Impatience Rewarded: Blooming Clivia

Quite a few years ago, (seven seems about right) when I had a short-lived passion for growing houseplants from seed, I bought six Clivia miniata seeds on eBay. I dutifully planted them all, each in separate pots.  Surprisingly, all germinated.  At first, I tried to find an optimum location for the six pots, but frankly, they got shunted about quite a bit in favor of plants that I liked better.  Locations that were both cool and brightly lit were at a premium in my house.  Clivia seedlings aren't the most exciting plants in the world, and I figured it would be several years until they got big enough to flower, if indeed they ever did.  And the six pots were a pain. After a while, I stopped caring. They were in lousy soil, and needed to be repotted. I frequently forgot to water.  They spent years under lights in the basement.

Finally, I decided to plant the four healthiest seedlings in one big pot, and just be content with a large plant with dark glossy leaves. Then last spring I put the pot outdoors, mostly to get it out of the way.

This is what happened:

Clivia blooms from one of four separate plants in the same pot.  Three different views.

I'm curious to see if any of the others bloom, and what the colors will look like.  According to the seller of the seeds,  the parent plant had dark orange, nearly red flowers. But even if they are the usual orange, like the blooms pictured above, I'll be happy.  The plant will be happy too. It has a nice spot in my kitchen window this winter, with good soil and regular watering.

Blooming Sans--I Won't Miss It This Time

The last time I wrote about one of my Sansevieria, it was because my Sansevieria francisii had flowered without my knowing it, and all I had left as evidence was a spent flower stalk and two seed pods.

My Sanseveria hargesiana also flowered earlier this year, and I missed that as well. It is not that I'm unobservant; I just have a few succulent plants tucked in out-of-the-way places. I don't check on them daily, or even weekly, since they don't need water all that often. It isn't the best cultural practice, but that's what happens sometimes when you're a crazy plant lady. A sane person would know that if you can't check on them easily, you probably have too many. Ah well, sanity is not all it is cracked up to be.

But I'm not going to miss the show this time. Look at what I spotted on my S. hargesiana earlier this week:

Sansevieria hargesiana flower stalk. The buds are not yet open, but they are getting close.

Picture of the whole plant, for reference. The leaves are a bit elongated, due to some time spent previously in a low light situation.

It has been months since I've been able to get a good picture of my cats with any of my plants. But when I put this plant on the floor in the hallway, so that I could photograph it, both of my little monsters had to check it out.

Luke checks the integrity of my potting mix (commercial mix amended with perlite and turface)...

while Peppermint checks to see if the planter is terra cotta or plastic. (It's terra cotta)

Having the cats in the pictures also gives a good idea of the size of this plant, which I've had for ten years or so. It's a big one.

Sometimes, Laziness Pays Off

Last year, I bought two unidentified Phalaenopsis orchids on clearance. One had yellow flowers, the other had flowers in a multicolored pink/peach pattern. The flowers lasted for months, and after the show was over, I left the flower stalks on the plant. This wasn't because I was hoping that they'd bloom again on those stalks, as I've never had that happen with any of the Phals I've owned previously. I just didn't get around to it. I figured I'd cut them off once they started to turn brown. But that never happened; they stayed firm and green, and did nothing, until recently, when one did this:

NoId Phalaenopsis blooming on old flower stalk. I never even removed the old stake.

Flower and bud up close

And the other one did this:

New branch on old flower stalk

Closer view of the new branch, with what I hope are new flower buds. Again, I had never bothered to remove the old support.

Orchids are still a bit of a mystery to me. I pamper them, and they die. I ignore them, and they surprise me with flowers and growth.

I Missed One--Blooming Jade

When I was photographing plants for bloom day this past Monday, I forgot to take pictures of one of the plants I really wanted to share.

I'm not completely sure which Crassula species this plant belongs to, but I believe that it is some form of Crassula arborescens, maybe C. arborescens 'Blue Bird.'

Blooming Crassula variety. The flowers were washed out quite a bit by the flash.

Not very clear shot showing the pink color of the petals. After several attempts at photographing these flowers, it seemed that I could achieve color, or clarity, but not both.

