A Visit to Grow!

I know it's been a while since I've posted here, life has been long and hard lately. I trust that the Lord will give me some rest soon. Anyway, I have a few posts which I am going to stagger date wise. I will try to get the dates about the right time of the happenings....



You all know if you've read any of my posts how much I love going to Grow in Cambria, CA. It is about my favorite nursery by far. Nick the cactus guy, as my children call him, is a really nice guy and goes out of his way to please his customers.



He is also the President of the local Cactus & Succulent Society. Richard, who works there is also really neat, he makes some of the pottery for the shop. I can't say much about the pottery because my mouth is drooling thinking about some of the beautiful pieces there. hehe Anyway, it is a must stop, if anyone is in the Cambria area.



Our tour begins at the front door. The front garden area is more than one picture can handle, lucky you! This visit, Nick's wife was there to greet me and was kind enough to let me take a few pictures. While my husband sat in the car waiting impatiently.



Usually my husband is forgiving of what I buy, but his eyes glazed once he realized I was coming home with about eight large plants. I think I got an excellent price. He didn't. This visit, I got VIP treatment and got to talk to Nick while he was out of town.




The open sign shows a sense of humor. When closed, it says, "Shut." My usual day for visiting is Mondays, since I can drop DH off at work and do some shopping while in own. I love the feel of the front walkway. It is very inviting, and precludes what wonders are inside perfectly.





To the left of the door, there are all sorts of goodies to be seen. My daughter loves looking at the Lithops. She calls them all "Teds" and "Ted Friends." My eldest son named his first Lithops, "Ted" his baby toes was "Tedville" then there was "Ted City" and "Tedtropolis." When he was younger, he named everything "Rocky." All I could think of was Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa. Imagine a Lion Fish with Stallone's face. Anyway, she took after her big brother in calling them "Teds." Don't get me going on "Grandpa Fish."



A beautiful Euphorb crest and some nice Sansieveria. Sans are about the easiest plants to neglect and thrive on neglect. If you are heavy on the watering Sans, are not for you. One of these days I'm going to buy a few Sans from Nick. One I really want is a club Sans, which I haven't seen for quite a while. Look in the next post for a Sans that is to die for which came from Nick's shop. Nick is also beginning to sell begonias. I know they wouldn't last a wkk in my house. They are pretty, but a complete waste of money. Nick top dresses ever plant which comes in. I really prefer them not to have a dressing, but I guess he sells more that way.




Here is another nice Sans with some of the beautiful pottery as a background. Don't they make you want to drool also? If I ever get into Sans, this would probably be the first plant I'd buy, if it's still there. I'd also buy a nice Richard pot to plant it in. ;) It is a beautiful fan shape. This really appeals to me. some sans I see are just a large mess of leaves with no rhyme or reason to their shape. this one is lovely. I would put it in the shallow pot in the right hand corner of this picture.




Aeonium tabuliforme is huge in it's 10 in pot. I have never seen one so big. It's a lovely plant, which is another thing I'm sure to kill with kindness. The last time I was in he had some smaller plants which were tabling, this one he sold to someone, hopefully it's in a nice shaded spot where it won't burn. My Aeoneums have all sunburned. I'm ashamed to show them to anyone. I finally had to uproot them and I put them in a hanging basket with a few agaves. I hope they do better shaded.




Now for the back area.... I love this area, although I'm not a big pokey fan, I do like to look at all the plants, I'd probably kill within a week of having them. I'll stick to Epiphyllums, Hoyas, and Rhipsalis. That's great, because I could really go bankrupt if I did. This is a really nice Variegated Aeoneum crest. I killed my last one, so I'll leave it for others to grow.





A lovely Aloe which is probably well over 20 years old. This thing is huge, I think it's grown in the ground and holds well during the winter. Nick has an amazing aloe which probably came from this batch, it is in a tree form, which the others like it Nick said are clumping aloes. It sure is a beauty though, one I'd love to have in my collection. No maybe not, I'd probably kill it also.




I love this Pachy crest, it was at the C&SS show and sale. I do hope Nick sold it, I am tempted to take it home with me every time we go to Grow. I love how the waggon wheel accents the Pachy, I think this would make an excellent post card from Grow, hint hint, Nick if you read this!

