Succulent Ensemble

Have you ever tried to put together a dish garden of succulent plants and nothing you do seems to work. It always ends up looking artificial? Usually it means we're just trying too hard. For example, this group of plants. They're sitting on the greenhouse bench in no particular order. They just got put together by happenstance. And I think it works. Probably because nobody worked to make it work!

Mammillaria albicoma

This fuzzy little gem is from Tamaulipas, Mexico. The flowers can vary from greenish-yellow to cream. I tried to take a photo yesterday but it wasn't very good...so, back to an archive photo. Hey, it could very well be the same plant.

Summer has finally arrived here and driven out the rain. Temperatures in the mid 80s F today, tomorrow around 95 and clear sunny days. Night time temperatures stay in the 50s. Yes, yes...I'm ready!
And so are the plants!

Echinopsis subdenudatum 'Fuzzy Navel'

I understand this is being reintroduced by ISI this year. It is very nice. I understand this selection was named by my old friend Mark Fryer in San Diego. Mark used to be a member of the Oregon Cactus & Succulent Society.

One thing about this plant is that it's dependable. Without doing anything special it pops up these flowers with regularity.

Echeveria 'Tsunami'

Another blue wavy Echeveria. There are a lot of "Blue Wave" types of Echeverias out there; this is one of the better ones.

Pleiospilos nelii 'Royal Flush' flower

I think these flowers on this plant are almost outrageous. The purplish plant body with little dots all over topped off with this other-worldly flower. If a child were to draw this in a school art project to draw a real-world plant, he or she would likely be told to go back to the drawing board!

More Grandchildren

OK. I couldn't resist throwing in another photo of our grand kids at the Fink farm. I think they were having a pretty good time.

A Day with our Grandchildren

This is one of our two granddaughters. She turns 13 this month and we celebrated by taking her and her older brother to the "Fink Family Farm" - a farm some friends of ours have here in Oregon where they have a menagerie of animals (horses, llamas, sheep, peacocks, geese, chickens, milk goats, and a dog, in addition to a large pond and an arboretum which they planted many years ago. We hadn't been out that way for a while ourselves, so it was good to visit and to permit the grandchildren some time out in the country. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

By the way, the photos were taken by our grandson.

Back to succulents tomorrow

Rebutia albiflora

I'll start off the new month with a photo taken a couple of weeks ago of Rebutia albiflora. I've posted this plant before but not recently, and not this photo. I've always liked this plant because of its ease of growth, its compact growth and the fact that is nice little white flowers are produced so abundantly. What's not to like?

Individual heads are less than 1 inch (2 cm) in diameter but readily produce offsets, flowering in Spring to early Summer. Native to an area in northeastern Tariga near Nogales in southeast Bolivia, they do best in soils with a little more humus than most cacti but are tolerant to a variety of different planting mediums.

I hope to have some nice photos from the Fink Family Farm tomorrow night or soon thereafter. We'll see. In the meantime.....enjoy your plants!