Whole plant

I have several Jade plants, which I love, and grow, for their foliage and form. I love flowers as much as the next person, but they are almost always secondary for me as an indoor plant grower. The plants I grow strictly for flowers, like Hibiscus, Hippeastrum, and jungle cacti, are the exceptions that prove the rule.

But Crassula ovata and Crassula arborescens are reluctant bloomers in home culture, so it is a little exciting when they do so. My Crassula ovata 'Gollum' flowered during November a couple of years ago. It is a large plant, and there was one tiny flower cluster on one branch.

Crassula ovata 'Gollum' blooms from November of '08. The flowers were white, and I had a hard time capturing a clear picture with my old camera.

Crassula ovata 'Gollum' whole plant, photographed in November 2009

I realize that even though my love for foliage is the primary reason I choose and grow plants, a lot of my blog posts focus on flowers. That is probably for two reasons. The first is that flowers are photogenic (mostly--I've already demonstrated in this post that getting good shots of them is sometimes problematic.) The second is that flowers demonstrate a plant doing something. Sometimes it is hard to come up with something to write about if your subjects just sit around not doing anything. You know, like houseplants.

Epi Encore

Late last May, I posted about my Epiphyllum 'David W. Grant', which was putting on an unprecedented blooming extravaganza. There were twelve flowers in all. Well, Mr. Grant has taken the stage again, this time with only a single bloom. But since there have been several years when this plant didn't flower at all, I'm especially pleased with the repeat performance in 2010.

Epiphyllum 'David W. Grant' from three different angles

After a summer spent hanging in the tree outdoors, Mr. Grant is back in his usual spot in the spare room. (AKA the "Cats' Room", since that is where we keep their litter boxes and other accoutrements.) Perhaps, after a winter with the same care as last year, there will be a return engagement next May.

Oops! Another Bloom Day Got Past Me

Once again, I missed Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day on the 15th. But since I still have plenty of plants putting on a show in my outdoor garden, I thought I would post some pictures anyway.

From the front yard:

This Rubeckia hirta, which has been in its second bloom cycle of the year for more than a month, has acquired a white ring on the petals as it ages.

Chysanthemum cultivar. I love the orange color.

More Chrysanthemums, which have flopped over a bit. Next year, I might try to keep them trimmed back early in the year ("knee high until the fourth of July") to produce more upright, compact plants. Besides, the cuttings root easily, so I'll have more plants.

A solitary late Lychnis coronaria bloom

We have a new bed in the backyard, which has been a couple of years in the making. Our yard is sloped, so my husband built a retaining wall so that we could have a level bed in this area. However, getting it finished and planted hasn't been our priority until recently. So for about a year, anytime I repotted or discarded a plant, the old potting mix got dumped into the bed. Then when we did decide to finish, we added bagged soil, peat and compost, and Bob tilled everything together with the native soil. The result is a rich, but looser planting medium than the heavy black clay soil on the rest of our property. That, combined with a warm fall, has resulted in fast growth and reblooming of plants that might normally have been done for the season. This is especially gratifying, since along with the fresh new perennials, I purchased some rather ragged discount plants in August, and I wasn't expecting much from them until next year.

From the backyard:

Sedum 'Autumn Fire'

Gallardia x grandiflora 'Dazzler' with some Nepeta x faassenii 'Blue Wonder' (Catmint) on the left.

Another shot of the Gaillardia

Salvia 'May Night,' still going strong in October. I only wish that my Salvia plants out front were this prolific.

Another view of the Salvia, showing part of the wall that Bob built

The Salvia, Nepeta and Gaillardia have been attracting lots and lots of bees for the past few weeks. My stepson Dave, who is my go-to guy for insect identification, tells me that they are honeybees, which makes me happy and hopeful.

Bringing In, Bringing On the Blooms

Maybe they are feeling a bit stressed by the change in the environment, since they've been brought indoors where it is warmer and less sunny. Maybe it is just the right time of year. But anyway, several of my succulents have decided that now is the time for producing flowers.

Aloe 'Doran Black'

Aloe greenii x lineata with bloom stalk. This will be the first time this plant has flowered in the four years I've owned it.

Unidentified Euphorbia. This is the third round of buds since early spring for this plant.

I meant to cut the rosette of this Echeveria runyonii from its leggy stem to re-root, but never got around to it. Small offsets are forming at the base of the stem.

