@mcvansoest and thanks for locating an A. Octopus to post here for us. It's a quite a unique specimen. We are looking forward to learning about more of these beautiful desert plants.

AG, your bargain plants are huge. Trixy is a nice specimen as well. Thanks for sharing.

mcvansoest from a fellow Dutch person (moved here permanently in 2005). I also love the A. vilmoriniana. I am growing a pup right now.

Thijs! Looking forward to more pictures of cool plants.

Photos here of an Aeonium hybrid (same plant, just different spots). First one just waking up after the rain (rosettes are twice as big as they were a week ago). Second one (full sun) never really went dormant. Third one (half day sun) also never went dormant.

@mcvansoest Thanks for posting the octopus. Such a fun plant. Also AgaveGirl yours are looking great.

Here is my little babe. Well, maybe not little but young. I got it last spring for a $1.50. I could not pass that up.

gg5 said:Audrey love your avatar! Very pretty

Thank you! It is one of my favorite pots right now.

Audrey Your avatar is very pretty. You do have an eye for putting together great looking containers. I love the round one peeping out in the background of your photo of your bargain agave. Of course, I love the red pot combo with the agave too.

Baja love the aeonium!
Audrey love your agave also!
Welcome to ATP and the succulent chat Tice! sorry easier for me to remember how to spell if I americanize it

Hi all, I see we are on page 6 for the new year. I have been sick so I missed the beginning of the year. I had to make a stop to the phamacy today and of course I had to buy a plant. But I could only stand up long enough to buy one plant. I am still weak.

I killed this plant years ago when I bought one if anyone know what these plant need to survive please share your care instructions with me.

Deebie said:Audrey Your avatar is very pretty. You do have an eye for putting together great looking containers. I love the round one peeping out in the background of your photo of your bargain agave. Of course, I love the red pot combo with the agave too.

Thank you Deebie. The round one peaking around the corner is the back side of planter in my avatar photo. It is packed full for winter. In the spring everything will be shuffled around.

Cinta said:Hi all, I see we are on page 6 for the new year. I have been sick so I missed the beginning of the year. I had to make a stop to the phamacy today and of course I had to buy a plant. But I could only stand up long enough to buy one plant. I am still weak.

I killed this plant years ago when I bought one if anyone know what these plant need to survive please share your care instructions with me.

Get better soon Cinta The plant on the left I have bought twice in a two inch size and it fried both times. Either they need more shade than I gave them or more water I treated them the same as my echeverias and that was not good enough for them. They did have next to no root structure both times and was in a peat moss base, so maybe they were already on their way out before I got them. I am still new to the lithops so the jury is still out on that one.

Hi Cinta hope you are feeling better! I have not had luck with split rocks (of any variety) someone I met recently said that you should NOT water them at all unless they're blooming, she said you can lightly mist them if they begin to look too wrinkled but otherwise nothing at all (that is challenging for me since I thought I had to water them a bit to get them to bloom but I guess not!)

Good Morning gang

Baja as always quite an enviable and impressive display of succulents. You have quite a touch for them.

Lithops Yeah. Right. Tried them myself. What a PITA! Looked on every plant website, Wikipedia, and growing instructions for them I could find. Talk about plant homicides. I felt so bad as the little things were darling and showed such promise and were (operative word) growing so nice. And then the inevitable.

My baby toes looked wonderful, got long, flowered I DID what they said about watering but they died. I had 3 split rocks. Looked gorgeous. Got bigger. Split multiple times. Were nice and green and then 2 of them literally keeled over. They were rotten and mushy at the base. I have one now that is still splitting but I can see it is getting 'darker' in color although I haven't given it water for months.

The only thing I have left is a small pot of stone faces which have gotten taller and are looking nice...I guess, think, hope I watered them barely and forgot about them for months. They're fine but looking a little shrivel so I may give them an eye dropper or two of water as I'm convinced that's all they can handle for a year!

