PUSHING THE BORDERS

Spent a few minutes in the greenhouse this evening. It is great in there at the moment, so many flowers, offsets, new things growing away.


aloe-flowers-july13

Normally, the greenhouse is neat, with all the flower spikes it looks a bit more chaotic. But if you look closely you can still see all the very structural plants.

My haworthia limiflora variegatas are flowering. This photo is one of my favourites lots of little things in the background.


haworthia-limiflora-variegata-flower-03-july13

This astroloba has done well for me. Not a group I have tried before, but so far so good.


astroloba-01-july13

My two gastroaloes are growing nicely, the gatroaloe g. aristongii x a. aristrata has a new plant forming on the flower spike.


gastroaloe-aristongii-x-aristrata-flower-offset-01-july13

There are still plenty of echeverias in flower, I have a theory that it is possible to have an echeveria in flower for every month of the year, so far I have managed 10 out the 12, but that tends to be due to lack of space to store the plants that flower in Jan & Feb. This one is a hybrid between one of the largest forms e. subrigida & a very white form e. peacockii. Looks promising


echeveria-subrigida-peacockii-flower-01-july13


echeveria-subrigida-peacockii-flower-02-july13

It is a very good summer for succulents.

All very nice Chris!
I'm getting rather a soft spot for Echeveria...............

If it's ok, rather than start a new thread I'll tag my succulent/cacti pics on here.

Aloe striatula.....................


My Opuntia...............

That is a good a. striatula flower.

Echeverias are great plants but a slippery road, there are so few with any hardiness.

Chrisg wrote:That is a good a. striatula flower.

Thanks! I'm pleased with it as this succulent job is still quite new to me.

Chrisg wrote:Echeverias are great plants but a slippery road, there are so few with any hardiness.

Seems to be the case. It looks as if I may have a few hundred E.pulvinata seedlings to look after now. Something is germinating like crazy in my Pleione bowl and that is all that I can think that they may be - they're just forming tiny hairs now.

LONGK wrote:

Chrisg wrote:Echeverias are great plants but a slippery road, there are so few with any hardiness.

Seems to be the case. It looks as if I may have a few hundred E.pulvinata seedlings to look after now. Something is germinating like crazy in my Pleione bowl and that is all that I can think that they may be - they're just forming tiny hairs now.

They do tend to self seed, I almost have more success with self seeded plants than ones I deliberately try to grow. I have take to shaking seed heads into the pots of the actual plants so I know what is what. Or at least one of the parents as more likely than not they will be hybrids.

I would be interested to hear if anyone who managed to get aloe striatula to flower gets seeds from it. Mine has quite a few seed pods and as I only have one plant in flower I am trying to work out if it is self fertile or if it will be a hybrid with aloe aristrata which also has seed pods (or should that be seed pod). Photos to come.

I know DavidM said on GOTE that his routinely produce seedpods, but that he has a couple of different plants and doesn't know how closely related they are. The test will be if anyone has only one aloe plant and they get seeds.

Chrisg wrote:I know DavidM said on GOTE that his routinely produce seedpods, but that he has a couple of different plants and doesn't know how closely related they are. The test will be if anyone has only one aloe plant and they get seeds.

Here's what I wrote:

I wrote:I have had seeds on my A. striatula plants on several occasions and have germinated and grown on a number of them, most of which I have given or swapped away. A couple of the ones that I planted out on the roof survived Dec 2010 as very young plants, but they are not yet big enough to have flowered.

I don't know what this sp. uses as a pollinator in habitat, nor what critter would be able and willing to access the long, tubular flowers of A. striatula and A. aristata [which only has one 'r'] in the UK. I get seeds on A. aristata most years, usually only one seed pod, occasionally two. My guess is that both spp. are self-fertile, if only because they are rarely in flower simultaneously on my roof.

However, I do have A. striatula from two different sources, so it is conceivable that they are genetically different and are pollinating each other. I doubt it. They all form flower buds, flower and fade in precise lockstep, almost to the day every year, irrespective of their situation and aspect.

Thanks Dave. In terms of pollinators I have seen ants in the flowers, I have also found that bees doe eventually find them, although it takes them a while to figure out who to get inside. I have seem them use two method, one to really force their way in, the other to sort of cut their way in form the side.

Here is a picture of my seed pods growing ripening nicely.


aloe-striatula-seeds-03