E. runyonii blooms up close. It is hard to get a good picture because of the reflective nature of the plant's glaucous coating, which is why the flowers seem washed out in both pictures. They are much more orange in person. Also your blogger needs hand lotion, since her fingertips appear to have developed a glaucous coating of their own.

Echeveria 'Black Prince' just getting started. Its flowers will be red-orange, if I recall correctly.

Unidentified Echeveria. The "rosette" to the left is actually atop a bloom stalk, which is hard to see at this angle. I think this will be the first time for flowers from this plant.

One thing that makes me think that it just happens to be blooming season, for the Aloes at least, is a recent trip to the Chicago Botanic Gardens, where their grouping of Aloe thraskii either in bud or in flower.

Aloe thraskii group at the CBG earlier this year

Plants in bud yesterday, with a blooming Yucca (I think) in the background

Closer pictures of an A. thraskii in bud

Plant in bloom

Finally, at least one cat's curiosity got the better of him during today's photo session:

Luke says "Hi!"

You Never Know What You Are Going to Get

Plant genetics can take some surprising turns, even when one doesn't crossbreed plants on purpose. A few days ago, I posted a picture of the lovely Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, (New England Aster) that popped up in my garden unbidden last year.

Volunteer Symphyotrichum novae-angliae

Well, I collected some seeds from that plant last fall. They produced several seedlings, only one of which I managed to plant in my garden (or so I thought).

The result was this:

Blue and pink Asters. In person, the flowers on the right are a deeper shade of pink without the hint of purple seen in the photograph.

As far as I can tell, this is only one plant with two different colored flowers, though it is remotely possible that there were actually two seedlings that came up too close together to notice (or separate) when I was planting them. While I would find the former really cool, (and really surprising) if there are indeed two plants here, the all seeds still all came from the one blue-flowered original. Asters are much beloved by bees and butterflies, so I'm sure that open-pollination contributed some genetic diversity to my plants.

At any rate, I'm going to collect seeds again this year, from the original plant, and from the both the blue and pink flowers here, and see what happens.

What's a Blogger to Do...

...when she's stuck for a topic? It seems that in the last couple of weeks, nothing particularly interesting has been happening here among the leaves. The succulents outdoors are soaking up their last few days of sunshine before they are brought in for the season. The outdoor garden is winding down. The houseplants indoors are looking happy, but for the most part aren't blooming or putting out any noteworthy new growth. Fortunately, none of my plants are experiencing setbacks or infestations or anything bad either, so I can't really complain. My schedule hasn't allowed for much plant-shopping or conservatory visits recently. Most frustratingly, for some reason, my creative juices just aren't flowing when it comes to thinking up interesting topics to blog about.

So what am I going to do? Rather than waiting for either my plants or my brain to jump start themselves, while the interval between posts grows ever longer, I went looking through my photo collection. I found a few plant pictures that I like, but somehow didn't make it into previous posts.

Anemone at the Chicago Botanic Garden, from April. I entered a similar photo in the CBG's spring contest, then discovered that two other people had entered shots of the same flower. I guess we pretty much canceled each other out.

Variegated Hoya carnosa leaves, from the smaller of my two plants

Aechmea 'Blue Tango' from the CBG

Epipremnum 'Marble Queen' cuttings, rooting in water, the result of a pruning mishap. I meant to cut off one stem, and somehow ended up removing several. These have since rooted and been potted up.

Helenium variety, from my garden

Cissus discolor, climbing up some sort of utility pole at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. This plant is on my "never-again" list, but will always love it.

x Gastworthia 'Royal Highness' from the CBG. At least that is what the tag said. The pictures of Gasterworthia/Gasterhaworthia 'Royal Highness' I've seen on the web have thicker leaves, and aren't variegated.

Another from the CBG. Unidentified Sempervivum displayed as a companion plant to a large bonsai.

Seed grown Linum perenne, (Flax) from my garden this past June

My Crassula 'Campfire' in its bold summer coloration

And finally,

I've got my eye on you

(As always, click pictures for larger versions. I recommend it for the Hoya, Helenium and Crassula, and maybe for the Gaster-whatever and Anemone as well.)