Faucaria felina ssp. tuberculosa blooms and an almost reconsidering of growing all these plants.

Last of the succulent blooms for the season is Faucaria felina ssp. tuberculosa. A cheery yellow for the fall that matches the leaves on the trees outside. I'm not looking forward to the winter, but the yellow, orange, and red colors of nature during the fall season in New York have always been my favorite colors.

I've got a few orchids spiking, so I'm really looking forward to those. I'm not taking any pictures yet as I've had more bud blasts than blooms on them this year, so I'll wait until there are actual open flowers before I even start bothering to take pictures.

Every once in a while I think about growing fewer different types of plants and focusing my collection on things from one or two different plant families. This usually happens when I start to get busy and stressed out and wonder why I've extended myself so much as I'm dealing with dormancy preps, rearranging, moving things around and re-potting, on top of everything else going on with work, family, etc., you know....life things.

This year's little "Why am I doing this to myself, I've got too many plants," almost- meltdown was brought to you by a combination of being sick with the flu, filling out endless job applications, taking a sick cat to the vet, and still having to show up for work and real life while the temperatures plummet and the plants all need to go somewhere inside, but aren't ready.

Then when everything's pretty much done and settled in again I remember why I'm growing so many different things, (and am always glad I didn't get too impulsive and start giving things away.) Something is always doing something. As the cacti and succulents will be pretty much just sitting around the house doing nothing or growing slow, I'll have some orchid blooms, (nice because different species bloom at different times of the year,) and the Nepenthes will still be making pitchers and flowering as the North American carnivorous plants are dormant. Always something doing something. Which always gives me something to look forward to and occasionally let myself get distracted on the small and inconsequential, things that can just be for fun, (because at the end of the day, for me it doesn't really matter if a particular orchid blooms or not this year, but it's certainly awesome when it does.)