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.

Gotta Love Freecycle

Finally something blog-worthy. I made bank in the last couple of days off of freecycle. Yesterday I got some cuttings off of a large Crassula obovata and a division of a Sansiveria.

Today I got a whole slew of Echeveria, three colonies to be exact. Luckily the soil was sand, so it only took about an hour to pull them all up.


A nice haul, my helpers were wonderful. :) I also got a lovely Pregnant Onion.

Next week I'll be picking up some octopus Agave pups, and maybe a huge hibiscus. This guy was one which had to be left behind, but they still want it removed. So I'm hoping it's still there next week.

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.

Time to Repot

I have been using the last two weeks to upgrade my pots. I had many of my epiphyllums in the self watering hanging pots shown in my hoya post. I found that the soil was too moist for my epies. I was told I needed more perlite in my mix. My mix already consists of 1/3 perlite as it is. I use 1/3 potting soil, 1/3 perlite, and the rest a mix of clay cat litter and vermiculite. I also mix in the used coffee grounds from my husbands excessive coffee habit. I am now mixing it again half an half my mix with perlite. It's more white than anything else, but hopefully my plants won't rot. Another trick I learned is layer perlite in the bottom of the self watering pot then pot in the normal airy potting soil. Since perlite comes in 3.5 cf bags for $14 at OSH it's fairly cheap, but I do tend to go through it a lot.
I have since re potted all of my large plants in black gallon nursery pots. I don't think they can handle being re potted again, but this leaves about 10 empty self watering pots. I now have the problem of what to do with my cuttings. I have recycled some 4 in round pots, but they don't really fit in the flats very well. I was using plastic cups with burned holes in the bottoms, but even these were too moist and was causing rot. I was introduced to these pots when I bought some plants from Pacific Epies. I really like them, they are heavy and have lots of holes in the bottom, they come in clear and green. I bought the green ones only because I'm cheap, but I would really like to have the clear ones so I can watch the roots grow. They are made for orchids, but I'll use them for epies. I couldn't afford 1000 of them and less is not as economical. I found a lot of 100 on ebay. I bought them. With shipping and tax it comes out to about 23 cents a pot. This is better than the lot of 1000. I hope they come soon, so I can re pot my cuttings again. I also have some more epi cuttings waiting to be potted up.
There are many kinds of pots, clay, plastic, plaster, ceramic, and come in all sorts of sizes. My favorite to say is the "Long Tom," it's about 1 1/3 the height of the diameter, it's made for plants that need a lot of root room. Then there are bulb pans, which are about 1/3 the height of a regular height, for shallow roots and cactus and succulents. It can also be used as a training pot for bonsai. Standard clay pots are as high as they are wide. azalea pots are about half height, they make 3/4 height.
Now you get into orchid pots, they come in standard, 1/2 height and long toms. They come with slits in the side for root development. I have been making some orchid pots by drilling holes in the side of standard clay pots, it works well. Another favorite kind of pot is a strawberry planter, it's an urn looking thing with holes in the side to plant strawberries or herbs or even succulents.
One thing to keep in mind while planting is holes in the bottom of the pot, soil will go through them. I have found a cheap way to keep the soil confined for the first few watering's, coffee filters. Yes coffee filters, just place on over the holes in the pot and put your soil over it. You can also use a layer of newspaper, this takes a bit longer to break down though, but newspaper makes excellent compost also. why not use it to line your pots?
For more interesting information on pots and types of pots, I found this exhibit. It's quite interesting to see all this antique pottery. From cache pots to chamber pots, (not really) you'll find them on this website.