And one of the ones which came home with me... Epiphyllum "Andromeda" You can see more of the beautiful pottery behind it.

Colors Shown Could Be An Ugly Thing

Well, I'm unemployed again, and I praise the Lord for making it so before we moved. About 6 weeks ago we were contacted by DH's birth uncle, and it turns out that my husband is in fact Jewish, by birth, which once the blood work is done we could move to Israel. What were we going to do about the job we hired on as managers for a 7 year contract? Well The Lord took care of it. The bird lady started getting ugly and showing what she really was, so I started to have second thoughts. First she told me that I wouldn't be able to keep any sort of kosher, we had already decided to nill the pork and shellfish by then, so it was getting easier. Then she started to take parental liberties with my children she had no business butting into, and the last straw was when she lied to her lawyer to try and get her property manager's real estate licence. After that I knew we'd made a mistake by telling her we'd move out with her.

About three weeks or so ago, I prayed that if we were doing the wrong thing by moving with the bird lady, that the Lord stop it immediately. It wasn't half an hour later that my husband, daughter, and I were walking home in the dead of night. It's been three weeks and still she has over $1500 in wages and stuff that belongs to our family. I guess that's a small price to pay for being liberated from bondage. DH has told me to cut all ties with her so she has no reason to complain about us, well theoretically at least.

Anyway, I did get a few things out of the job. I got some doves, but Caesar, even though Cody worked his tail off to earn the bird, is not to be found in our home. The guinea pig had babies, so now we have 4 of them and the rabbits are still healthy, all are living in my plant room for the moment until I can build a coop for the doves and move the other animals to hutches. The cats are enjoying watching them and knocking down my plants in the process. We even have some strange cats hanging around, ugh!

I did get enough money to buy some beautiful plants from Grow, of which I am going to share with you all. (see below) I got a great deal on these plants, and I thank Nick for giving them to me. The crown jewel of the lot was a 5 ft Hoya obovata which cost me all of $38 with 15% off. I also got some huge epiphyllums and some other hoyas and a dischidia and a xero-something which is related to a cucumber. Maybe we should have saved our money, but it was great being able to buy things I'd not been able to in a long time.

Now to the exciting part, We got to meet my husband's birth father and some of his family. We also went to Magic Mountain and I got to go to the ESA meeting which was fun. I met people like Pat Dobbins of Epies by Pat and Mark Piette, of Epigalleria. I also met MR Beardsley, the curator of the Pentico Collection, the largest collection of Epiphyllum in the nation. I also came home with beau coup cuttings and plants from the meeting. I wish I could have visited some nurseries while in LA and SD, but it didn't work, neither did I get to meet any of my Garden Forums friends which I have been corresponding with for ages. I hope next time it will be less of a rushed trip, and we will be able to go more places while visiting with our newly found family.

Well that's what has been happening around here. We are excited to find out finally that DH is Jewish, and also grateful that the Lord stepped in and intervened in our behalf.

So here goes folks some pictures of my finds at Grow:

And a picture of a lovely I got from the ESA meeting.

Custom Blogging

Not much in the line of plant stuff today, instead I've been goofing around with making my own templates for my blog. Since I don't like deleting anything I'm going to keep them and maybe somebody can use them. Who knows?

Here are a couple examples I've made in the last few days:



This was the first one I made, I've decided to try another layout, so the others followed.


I really like the transparent backgrounds with the scroll background, now I need to find the perfect one.


This is Epiphyllum "Melon Whip" I took these pictures a couple years ago. Look for this one, because I'm going to use it for a while and retire the orchid.

This is a template I made using some pictures I took of Carmel Barns in Carmel, CA.
Each of these have scroll tables, I really like the fixed background, it keeps the background in any resolution looking sharp.

The one I'm using right now is my Epiphyllum 'Padre.' It's a beauty when it blooms.
Enjoy

An update on my husband's job. I got a call just a few minutes ago and his forman said he's been called back to work and it will only be a day or so before the rest of the crew is called back. I have happy tears because we're starting to get a bit hungry in our wait. PTL The hardest part of trusting the Lord to provide is the wait. We just don't know how or when he'll provide, but not doubt that he will. Hopefully we'll be having a smoother ride for a few months.

