daily news and photography about cacti and succulents
and some california natives too
"Drolly entertaining and informative at the same time." CSM
Euphorbia amygdaloides “Purpurea”
The foliage changes color throughout the year: Green in spring, deep burgundy in summer, ruby-purple in fall. Lime-green bloom sprays start showing up in spring and last through the summer.
And thus concludes Spurge Week at the CactusBlog.
Euphorbia amygdaloides v. robbiae
These are a larger, greener leaf than a lot of the other spurges we carry. But the blooms are just starting to open, so that’s very exciting. They’ll be green, or slightly yellow.
These are a low growing spurge – only 18″, but they do send out a slow spreading rhizome. Easy to keep contained but will form a dense, lush fabric of leafy goodness.
Euphorbia “Redwing” is a hybrid spurge, as if you didn’t know that. It is very similar to Euphorbia characias, but for the red bloom structures. I wonder what those are called?
And it is hybridized from… E. amygdaloides x E. martinii, which we learned yesterday is a hybrid from E. amygdaloides and E. characias. Very interesting.
The unique characteristic of this variety is the red flower stems, which were green last fall, but turn bright red in late winter, even before the profusion of chartreuse or as some would say sulfur-yellow blooms in spring. I had to get down on the ground to capture the foliage under those all-encompassing blooms. These turn out to be quite attractive to bees. Yay!
Euphorbia x martinii – I don’t know what this is a cross between, so let me look it up. As it is there are dozens of cultivars of this hybrid. I’ll bet it’s one of the German hybrids. Well, the answer is as simple as it appears: E. amygdaloides x E. characias. Now you know.
Science!
Euphorbia Characias ssp. wulfenii
Now that’s a showy spurge, but quite restrained in it’s mature size of only around 2 to 3 feet tall.
All the euph’s are blooming, so I was thinking maybe this could be spurge week. What do you think?
Anigozanthos viridis “Phar Lap” has the most sparkling aqua buds, that open into these deep rich green blooms. Tantalizing…
(From Central Mexico)
Sometimes a day is a little brighter than the rainclouded overcast sky would allow; in the simple pleasures like this fat, long-leafed succulent.
Pachyphytum longifolium
Photo of a mature specimen in habitat.
Anigozanthos “Bush Diamond”
These are the most subtle of the colors of Kangaroo Paws I have ever seen. And by subtle, I mean nobody ever buys them, and yet here I am putting them out again.
Will I never learn?!?
No! I will not ever learn! I like them and that’s enough for me.
Click on the image to see the much bigger version. Get right close in and see all those beautiful subtle hairs on those blooms.
An older photo for a rainy day. This shot of Yucca elata blooms was taken in my front yard 6 years ago, on a sunnier day.
The plant outgrew it’s space, so we dug it up and divided it, and then it all sold. Our beautiful parent plant had taken up too much space, and was sent off to the potted backyards of the Bay Area.
Yucca elata
Yes, I know, aloe week was last week. And yet the aloes keep blooming. What am I supposed to do, ignore them?
This Aloe humilis isn’t even blooming yet, but look at that crazy stalk. And if you look deep into the rosette, you’ll see another one coming.
Aloe striata is one of the most popular aloes worldwide.
I don’t actually know that. In fact I just made it up on the spot. I blame Joe Biden.
The aloe blooms keep coming! And so do the hummingbirds.
Aloe “Yellow Torch” is an A. arborescens hybrid and quite stunning to boot.
I’m reposting this photo of a Hoya Kerii, for no reason that I can think of.
I named it Binghampton, after a friend in grad school who had gone to SUNY undergrad. It was a bit yellow around the edges, but still perfectly serviceable.
Anyway, this is not that aloe.
But this is the end of Aloe week. Maybe I’ll post more aloes next week, or the week after, you never know what’s going to happen around here. But the officially sponsored events surrounding aloe week are now come to an end.
Aloe “Johnson’s Hybrid” in our new rice hull eco-pots. It’s one of the many species of grass aloes. Grows in large clumps that look like grass, until they send up the bloom stalks with orange tubular blooms. Then it looks more like a Kniphofia, or “Red Hot Poker”, so to speak.
Aloe Week continues at the Jungle.
Aloe spinosissima is a low-growing, mounding, readily-offsetting good choice for your front yard.
Aloe cryptopoda is a beautiful solitary, stemless aloe native from Swaziland to Mozambique and Mpumalanga.
Babies are fan-shaped.
Adults are round, with recurved leaves, to 3 ft. tall.
And the blooms are luscious in the morning dew. Usually yellow with some orange, sometimes more chartreuse.
It’s Aloe week here at the jungle and I’m so excited I could putsch, so to speak. And we start off with an unknown species. Yay!
We don’t know what species this aloe is. It looks kind of like A. “Crosby’s Prolific” but it’s not. As aloes change a lot as they grow, it can be very hard to ID them when they’re small. For one thing, we don’t know how big this will get, or if it will form a trunk.
What we do know is that it has offsets when small, so it is probably stemless. And it is a winter grower.
We’ll know more as they grow, and especially when they bloom.
Euphorbia “Red Wing”
Now that’s what I call chartreuse sepals, etc…
Osteospermum ‘Soprano Lilac Spoon’
We only have these for mixed spring baskets, and it’s early for it to bloom, but Wow!
