening the Aurea flower has finally opened. :) 

... and have minds of their own. I've set my two calcareas apart at last. As they were each put in their own container the smaller plant had a big gap because it was growing around the bigger one until now. I even felt sorry for it because it seemed so lonely on its own, with a big gap left where its mate was. Silly me! Only two days later the smaller plant realised it had finally room to do whatever it wants and to finally spread its leaves in all directions. The gap has vanished almost in front of my eyes! And here I thought it would take some time until it closes with that new tiny branch that is growing in the "gap" area. Forget the branch. The plant simply occupied the newly found room with what it's already got. So there goes my mesemb romantic. :) PS: I wrote the previous post a week ago but only posted yesterday.

I've had these Titanopsis calcarea for a year and they seem to like it a lot here. If you take these two plants together, they've developed seven new branches out of three they had last year which is a great accomplishment. After all, the more growing points there are, the more chances for flowers. Now it's getting tight for them and I'm thinking of setting them apart at last. I can only offer 5x5cm pots but at least they won't have to share one.

It warms up my heart to see how plants react to water - spread their leaves and get new ones. Recently watered Titanopsis primosii is really enjoying the treat. In a week or so these cyan colored leaves will be wrinkly again and show only the textured tips. It grows new leaves, too.

My Frithia didn't make it after all. Something in the care was wrong for it, pumice, water. I've gathered it's seeds from a seed capsule I bought it with and sown 10 of them as a test. Nine germinated and look fine so far. I hope they'll survive, even though I'm not sure how it'll go from here. I lack info on when the first true leaves are coming or when the substrate may be allowed to dry. Hope to figure it out in time.

The Rabiea albipuncta is really expanding in all directions. In its winter state it could still fit inside the borders of the pot, now it's all over the place. :) I love how it makes my "garden" greener and livelier. An explosion  amidst all those well-hehaved plants. :)

The Prepodesma orpenii has finally managed the two stages of settling in. The leaves are firm and wrinkle-less, showing some fresh green at the base, and there are new leaves coming beside one of the flowers ( the plant ten days ago ). Also I was suspiciously eyeing the dots on the leaves but they only seem to be on the parts visible back when I bought it and probably come from spraying with chemicals and such. They should go away with the old leaves. The flowers stayed for a while but almost never opened again. Yesterday the half-closed flowers were the most beautiful, looking like flames (make sure to view the pic in full size). They've dried only a couple of hours after the photo was taken.

Another proud representative of the Aloinopsis kind. It seems to have the leaves of the Titanopsis calcarea shape and the color of Titanopsis primosii (I only have these two, so it's an obvous comparison, haha). I seem not to be able to walk past mesembs with textured leaves lately. But who would be? :)

Time to show you the new guys! I got two Aloinopsis plants together with the Prepodesma a couple of weeks ago. This one is Aloinopsis malherbei , a master of disguise. Also, the leaves look like paws, don't they? After buying a new plant I'm always worried the roots won't take. It's like two stages of making sure the plant feels fine: First, it reacts to water, spreads its leaves which are getting slightly green at the base, gets rid of the wrinkles; Second, the new leaves start coming out. It's safe to say both Aloinopsis have managed the first stage, even though it took them two waterings.

Lithops and other mesembs aren't the only ones living on my windowsill. This lovely vivid green Sempervivum is such a grateful plant. It's so full of life, I like it a lot! The rather small container is there to "contain" it as long as I can't give it more room. It has already spread so much I have to water it in the sink. :)

I'll be posting about other mesembs later but first a quick update on the fulvi flower. :)

I was kinda expecting this from my early bird gesinae again but this year's surprise belongs to one of the fulviceps 'Aurea' ! It's very early and there are no signs of flowers on other eight plants (which will hopefully flower synchronously sometime later) but it sure is exciting. This will be my first greenie white flower, too. :) This flower will be an exception. I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in September and October. Also, after a while in the corner of the windowsill all the fulvis have now much stronger color and clearer pattern.