They're so cute. They're so novel. They're so not for me. I resist the urge to buy them any time I see them as I feel just miserable killing things I really DO try to lavish T.L.C. on. Here's a picture of them when they were healthy. I did separate them and put each species in its own pot as I didn't think they're watering needs were compatible. They seemed to do better for awhile but now all that is left is the one split rock and the stone faces.


the two things I do know about them is they need and incredibly bright light and very, very, very, little water. The fact yours is in a pot with a succulent that requires water regularly may have something to do with its condition? Just a guess. I honestly can't say and don't know---especially since I have one left because the other two rotted. I saw both it and the succulent were purple/redish. It looks like they put a food coloring or dye in the water to turn them that color for aesthetic purposes. They are normally a really pale-light green with very little dark speckling on top.

If you'd like something cute, fun and petite (for a long time) I'd recommend a Fairytale Cactus (Acanthocereus tetragonus). Mine is outdoors in the 'bubble bed' and has been thriving in only 1/2 a day sun and 1/2 a day shade. This seems to work fine in both Winter and Summer. I believe they do make fun indoor plants in a nice sunny window (not blazing hot.)

This little Fairtale cactus has been such a doll to me, . It is virtually maintenance free, has taken our cold nights BEING COVERED and even tolerated our torrential downpours for 3 days on end and is thriving! I have good drainage.

Even when this plant is fully mature I don't think it gets above 2-3 feet tall although it will spread. The cool thing about that is you can separate it and start a whole bunch more.

Now you may want to check on indoor growing versus outdoors but mine is outdoors and has been there for about 7 months from May-present so it has experienced the extremes in AZ temps.

Gotta go for the day but forgot this one for you also.

This is a fun low maintenance plant that I adore. It is one of the favorite in my garden. It is in the Eve's Needle family I do believe but this is a low profile plant to start, colonizes, grows easy and tolerates hot temperatures and a fair amount of rain providing the soil is well draining. If you like to be rewarded with things that grow fast this is a great plant!

Extreme blazing sun hitting it all day is not advised but mostly sunny with a little shade is fine. It grows quick has few needles (but will get them usually towards the base) and you can easily break off pieces to start a new plant. Also when 'stressed' through cold or heat it turns a beautiful orange red on the tips.

This is Austrocylindropuntia subulata monstrose.











Talk to you all tomorrow. Have a great day everyone.
AG

I'm really surprised to see your Austrocylindropuntia subulata monstrose doing so well in the sea of gravel! It looks like it would sunburn badly or freeze in winter. Your area must be much warmer than where we are. We've been down to 20 degrees this year.

Cinta, the key with the split rocks (Pleiospilos) is to allow the soil to dry out before watering, then water well. I have managed to keep a Pleiospilos going for years given this treatment. The flowers have a lovely smell. If you put the plant in a larger pot or community pot then make sure it's not deep, and the mix needs to have excellent drainage (like 50% or more rock). Don't deprive the plant of water (ie. don't let it sit there bone dry for extended periods) or you will stress it out and make it more likely to just plain fail when it does eventually get water.

You all make me want to try the split rock plants again. I've had epic failures 3 or 4 times in my life.

Thank you all for the get well and help with growing instructions.

I have only tried this plant once. The year I purchased it was in the summer. I placed it on the porch and watered it maybe once a month. It lived all summer and did but did not flower. As usual I brought it inside for the winter. It lived on a window sill with the other succulents all winter. The following summer I put it outside again on the porch and before summer was over it died.

@AgaveGirl1 said.................................
"I saw both it and the succulent were purple/redish. It looks like they put a food coloring or dye in the water to turn them that color for aesthetic purposes. They are normally a really pale-light green with very little dark speckling on top."

No that is the color both plants should be. The split rock is Pleiospilos Nelii Royal Flush, and the other plant in the pot is Anacampseros telephiastrus 'sunrise'. The sunrise plant I have had one for years and I know it loves water. It just happened to be in the pot because it was available for a few minutes until I can get it into a combo pot. I plan to put this split rock in a pot by itself.

I like succulents that have color and hunt them out if they have color leaves vs green because I like to do colorful combo pots.

Thank you sooo much for your suggestions and instructions.

Hello Thijs! Welcome to ATP!

Cinta, sorry to hear you are feeling sick! As for your new additions, you have to separate the plant on the left of your photo, it has a different requirement than the Split rock. I cannot really say how to properly care for Split rock, it is one of my nemesis! But on the few times I managed to grow it, got to keep it dry, keep in shallow, rocky media. I can never gauge when to have that plant watered properly..well..less is better as always especially in winter. As much as I love that plant's appearance, I have stayed away..it frustrates me big time!

