The Blooming Season Has Begun

I think the cold weather may finally be officially passed. The cholla and prickly pear have ceased to droop and are putting on buds; the hedgehogs and rainbows are blooming, and one horse crippler has an early flower. This is the first week of May, the time my cactus...

Notocactus Haselbergii

This little cactus is a nice bloomer and the orange to red flowers provide a contrast to many of the pink blooms of many cactus.   You may see this cactus also identified as Parodia haselbergii. More experts changing the names on me. The plant is native to...

Yellow Echeveria Blooms

  Okay, I’ll admit it. I can’t identify this echeveria; no doubt it was acquired before I realized I should keep up with the names, and there so many hybrids tha tsometimes it is hard to make the distinction between them. But it happens to be one of the few...

Wax Echeveria

My wax echeveria just bloomed for the first time, so I thought I would share it with you. I have seen this plant referred to as echeveria wax, lipstick, agavoides, and ebony, so take your choice. I learned the hard way that it is prone to sunburning, so be aware and...

A Field of Kalanchoe Color

Well, not exactly a field, but a bit of color on a dreary winter day. We are caught in the prolonged series of cold fronts that you may also be experiencing, and I suspect that you, too, are good and ready for Spring to show up. But in the meantime, I can slip into...

Mammillarias and Their Halos

I suspect I may have written about mammillarias before, but I never get tired of their pretty little halos of flowers. And they are blooming now, so I will share them with you again. All varieties of mammillaria flower but don’t all produce the circle of flowers;...

The Thelocactus Macdowellii Sees Sunshine

In my December 29 post, I mentioned that my thelocactus macdowellii bloom had not opened fully because there had not been enough sunshine? Well, between then and this latest Arctic blast, we actually had some sun, and it did open. And then I was tickled to discover...

Cold Outside; Cheery Inside

The dogs and I just walked in 28 degree weather under an overcast dreary sky. Before coming in, I checked the greenhouse. Not dreary in there: Senecio cephalophorus  Euphorbia milii in red  Thelocactus macdowellii-This one has been trying to open for the...

Two More Huernias

Two more of my huernias have been blooming, so I thought I’d share them with you. Huernia thuretii, or I have also seen it called huernia striata,  does not make a large flower, but the stripes in the design still make it a standout bloom. Huernia schneiderana...

A New Split Rock Bloom

I recently rescued this little split rock from one of the big box stores, and it rewarded me with this purple bloom. Most of my other split rocks and other plants of this type tend to have yellow or orange flowers, so this was a nice change. As you can see, this...