More on Pots

I have been waiting the last few days for my new orchid pots. I realized I needed some flats to put the pots in. I know Charley's Greenhouse Supply has them, but I didn't want to pay $2 each for something I know I can get at the nursery for free if I sweet talked them. However with no car, I' stuck with online buying. I looked up web flats and couldn't find them, I looked up web flats with little luck. I really needed them, so I went on a search for them. I found them, but I had to buy a case of 50-100 of them, I only need about 10 or so. I finally found them for 87 cents each sold as 1020 web flats. With shipping it comes out to about $1.25 each flat. I also found inserts for the flats, which hold the flats even better and tape plant labels. I'm happy with my findings, I hope they come soon so I can get my cuttings started. For the winter I'm going to get some seedling flats without holes to go in my shelves to protect the floor when I move them all inside.
My Epiphyllum "Elise" is not doing too well. She doesn't like the heat. I had her in a self watering pot and she was doing fine until about 6 weeks ago, then she started yellowing up the stem. I realized she was starting to mush. I re potted her into a two gallon pot, but all the new growth is slowly softening. I'm afraid I might lose her. I am waiting for payment for some cuttings I should of her on eBay. This was two weeks ago. I hope I get payment soon because the cuttings aren't looking too well. My King of Siam looked the same as Eilse a few weeks ago, but has bounced back since re-potting I'm hoping the same will happen to Elise. She's such a good bloomer and repeats her blooming throughout the year. I gave her some B1 root stimulator, hoping she'll recover any root loss from being in the self watering pot trying to escape. Somebody on the epiforums mentioned rooting her plants in Vegemite, we figured it was the B1 in it that was so beneficial. I am experimenting with B1 vitamins in my fertilizer, I bought a bottle of B1 vitamins just to add to my fertilizer. It can't hurt, since B1 is used to help root development. I heard the prenatal vitamins and aspirin helps plants develop also, aspirin did seem to help, but I'm not sure of the multivitamin.
Yesterday was my anniversary. I got a box of chocolate covered mint oreos. Wow, yippee, excellent! Can you feel the sarcasm? I bought a copy of The Holy War by Paul Bunyan and a thermos set for my husband. The boys made dinner, tuna helper and rice, yum, at least they attempted to make something nice. Tonight it's hamburger helper. I'm sick of box mixes, but they're as cheap as we can get. I guess it's going to be another rough year. We still have no car and he's been laid off for two more weeks. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Highway 41 fire when we lost our house. Maybe that's why I've been so soppy lately. I pray that I will get out of this funk and learn whatever lesson I'm supposed to so we can move on.

Sometimes God Whaps You in the Face..

For a couple years now it seems just before we have to pay smog on a car, it breaks down, or if I buy a large plant, our car breaks down. So I've been resorting to buying things online and on Ebay. There is one vendor of epiphyllums on ebay which I've ordered from about 20 times in the last few months. It seems when I'd get one order, it was time to send in a money order for another. This time we've been without a car for about 6 weeks. A friend of ours gave us a car, but then asked for it back. We had it for about a week before having to return it, just long enough to buy a huge hoya at Grow Nursery. I hope we get a car soon, because he called me last week and has an order of epiphyllums waiting for me to pick up. Maybe one day I'll learn.

On Saturday I was lamenting the loss of our car, and not being able to go to town, we live 30 miles from the nearest grocery store, my husband calls me outside in a frantic tizzy. I run, waddle more like it, outside to see what he's all fired up about, then he points to the wall. Right below the porch light was a cross. It was beautiful. I knew God was in control, and even if I didn't like it, he'd make sure we got food. I hope we get a car soon because our washer broke last week and we've been washing by hand. My uncle offered the use of his washer, but although he's sweet and kind, he's really weird.

My uncle has been working on a car my grandfather is giving us. He has been for the last few weeks. Apparently the only thing it needs is a new steering column. I don't know enough about cars to know for sure, but I'd assume it should take about a week max to finish. He's been working on it for a week now. I'm supposed to pick up my 9 year old daughter at the train station today. So I asked him how much longer, he said that my grandfather told him not to worry about it, I don't know what that means, but ok. Last night I went outside to check my plants one last time for the night and I smelled something akin to roses with baby powder. I looked very carefully and my Hoya shepherdii was hiding a few blooms in the recesses of it's pot. Sometimes when things are going rough, God makes sure you find little things that are enjoyable.

