Today's deep thoughts about plants

[Azuleja]

Yes, all those assassin type bugs have a similar look. Kissing bugs have a hit out on me.

[Azuleja]

The local CSS annual show and sale is this weekend and somehow I managed to almost miss it. Luckily, I saw it in the paper this morning and made it there well after the morning rush. Wow, just wow. It was neat to see what people grow in their backyards. I snapped a few.

[Azuleja]

The sale side was crowded with shoppers and crammed wall to wall with plants. I set a small budget and immediately began scouting for sans. There were exactly two. The woman who grew this was tickled that I even knew what a sansevieria was and I was tickled that it was so nicely grown and $15. She had it labeled as S. cylindrica but it seems to me like a pretty normal looking S. ballyi, no?

[Steph115]

Thanks for sharing these, Azul. Never heard of or seen eulychnia before. The conophytum is particularly striking as well. Glad you made it out!

[Steph115]

And I agree - not sure what it is but doesn't look like cylindrica. I see many sans labeled as cylindrica and have wondered if some vendors simply label all of those with cylindrical leaves as such. Ballyi sounds like a good possibility.

[Gee.S]

The sale side was crowded with shoppers and crammed wall to wall with plants. I set a small budget and immediately began scouting for sans. There were exactly two. The woman who grew this was tickled that I even knew what a sansevieria was and I was tickled that it was so nicely grown and $15. She had it labeled as S. cylindrica but it seems to me like a pretty normal looking S. ballyi, no?

I can just barely tell one from another, but reminds me of S. suffruticosa.

[Azuleja]

Yes, the other one there was labeled as suffruticosa and had a similar look.

[Azuleja]

There was a fairly nice selection of agaves, but nothing I couldn't live without. The aloe selection was modest and most were immature plants and unlabeled. I picked up this one hoping it might be Kelly's Blue. I'm not sure, but we'll see what it grows into.

[Azuleja]

Here's an example of some of the aloes. I do think the plant on the far left in the top photo looks a lot like Princess Jack. Ugh, indoor photos. I know the color is terrible.

[Azuleja]

Lastly, I found the toothy variety of Haworthia venosa tessellata. I've been looking for one of these. They're teeny tiny, that's a 3" pot. There's a whole bunch of them though.

So, no early bird specials for me but lots of fun anyway.

[Azuleja]

I can just barely tell one from another, but reminds me of S. suffruticosa.

From what I can see, suffruticosa begins to lean distichous pretty early on while ballyi stays in a rosette. I think the leaf channel in ballyi is longer, 66-75% of the leaf length according to llifle. Mine doesn't look like it's going to be distichous. If it did, I'd want it upright. The longest leaves are 6-8 inches, a little longer than normal for ballyi.

[Gee.S]

CYLINDRICAL LEAVES IN ROUGH ROSETTES
The leaves protrude all around in a visually haphazard manner in this group, which includes but is not limited to suffruticosa, gracilis, humbertiana, bagamoyensis, caulescens, volkensii, philippsiae and intermedia.

SUFFRUTICOSA
Prostrate branching main stem 24”-30” long branch covered in leaf-scales which gradually turn into 7-8 leaves up to 18” long per growth. Leaves are cylindrical, tipped with a brown spine, and clasp or encircle the main stem in irregular rosettes. Color consists of alternate bandings of light and dark green on rough textured skin. Horizontally borne branches terminate in individual plants often carried a few inches above the soil and anchored by means of stilt roots put down by the new plant. Babies may be separated from parent at any time, give no indication of needing special encouragement to cause them to root. They often root into the pots of other plants.

My suffruticosa is very much larger than S. ballyi, and aligns well with S. cylindrica in terms of size.

[Azuleja]

Hey, cool description. Thanks!

[Azuleja]

Steph, here is how my A. utahensis eborispina is looking these days. It lost a whole row of leaves but hasn't shown signs of losing any more in several months now. I didn't think it was growing, but comparison photos show that it has. Such a beautiful plant, hopefully it's not doomed.

It gets direct sun in the morning, oak filtered light midday and shade in the afternoon.

[Steph115]

Azul - looking good! No leaf loss in months is awesome. Sounds like you're home free from the repotting and the spines are looking fierce.

[Azuleja]

I don't know what my deep thought is today. Check plants more carefully before buying I guess. I did go back to HD for Aloe 'Erik the Red' after seeing it on sale over the weekend. Two days ago there were about six of them. Today there were only two and one was in really bad shape, so really there was only one. I was more conscious about checking for overwatering and rot than anything else. It wasn't until I was home unloading it that I saw the aloe cancer. I had tied it in the back of the truck bed but it still fell over. That turned out to be a blessing because I got a good look in between the lowest leaves. I never even unloaded it. I cut it up and put it straight into garbage bags. I'm bummed about wasting a trip to town but was fortunate enough to be able to get a refund over the phone.

[Agavemonger]

Gosh; with all the chemicals you have you could have easily taken care of this small infestation!

The Monger

[Spination]

While that is true, it would have to be a very special, rare, expensive, hard to acquire plant these days for me to knowingly bring a plant into my collection affected with mites. While risk of spreading might be very small within a short time-frame, even small risk is too much for me as far as i'm concerned. I respect the decision to not take any risk bringing in an infected plant and avoid the hassle and worry altogether.

[Azuleja]

As far as I know, my existing plants are all clean and pest free. They've come from many sources but have all been through numerous rotations of spraying by now. There's no new plant I want bad enough to bring home an obvious case of mites. The hassle isn't worth it to me.

Normally when I check for mites I look closely at the growing core. This group of aloes looked clean. The galls were actually forming on the leaf margins where they attach to the stem, and unlike agaves they were appearing on older growth well below the crown of the plant. Not what I was expecting.

[Stone Jaguar]

I agree completely. It's one thing to bring something desirable that is asymptomatic for these pests into an established succulent collection that gets quarantined and treated prophylactically, quite another to knowingly introduce a potential "Typhoid Mary".

[Stan]

One deep thought is..either a greenhouse or move to Sonora Mexico to grow some of those outdoors all year. Warm, dry, 80f in January.
The other is - I think the Aloe I posted as maybe Erik the Red a few months ago? Its in full bloom again. Not one or two..but nearly as thick as spring. Fronting somebody's home.
Third thought- My Aloe tongaensis has blossom buds on it. First time since 2014 and before it was attacked by mealys and maybe some gopher all at the same time. I fought back with water and cleanliness..not enough,I went to Bayer last year. Today I see buds. Last it bloomed was April 2014. So,either it changed its schedule,or its going to be a long slow all winter development.

[Azuleja]

Now that the sun has dropped on the horizon, it shines below my shade cloth. I've had more sunburn lately than I did all summer.

[Gee.S]

Yeah, now and early spring are tough for sunburn, since our plants never get a chance to adapt to these transitional sun angles. I have to go out and move a bunch of potted plants now, because they're getting a little too toasty.

[Azuleja]

I've mostly left mine but have been watching them closely.

Hey, what happened to stoppowderymildewnow

[Gee.S]

Mildew got him. It wasn't pretty.