The plant on the left, an anacampseros is much easier to handle. In my area, it often blooms at the height of summer, very bright light but with our furnace heat, best to give it some shade.. During winter, it seems to enjoy our cool, rainy outdoor, but I have planted it in a very well draining media. For now keep it in a bright spot area, till it acclimates in your area nicely.

Hi Cinta,
Sorry to hear you are not well. Hope you feel better soon.

That's soo cool! I had o idea the split rocks came in purple I knew succulents did as well as a lot of other colors naturally but I had no idea about the split rocks. Awesome. Quite a little statement maker. Good luck with getting it to thrive. I hope your guy fairs better than most of ours.

With succulent I hadn't seen one quite so dark so I erroneously assume that the 2 plants were together and they were giving them food color to make them look appealing. Shows you what I know right?

I think I'll leave Baja to help you out there. He knows far more about anything that's a succulent than I do.

Now if you want some advice on how to fry things to a crisp in the sun I can help you out there for sure!

Plantmanager:
Yes we are quite a bit warmer than you. I noticed you were zone 7B where I'm a zone 9B.
I'm in low Sonoran desert. I'm not sure what NM's climate is like or how similar. Beautiful place from what I could see (loved the mesas!) when I drove through it on my way here but I haven't been there yet to visit or explore. You'll have to fill me in on your conditions and let me know how similar or different they are.

Here's my 'weather' conditions

I get 2-7% humidity yearly. This summer we had a few days of humidity up to 15% and were crying although the plants loved it.

Our rainfall is odd. We get none, none, none, or it spits a few drops of mud and disappears before it hits the ground or we get large spans of wet where it will literally be a torrential downpour for 3 or 4 days and not stop. (Flash flood conditions in some areas). Depends on time of year.

Our temps have been below normal right now and we've had the coldest Nov through present on record. Yesterday it was 52 when it should have been about 64. Evenings now should be in the 40s but have been in the 30s.

I've had to cover my plants all winter off and on as we got as low as 26 degrees a few nights. Tonight and tomorrow are predicted to be 32 degrees so I have to cover again.

Summer well that ranges from mid 90s to 118 degrees. Last summer our norm seemed to average 111, no rain, and intense sun. The day I moved to AZ it was 115. The plants are normally fine for quite awhile then started to get a little sunburnt, most especially agaves and aloes or anything young.

Baja, mcvansoest and I in another time-space had a long discussion about the use and merits of shade tents to protect the plants. Saved a lot of them from damage and helped saved the lives of a few. The Austrocylindropuntia was fine uncovered 90% of the time as it got some shade during the day.

Rocks are the norm for front and back yards here. It took me awhile to get used to that too. Very hard to grow grass in this climate and have it survive without huge amounts of water constantly. I've seen very few yards that have grass or if they do it is relegated to a certain area in the yard. Our soil is usually sandy in nature or it is just pure dirt. The rocks keep your 'yard' from eroding and blowing away!

Usually when I plant I dig holes considerably deeper and wider than I need and fill it with good quality cactus/palm/citrus soil. I mix that with just a few handfuls of our 'soil' and toss in some of the rocks for drainage and then I'll plant.

My logic (?) is I figure this gives a good nutritional buffer zone for the plant as its roots get deeper and the plant gets wider. By then it should be mature and strong enough that when it hits our real 'soil' it won't have a survival problem and can withstand more of the heat and sun (shade tents used when needed).

So what do you have going on in NM as for temps/climate?

Just for fun here's some wild scenes of our AZ weather and the results: hail, a pond in my front yard from all the rain, a waterfall coming off my roof like Niagara Falls from a downpour. Uhm...agave plant that fell victim to my thoughtlessness as a first time grower (It's AZ...Aloes like LOTS of sun and LOTS of heat right? ) and then I miraculously revived. Here's my neighbor's Austrocylindropuntia. It has been in her yard for 20 years and gets no shade.


I'll talk to you guys tomorrow or later if I have a chance.
AG