I just got a call from my friend's niece, apparently her grandmother died last night and my friend hasn't been told yet. She asked me to call her after she found out. What an ugly affair. I hope my friend's sisters tell her where the funeral will be. This could be her breaking point. I hope not, she loved her grandmother. I pray that God gives her the strength and need to go on.

How It All Began

I have always had a love for nature. When I was little my Great Grandmother had a huge opuntia in her front yard and Naked Lady Amaryllis next to it. Every year she would have one of her sons cut the opuntia half way down, the pads would sit in the yard until somebody decided to throw them over the back fence. Since her property backed up to the creek bed the opuntia cuttings helped prevent animals from getting her chickens. I remember her swinging those chickens by the head to break their neck so that she could boil them into stew. When she died the opuntia was cut down and never seen again. My grandparents got some of the naked lady bulbs, which I now have a few of my own from her bulbs. Since I lived with my mom in one of my grandmother's houses, I couldn't have any of the opuntia.
My grandmother has a mint plant she curses ever planting, and has never let me grow any where I'm at, so I grow my mint in pots. It's not happy, but at least I have some. I would love to release it from it's confinement unit (pot) and let it run free! However I live in one of my grandparents' rentals and must abide by their rules. I have a love for all the plants she hates. I am down to four different mints, but at one time had over 35. I have been collecting opuntias also, and have about 15 different kinds, all in pots, waiting to be release out of their confinement. I may plant their seeds just to see if they will come up.
Another bane to my grandmother is 4 o'clocks. I love these easy to grow plants, they make huge tuberous roots. I have a few dug up that I planted 15 years ago, they have fairly large roots, but I'm thinking I must have got the edge of the group, because, they could be bigger. I want to try making a caudex out of them. It will be fun to see how it works out.
None of those compare to my real love in the plant world, jungle cactus. Epiphyllums are hybrids between epiphytic cactus and land cactus, most don't even have 1/10th epiphyllum in them, but they are called epiphyllums nonetheless. Schlumbergera the Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus started appealing to me, I have 15 of them now. Rhipsalis is a smaller cousin to epies. I fell in love with this plant when I bought about 5 pots of one from the plant shop at Cal Poly SLO a few years ago. I was thinking it looked like a plant I had called Epiphyllum oxypetallum, aka Queen of the Night. Which has enormous white flowers during the night, mine traveled with me from Tennessee to California when we were coming home. It didn't survive the winter.
A local nursery had a plant that looked like my oxy. When I asked about it, it turned out to be "Padre." I bought a cutting. Then I went back and got more and more, until I had a small plant of it.

I found another nursery which had a lot of epies, I bought a few cuttings. I was on my way! One day I was researching epiphyllums to see if I could find another, low and behold I came across a forum just for epiphyllums, so I joined. I was able to expand my collection, I have an epi called "Clarabella", my great grandmother was named Clara Belle. She and her twin sister both got a letter and picture of Ronald Reagan for their 98th birthday. Anyway, I gave a cutting of it to my mom, her plant looks way better than mine and she neglects things until they die, I hope she doesn't kill this plant.
I've lost a bunch of plants this last winter, mostly epies and rhipsalis. So I started again. This spring I remembered the old "Padre" so I went to the nursery with intent on buying it for whatever she'd take. It was frost damaged really bad, She gave me the whole plant for $5! I was able to salvage one cutting off of it. Sad but it was a beautiful plant, but I got some of it anyway. I hope one day Padre will look as beautiful as it did last summer.
Two years ago I found an old picture of an epi my other great grandmother had on her porch. This started another search, I was told this plant could be "Guatemala" an older hybrid. I have searched for this plant for two years. I finally found and bought a cutting on eBay for $25. It came with other cuttings, but this was the crown jewel! I can't wait to get it planted. Last month I got a plant of "Zola" I had been looking for this one for a year, this is just as exciting. I feel that my collection is and could now be complete. I hope so, since I have over 100 different epies, and by the size of the above plant, I am going to need a huge greenhouse to confine them all. Well, that's how it began, I was drawn to cactus by my inability to have some of Grandma's opuntia, other plants because grandma hates them and because I had an amazing bloom about 7 years ago one summer evening.