Having very little room I'm trying to only buy small plants nowadays. I thought Neohenricia sibbettii were tiny bushes but it was actually a root-string with branches. Didn't even know how to pot it. After a little hesitation this lovely textured plant got over the condition change and is now pushing countless new leaves. I'd love to see it as a tight cluster one day.

You might have noticed the nice and large (and ever spreading) Crassula rupestris that has found it's place between the lithops trays. The things is it casts a shadow to the right and to the left depending on the time of the day. I've put the plants around it that like the reduction in sunlight and those that don't tend to grow long. The Sulphureas are now even greener and the lesliei v. venteri don't need to hide in the stones anymore. Also, the shadow play makes them shine. ;) Others are enjoying their sunbath! Ventergreens have grown a lot since March .

I haven't shown you these seedlings for a while. They are around 16 months old now and quite indipendent in their growth phases. Some have had their 3rd leaves for a while, some have just changed, and some still have their 2nd clothes on. It is a bit difficult to catch the color on camera. It is much darker than the red I was expecting and I love it. I quess the large windows must help this impression. :)

The flowers have just opened. It's 8 o'clock in the evening, how amazing is that? This plant is almost night-flowering. :) I've bought it recently and it had flower buds already but I didn't expect them to develop after storing the plant in the dark for days, fransporting, transplanting. The buds tend to drop if the plant is stressed. Yet here they are. It's also known as Aloinopsis orpenii but the proper name seems to be Prepodesma orpenii .

Sorry for all the non-lithops posts but you know winter and summer are those times when just nothing happens, regeneration is over, no flowers yet. I'm using the time to educate myself on other mesembs and to try things out. For instance here comes my first experience with sowing non-lithops mesembs. You can see the beautiful flowering parents of these 2 months old Delosperma seedlings here . Back then I'd just harvested the seeds on the street.

Remember how this tray looked a month ago ? Now it's almost full with the new plants. I'm trying to use all the corners, even the spaces between trays. Part of this tray is reserved for another mesembs not only lithops. This is a new field for me but it sure is exciting. There's a Prepodesma with two flower buds in the middle of the picture. Will post photos as soon as they open. :)

Today I've finally received the two plants I've been admiring for so long - thanks Atomic Plant Nursery :) - Avonia quinaria ssp. alstonii and Avonia quinaria ssp. quinaria . These are quite unusual tiny plants with strange silky branches and a caudex. If you google the name you'll see that the most amazing part are the flowers. Especially the white flowering ssp. alstonii has huge flowers compared to the plant itself. I'll watch them closely to figure out what they need and wait for flowers. (The pancakes in the background are lesliei ssp. burchellii ) Avonia quinaria ssp. quinaria will have pink flowers. You might call them old potatoes but they really ARE beautiful!

The dotty dorotheae has a new mate (and I'm very curious to see their offsprings one day).

Here comes the rest of them. The "dotty" C300 has lost it's mate but I'm going to look out for a suitable partner. 

Bad news. I just can't seem to figure out how to water the Frithia humilis I have. :( And the plant doesn't give me any chance to. At first there were 3 growing points and after a while, seeing how soft and limp it was, I've decided to water. The pot that normally dries out after two days stayed wet for a week (the plant didn't drink anything) resulting in one growing point rotting off. And the rest didn't get any firmer. New leaves and flower buds came up like nothing happened (ca. 3 weeks past) and there was a lot of sun lately. I water again. Another growing point is gone in a day! Now since the substrate just doesn't dry I've put the rest of the plant in an even smaller pot with dry pumice. Now what? The worst thing is I still don't know how to properly water it, even if the rest survives (I think, I'm just not watering it ever again..). Any ideas what I should or shouldn't do next? Well, at least the only left flower opened today and it'...

These two dorotheae de Boer (one is now two-headed) are hopefully ready to flower again this year. I'd love to have seeds for backup. So pretty! Last year they even bloomed synchronously but still no seeds (the year before only one plant flowered).  Dorotheae C300 has been flowering beautifully out of one head last two years. Wonder if it was a different head every time or the same one :)

This is one strange looking, strange growing, car tire resembling plant. :) It's been flowering for a while now but it's not that easy to take a picture. I had to climb on a chair for this. The flower stalk is 50 cm tall!