Sunday flowers to lighten the mood (7 pics)

I wanted to post something on Crassula cuttings but in the end decided in favor of a flower post. Just some light Sunday afternoon entertainment :)

Lithops gracilidelineata I grew from seed has opened its first flower today and it's small and neat like the plant. It took it 8 years from seed to flower. I'm not complaining. Flowers are an exception, not the rule here. I never expect them but they are very welcome. 

Avonia quinaria ssp. quinaria has opened the only flower it produced this year. It had too many petals and I ripped one to allow it to open fully. Beautiful flower as always. I'm glad it opened at all... unlike other Avonias.

Avonia ustulata are producing many seed pods but the flowers never open. Any idea why? I assume not enough sunlight or maybe the fact that there is no direct sunlight in the afternoon. Unfortunately the same thing happens to the An. retusa flowers I was looking forward to. They open just a couple of millimeters wide and then close. The seed pods are nice and full though.

Anacampseros karasmontana, the greenie, has been flowering. Very very cute flowers. The round edges and the spread petals look similar to Av. quinaria's, a simplified version. And I really need to show you pictures of the roots underneath. They are quite remarkable! 

And of course the Frithia pulchra! Such intense colors.

In other news, Conophytums are starting to wake up. Every year it's a relief.

The luxury of sunlight (6 pics)

What a difference it makes when there is lots and lots of sunlight for weeks! 

This must be what growers with greenhouses are getting all the time. Sure on the windowsill there are still fewer sunlight hours but it has been intense. After a long winter and gloomy weather until May we have had weeks of heatwave with no end to it. The plants enjoy it immensely. Forgotten are the mites and stretching and strict water rationing. Lithops are growing wider, not higher. The flowering season of Anacampseros is great. And Frithias are going crazy this year. I've never seen Frithias this happy. It's very exciting! Especially since something I've been waiting for for 5 year has finally happened. One of the Frithia humilis seedlings has flowered. Click on the "frithia" tag and go to the older posts to read up on their story.

Here is a photo of a one week old flower.

It is not visible on the fully open flower like the photo above but the color is actually pale peach which was surprising to me because I expected it to be exactly like its mother's. Here is a comparison: left is the same flower as above but at the time it first opened; right is a photo of its mother plant's flower. I didn't know it was so variable. Maybe more of them will flower next year so that I can pollinate.

                     

                           

While F. humilis is smaller than F. pulchra in general, proportionally the size of the flower is actually the same, I believe.

Can't help posting another photo of the beautiful F. pulchra (completely living up to its name).

And to finish me off, more F. pulchra flowers are coming. I have counted 6 (six!) buds on the below plant.

Current flowers (7 pics)

I could catch the first Anacampseros flowers of the season recently. Good thing these two seem to be opening their flowers around 6 pm. Perfect timing to witness them after work. Of course the light is not ideal for taking pictures but it's possible to take some eerie atmospheric ones. After all, as you know, Anacampseros flowers open only once and only for a couple of hours at most. You make the best of it.

Both An. lancifolia and An. lanceolata grow very big flowers on long flower stalks. It must be hard to hold them up and so they are a bit droopy. I tried to pollinate both. I think it worked for the white one. The pink one, I don't know. It looked to me like there were no pollen to use. Just look at the picture.

An. lancifolia 

An. lanceolata

For some reason it seems like a good year for Frithias. Not only my old plants have grown flowers (one of them is still at it) but also my own 4 year old seedlings have flowered this year. This is amazing! The two seedlings are grown from seeds under a name of Frithia pulchra f. rubra (from Kakteen-Haage). I know there are red flowering Frithias out there, I saw comparison pics. Looks like what I've got was the regular kind after all. Seeing them bloom for the first time is fascinating nevertheless.

Completely the same color, right? :D I tried to cross-pollinate but don't know if it took. There's one more flower coming up on the second seedling and others growing on another older plant. But the timing is slightly off. We'll see.

Also, you remember these little guys? One of them is growing a flower now, too! It took 5 years!

UPDATE

This just in. The Adenium obesum I grew from seed has opened its first flower ever! Lots of firsts this year! Maybe the long dark winter was not as bad for the plants as I thought :)

Frithia pulchra enjoying the sun (4 pics)

And here's another small update!

The sun is shining and my old Frithia pulchra finally opened its flowers. They only open completely around 11 AM and close again by 1 PM. My second F. pulchra is growing flowers too, but it'll be too late for pollination.

I think the camera overreacts when faced with so much lilac. On the photo it looks like most of the flower is colored in lilac and pink while in reality there is much more white inside and lilac is mostly at the tips. I couldn't catch that. It's beautiful nevertheless. Wonderful plant!

