Talking about Staghorn or Elkhorn ferns over at the September thread, and so I was reminded of my plant which I gave away ca 15 years ago.
It started out with a tiny seedling my SIL gave me about 1971. It grew and grew!! It spent the Summers outside hanging in our Dogwood tree and eventually wound up in a corner of the living room, and later on filled up a whole window in a back room. I used to flood it carefully inside with towels underneath it!! It got so unmanageable that I took the saw to it ( not easy), kept a piece and gave the mother plant away. This time it grew even faster!! Finally I gave it to a local nursery because I was squeezed out of my back room!
Here is the plant ( from that cutting) in the back room and the fellow from the nursery picking it up. Yes, there is a good size fellow underneath that plant!

Ursula, you could have divided it into a half dozen plants (I know, it is a chore) and sold them to me. Keep that in mind in the future. Other than a few rare staghorns that are specimen size, I have nothing but small ones. I sold every large one I had last December and it will take me a couple of years to get the small ones to that size again.

Now I would certainly send them to you. Then - nobody wanted that plant, so a local nursery chain took it off my hands. ( A friend took the mother plant a couple of years earlier) Unfortunately a few years later this one here succumbed to a scale invasion and poor watering practices under their care. Plants like that need love!
I was sad when they killed that beautiful plant.

Believe me, I know how you felt. Hurricane Katrina took away many of my specimen plants, some of which were 30 years old, and some that are just not found anywhere and could never be replaced. Staghorns are tough as nails and it takes a lot of effort to actually kill one, particularly a mature one with layers of basal fronds.

Orbea variegata -
whenever pieces break off, I stick them into other pots and they just grow. The fancy blooms measure ca 3 inches on diameter. I always imagine a pretty pin made out of one, without the Stapliad- smell of course.

Those are always interesting flowers IF one has no good sense of smell.

Back to house plants since most of my plants have been now carried back inside.
Epiphyllum pumilum opens at night and usually stays open a couple extra hours in the morning. Great if you missed the bloom late in the evening.

I wish I had room to grow the Epi's. I love their flowers.

Ken, this one stays truly small, it is not a space hog at all.

Ursula, I have no clue where I am going to put all I have now. I have just doubled my orchid number (300 new seedlings plus 50 new blooming size plants). I need to stop buying!

I had similar thoughts bringing in the Orchids. In previous years, most of the shelf space in the greenhouse against the house wall housed the smaller C&S, not this year!! This year I gave them a tiny spot on one of the shelves only, I tucked them mostly into the sunroom shelves. The Orchids are spreading.....

Perhaps we both need a "palace" like Jim has and tropical conditions as well.........

Oh yes!!

My orchid greenhouse has a new feature. We'll be moseying north shortly to take care of some business and my potted plants in the lanai are a problem if the rains stop. So I divided them all up or just stuck them in the ground in my water fall bed in the GH. They'll get bigger in there and will surely green up the whole place. I have 13 tiny sprinklers in there and 15 big bags of potting soil on top of lots of garden mulch. Twice a day they'll get 5 minutes of water. I have a chair next to them where I can now sit and relax and watch the my little world grow. Upps, Miltassia Charles M. Fitch snuck in there.

I love it, Fred!!

Nice set-up, Fred.

Epiphyllum strictum bloomed last night. I had taken it inside, since temps were going down to 40 degr F. It was just folding up around 8 am this morning, see last picture.



And the Stapelias are happily blooming


The Adenium obesums were pollinated this Summer on the deck, I see several seed horns developing.

That epiphyllum bloom is just breath-taking, Ursula. Made my day!

Jim

Thank you Jim!
I think Epiphyllums have a lot of charm on their very own and it is not easy to limit oneself to just a few. I always bring the species inside, only phyllanthus and oxypetalum become really huge, strictum and pumilum are small plants in my hands.
The hybrids are now lined up in front of the ( frost free) garage. Soon they go into the garage, with the door open if temps stay above 40 degrees F. during the day. Once it stays cold, the doors stay closed and they just go to sleep. (The Germans used to overwinter them in their dark Coal cellars.)

They sure are lovely. If I had room for any plants in the house (except for blooming orchids retreating from the cold) this one would be it.

Philo Pastazanum, started from a cutting this spring. The urn is 40in. tall to give you perspective. I love this guy.