Drosera spatulata 'Tamlin'

This was a difficult one to get a picture of the bloom. It's not very spectacular, but I felt the plant on a whole deserved a post. The regular form of Drosera spatulata is a small growing carnivorous plant, however the 'Tamlin' cultivar is about 3-4 times larger.

I grew these from seed about 2 years ago and they've really done well. This is the second flowering for them, (the 2 littler ones are putting out stalks too.) Seed to maturity took about a year. Drosera in general are fast growers. I had 25-50 seeds but only 3 germinated. They may have been older, any fresh seed I get has an almost 100% germination rate, so maybe that's why. I'm kind of glad about that though, because I'd be giving one to everyone I know to get rid of them if I had 25-50 of this size!

They're growing in a 10 gallon fishtank, 1/2 open glass top, and an 8,000 K aquarium fluorescent bulb for "sun." I was going to bump it up to a 10,000 K as they're a little green still, but they seem happy so I'll wait until the bulb needs replacing again to bother. I didn't even need to add a fan to this tank as it's in a well traveled area, the air exchange is surprisingly fine. It looks a little crazy in there as it is primarily a seedling tank.

D. spatulata 'Tamlin' putting out a flower stalk

Missed the first two flowers

Close-up

Parodia werneri ssp werneri (Notocatus uebelmannianus)

I put both names in the title as the genus Notocactus is no longer, as of 1998. All Notocactus are now Parodia, but if you google both names you'll find that most people still know this cactus as N. uebelmannianus. It was also given to me with that label as well. I find the horticultural world is slow to use new names, most likely because it's not as if there is an official news bulletin that goes around the world notifying everyone who owns, grows, or sells a particular plant of a taxonomy change.

Anyway, this is one pretty cactus. If you haven't already noticed, I like small globular species. Not just because it's what I have space for, but because they are some of the nicest looking out of flower, in my opinion at least.

Side view, more flowers to come

Busy insects

Aloinopsis, Frithia, and some Sedum blooms

Aloinopsis luckhoffii, a native South African succulent forms these little rosettes and stays on the small side. Perfect for growing here. Everywhere I read says it's supposed to bloom in the spring. It did bloom in April, with only one flower. The end of June here is most certainly considered summer, but I won't complain about another three blooms along with a decent amount of new growth.

A little rained on by the time I got to try and take a decent picture.
I like how the buds are camouflaged to look like the leaves when closed, neat!

x3

I was surprised to find a Frithia pulchra locally in the very beginning of spring. Normally it would be buried a bit deeper in soil and use the "windows" at it's leaf tips to collect light. However, I potted it a bit high because I can get away with that here. Rot is my main worry, not burning or dehydration. Plus one of this plant's redeeming values is that the leaves turn purple in high light.

Frithia pulchra this spring

Cute!

These Sedums aren't mine, but I did grow up with them. I was at my father's house recently and was just in time for the start of the blooms. They've been growing on a rock wall on his property (zone 6b) for almost as long as I can remember. Sedums make excellent ground-cover plants. These stay green in winter, are hardy enough to freeze (for much longer periods of time than most succulents,) can live in full sun to part shade, and they bloom easily. There are so many Sedum species, hybrids, and cultivars that I couldn't hope to tell you the ID's of these, just wanted to share some pretty pictures.

Pink Sedum flowers

Yellow Sedum flowers

Now I'm off to a barbeque, hope you have a Happy 4th USA readers, and hope you have an awesome day to readers everywhere else.

Cacti from Home Depot

As with most people, my collection of plants started local at the big box stores. Cacti are easier to identify, unlike orchids or garden plants that hundreds of hybrids are made from, to the point where non labeled plants are impossible to ID. More serious hobbyists might snub these purchases, but here's why you should maybe check out your local stores, you never know what they might have. Costa Farms supplies to all the Home Depots around here, so if you are new to growing cacti they actually have a decent selection. They don't look so hot when they aren't cared for, sitting on a dark shelf in a Home Depot, but there's potential there.

This cactus looked terrible when I bought it. The second I saw it I knew what it was and how it was supposed to look. It's not as if it was diseased or pest ridden, just clearly sun deprived , dehydrated, and knocked around a bit from shipping and employees not trained to take care of cacti.

See? Looks not so nice.

The cactus above is probably Gymnocalycium friedrichii (or mihanovichii var. friedrichii depending on which taxonomy you agree with, I haven't figured out which is "official") Below is how it looks with full sun and regular water.

ID hopefully in a few days

This cactus is supposed to be a purple or red color, it isn't sunburned.


This one below, is sort of a "before" picture. I didn't take one when I first got it of how sad it looked too, but you can see it's light deprived. It's most likely just a too green Gymnocalycium mihanovichii.

Not quite as bad, but too green for my taste

Here it is again below with proper light and water.

ID to come shortly!

When these bloom, I'll be able to verify the ID's that were made. They are definitely Gymnocalyciums, those are easy to spot. If you can't tell by looking at the body of the cactus, the flower buds will give it away. Buds are always spineless, wool-less, bristle-less, smooth and scaled looking. I guessed on the species ID's and my guesses were verified on a forum, so we'll see if any of us are any good at ID'ing cacti, or if I labeled them prematurely.

EDIT 7/9/12 *Links to ID updates below*:
Cactus #1 ID
Cactus #2 ID

Gifts

My brother got me this really awesome gift. I'm mentioning it for two reasons.

1.) My brother found this botanical print of carnivorous plants. It's one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone's given me in a while. I don't do so much decorating. The thought of having to pack everything and move (again) keeps me from seeing much value in in acquiring "stuff." Having lots of things feels burdensome. Maybe it's because I've moved 3 or 4 times already and I don't spend that much time at home anyway. It reminds me of a quote from Chuck Palahniuk in the book Fight Club, "...and the things you used to own, now they own you." Therefore decorating investments have been limited to a few Salvador Dali prints (The Temptation of St. Anthony) and framed photographs. So I'm pleased with this small improvement to my living space as it's the kind of thing I'd probably be decorating with if I went out of my way to try.

Plants!

2.) The second reason is because although my brother didn't draw this particular print, he is an extremely talented artist. He also grows plants well (despite one of his current projects) as if the first fact wasn't good enough.

He has a website, if you don't believe me, or want to see what I mean: Allen West
There's a particularly nice looking Rhyncholaelia digbyana on his home page.

Clouds

It's been rainy and cloudy almost all summer so far. It's like we're being punished for having had such a mild winter. I'm aware weather doesn't work that way, but it's making my favorite season less fun so I'm complaining about it. Where I live it starts to get  cold in September, frigid by January, and only starts to get tolerable to be outside again by late April. That's about 6 months of cool to soul-crushingly cold weather. Compounded by the angle of the sun, it's also dark and gray a lot of the time.

Credit: Queenieacoustic from Wikipedia

So far, the majority of cactus blooms haven't opened up all the way because, of course, they opened on a cloudy day. Then it was cloudy for the next two days too. This is Parodia mammulosa with four buds. I was really excited about this one for no other reason than they are huge compared to the plant.

P. mammulosa

This is as far as the buds would open. We didn't get a sunny day before the flowers died, so that was the end of it. It's not putting out any more buds (yet?) so that might be it for the year.

Then there was Gymnocalycium baldianum.

G. baldianum buds

The flowers of G. baldianum are a dark red. Not only were they not, they weren't able to open all the way either. It's working on some more, so we'll see what the rest of the summer brings.

Close enough

Maybe July and August will be better for the rest of the cacti flowers and better for being outside, in the sun, like summer is supposed to be about.