Here is a photo of part of my garden for scale ;)

Update on Crassula rupestris and other news (8 pics)

Before I post more on lithops I just wanted to make a quick update on some other things going on.

You might have seen some of it over on Twitter where I usually post small updates and random photos from the windowsill. Sometimes I'm excited about something but feel like it's not newsworthy enough for the blog. But I like writing here much more.

Remember the Crassula rupestris I was pruning and dividing into cuttings last month? All the pieces have rooted and started to grow new leaves and branches.

This one is overdoing it with the roots.

As you can see the roots are quickly growing. I pulled this one out just to make sure.

I am still waiting for the Frithia pulchra and Frithia pulchra f. rubra seedlings to bloom. Very curious to see if there is a difference between the flower colors.

And two of the Delospermas on my balcony are flowering beautifully. Cold overwintering outside was really beneficial.

Delosperma sp. 'garnet'

Delosperma sutherlandii

Frithia pulchra (3 pics)

In other news, my old Frithia pulchra is growing flowers again this year. Flowers can not be taken for granted on my windowsill. They are rare and don't occur every year. This Frithia however is going to flower 3rd year in a row. It is an old plant and the exposed stem looks almost like some kind of caudex which makes it even more attractive to me.

And, to finish me off, one of my own seedings is growing a flower as well (not visible on this photo but it's there). This one is something called Frithia pulchra f. rubra and I'm very curious to compare the flowers of these two.

Exciting! 

Mites and darkness (9 pics)

It has not been the best year for succulent growers in my area. It has not been cold in winter, it has not been hot in summer. It has been just dark and gloomy all year. When sunny days are rare it means there is not much watering. If waterings are rare there's not much growing. Except for spider mites. Those grow nicely when it's dry. At some point I moved Delospermas outside (those are the most tasty) which improved the situation. But I still find mites on my plants occasionally (and kill them on site with my bare hands) and the damage is visible: nibbled leaves, weakened plants. I hope next year is sunnier and better all in all and the plants can recover.

My favorite and oh so perfect Frithias I was so proud of look like this now. It takes them so long to grow those leaves. Much time will pass until they've outgrown the bite marks. Assumed the attack is over. And yes, I've been spraying a lot which has contributed to the damage on some plants I think.

But Aloinopsis got the most of it. The below two are goners.

This one might recover (very big might) but judging by the size of the newest leaves it is extremely weakened by the overall conditions last year. Maybe I should stop growing Aloinopsis all together or just keep a couple of plants as mite-distraction.

The Antimima pumila started very well and then got bitten. I think it will recover though, after the next resting period. It's a bit elongated, too...

Same as these Titanopsis seedlings. Bugs plus spray plus sudden sunlight equals burn marks in addition to everything else. They should be fine with the new leaves coming. But it pains me to see them so ugly.

I know I might be exaggerating. After all it's just a couple of plants that are beyond saving, out of hundreds. But the lack of sunlight is visible to me in all the green-ness everywhere.

Sure, this cute Titanopsis calcarea is growing flowers (thank you planty!) and I did my best to keep it compact through this dark dark year but the green color says it all. 

PS: Sorry for the dusty pics.

PPS: This got too depressing. I'll be posting about my feel-good plants Anacampseros next :)

It was the summer of our discontent... (7 pics)

I've been prevented from writing new posts by a wild animal that confiscated by laptop :D

Not really. She is being fantastic! :)

What really bothers me is this terrible weather we are having this year. We haven't had any spring and still no summer. It just rains all the time. My plants are lucky if they get one hour of sunlight a day. I'm being very careful with waterings but several lithops are stretching nevertheless. I wonder what makes them do that exactly. If it's dark and they've been watered shouldn't they all stretch?

In this L. schwantesii container you can see that one plant is growing too long while others stay flat.

In this L. lesliei v. hornii (C15) container, one head (!) of a plant is stretching while the other does not. What makes it do that?

L. karasmontana likes to stretch no matter what, no surprises there. It is quite small and the shape will correct itself next year.

What I find strange is that another L. karasmontana (v. aiaisensis C224) in a nearby pot is as flat as it can be.

So what triggers it really? Unlucky watering timing? Or is there something more to it?

In other news, my Frithia pulchra has grown flowers again this year. Unfortunately I still have not seen them fully open because, as I said, there is no sunlight. They open just a little without it, and then close again...

Catching Anacampseros flowers proves to be difficult as well. I keep missing them! It's so annoying. I've missed the biggest and prettiest ones so far.

I'm complaining a lot today XD