And we got blooms... Woo Hoo!

more pics from around the yard...

Well, last Monday, my day off... I was out in the yard working and decided I'd take some pics of what's happening out there... The M. sonorensis v. craigii is just starting to bloom... Click on that link to see the whole plant and other stuff about it... This is one of the plants that I was really worried about. I didn't think it was going to make it through the winter, but it managed, although there is some dammage visible on the plant. I'm not gonna worry about it too much, I don't look as good as I used to either. We call it character.

Now, some of you may remember this plant from the absolute worst packing job ever...

This is one of five that I got in the mail... this one was outside to test hardiness, while the other 5 stayed inside for the winter. I really really thought I lost this one... after the last snow, I checked him, and the center growing tip was dark, almost black. I figured rot had set in. Turns out, not so much. He's just fine.

And the Yucca aloifolia... is blooming too... 2 stalks are up and open, and 1 is just starting out. Remarkable things aren't they?

And that's about it...

Mom came to spend the night yesterday, and left today about 2 PM, so I spent the rest of the afternoon doing yard work... specifically the front yard. The alley still isn't finished, but it's an alley, the front yard is what everybody sees and it desperately needed some attention. After about 3 or 4 hours, I'd achieved quite a bit, and then, since the sun had softened down, I decided I would take some pics... Not much new here, and they're in no particular order, but I was more having fun than anything else...

Here's the Sweet Williams, in full bloom now...

And here's the M. sonorensis ssp. craigii, even though the blooms were bigining to shut down for the night...

And here's Phennig, keeping watch for any mockingbirds in the curly willow tree ...

And this is a shelf that I rigged against the fence in the back yard... it gets the perfect amount of sun for the cactus & succulents, and as rough as it looks, it still looks better than the bare fence... It'll do until I can get something better there... you can see some Agave americana pups that I've potted up on the left. I'm waiting for them to root good, then I'll take em to the flea market to sell for a couple bucks each.

And here's another tray of succulents that I'm doing the same thing with. The Echeverias keep producing baby's and my friends run when they see me with one... so, off to the flea market they go... Not turning any profit on them, but at least they have some chance of finding a good home.

And I don't know if you remember me telling you about the abandoned crown of thorn plant that I found on my front step in a previous post... well, he's been repotted, and he's growing and blooming. Kinda cute... and that's the pachypodium beside it...

And here's on of my Sempervivum's going haywire in the pot tower...

And that's it.

Hope everybody out there had a wonderful weekend!

Later...

Finally, the sun came out today... the rain was pretty much over yesteday, but no sun, and 45 degrees... Today, it got up to 80, and I loved every minute of it... really, when it comes right down to it, I'm a lizard. I kind of like the heat. Of course, come July and August, don't even try to remind me of that statement, because I'll come back, delete this post and swear you're insane.

But the sun and heat did finally prompt the Mammillaria sonorensis v. craigii to start opening it's buds... still not in it's full glory, but starting to put on a good show...

And a few Sweet Williams started to open up also... I planted this ones ancestors about 6 years ago, and there always seems to be a few around now...

And of course, since Julie showed off her tire planters, I just had to show off mine... You might remember this planter from when I illustrated how to make them in a post last year... click the tag under the posts and you'll find it. I'll take a better pic after I get the mulching and stuff done that I want. In there is an agave, one of the variagated A. americanas, but I don't know which one as I got it from one of those sellers on the side of the road. There's also an O. microdasys and a little sempervivum... I thought the Optunia, with it's little yellow dots would look good against the Agave with it's yellow stripes... both of these plants will get quite big. The sempervivum will spread out to make a ground cover almost, especially if I keep pulling chicks off the others in the yard and planting them in here...

Hope everyone is having a great spring!

The first cactus bloom of the season! This will get more impressive over the next few days, as more buds open and the flowers, idealy, form a ring around the plant, but it's a cheerful little bloom, isn't it?

Back to the plants...

Well, it's definitely time to get back to the prickly plants on this blog... Spring is here, within a few weeks there will be not even the remote chance of a frost. The first pic is of three different prickly pears... the two that are in the same post were started as single pads, and have grown up to the point that this spring or early summer, I'll probably separate them. The purple one, by the way, is not a Santa Rita... it's O. gossiliana, a plant that is often sold as Santa Rita... It did turn purple with the winter cold, but the pads are usually silvery gray. The new growth is even darker purple which fades to green... which I'm told is the primary way to separate the species. On a Santa Rita - the growth starts out green and turns purple after it grows up. It doesn't really matter, I like the thing anyway...
These next two were planted outside on March 30, 2008 - here's the link to the original post when that happened, so that you can see they've definitely grown in almost a year... http://lpfleamarket.blogspot.com/2008/03/winter-hardy-cactus.html
The first is an Echinocactus texensis, common name of Texas Horse Crippler. (How it got that name is in the above post, so I'm not gonna repeat it here.) Of course, if you look at the tag, it says Texas Lace Cactus. I think that's supposed to be a politically correct 'nice' name. I've never heard it before I saw it on this tag thought... It's about doubled in size, but it's still probably not big enough to bloom...

The next plant, I was afraid I was gonna lose this winter. Mammillaria sonorensis v. craigii... misidentified in the above post as a M. meiacantha... The thing is, this species isn't supposed to survive our winters here... All the references I checked say it's not hardy above zone 9 and I'm on the line between zone 7 & zone 8. Here's a link that shows this plant covered with ice this winter... http://lpfleamarket.blogspot.com/2009/01/well-i-finally-crawled-out-to-see-what.html

Well, not only did it survive, if you look close, you can see flower buds beginning to emerge.

So, it looks like I'll have some pics for you... I've never been able to predict blooms on Mamms though. Sometime it'll look like another week before they open, and they'll explode the next day. Other times I practically wait for a full bud to open and it'll take a week. Kind of annoying... but I'll keep my eyes open for pics.