BCSS - Forum

I managed to take a lot of pictures, considering I don't have THAT many plants. Comments and advice welcome!

The whole sill, this is midday sun, it's already crept over to the rest of the window, which gets the late afternoon sun: The smaller jade plant had a mealy bug attack a while ago (all clear now), and I decided that while I was fussing over it I'd pluck a few leaves so it was tree-shaped, I really like the bonsai look: The aloe juvenna is my second succulent I ever bought, it was NOT this big when I got it! It's also pretty much my fastest grower, and has tripled its size in a year: More to come.

More!

I have three euphorbia obesa, I love them (like a lot of people!), and I THINK I might have gotten a seed? I'm really not sure though. Anyone know if it is a seed? I was aiming to have at least one male plant and one female plant but I find it hard to tell: This one isn't the happiest looking, it's been super super darkly coloured forever which I think is nice looking but it's also never done as well as the other two, I wonder if it's well: This is my newest aloe, and I'm still not 100% sure sure what type of aloe it is (aloe broomii?):

This big guy is stuck in the corner, it came labelled echeveria hookeri but I wonder if that's what it actually is (it's also a super good grower): This is possibly my favourite aloe that I have:

I am wondering if this one is what it came labelled as, euphorbia globosa? I love it, such an odd looking plant.

That's the tour for today! I hope there's something interesting in there for people. Nothing super unusual or uncommon, and it's pretty eclectic as I tend to buy things based on how much I like the look of them (hence ending up with three euphorbia obesa, haha). If anyone's got tips on keeping any of them, I'd love to hear. I've only had this collection for a year and overwintered only about half of it, here's hoping I can keep them all around through the rest of this year as well.

Your E. obesa in pictures tour5&6 looks like a female that has set seed, you might want to put a bit of netting over the plant if you want to collect the seed as when it is ripe the capsule explodes to spread the seed away from the parent plant.

If another of your plants is a male you should be able to see the pollen on the flowers but sometimes these plants change sex so it is difficult to be sure what you have!

I'm sure I have more pictures on this site of male and female flowers but a quick search just found this one http://www.bcss.org.uk/foruma/viewtopic ... 0&t=153623

Jim, your picture of the fly (hoverfly?) on the euphorbia obesa flowers is BEAUTIFUL! How lovely! That's one of the nicest pictures of obesa flowers I've seen.

I had no idea they could change sex, that might be why I've been looking at mine slightly confused, the "males" don't seem to have much pollen. (The female could have been making a seed before I got it, to be honest, though I did do a tickle with a cotton tip over all their flowers hopefully, so who knows). Do you know why they change sex at all?

Jess wrote: Do you know why they change sex at all?

I have no idea, I think it happened to one of my plants many years ago but wasn't sure it could happen. Then a speaker at one of our branch meetings said he had a plant the produced male flowers early in the year then produced female ones so that he was able to collect pollen and use it to produce viable seed. The female plants aren't too fussy where the pollen comes from so there are a lot of hybrid plants.

Your 'euphorbia globosa' is a hybrid of e. obesa and .. well.. some other euphorbia. Certainly isn't pure globosa. I have few plants that look similiar, I think someone told me once who / what other parent could have been but I'm old and...

Anyway, be careful with that plant, its easy to grow but it grows offsets fast, don't let them 'suffocate the soil' because it might rot rather fast.

Jim, that's really interesting, I wonder if any of mine will ever change sex.

AnTTun: !!! I thought it looked a different from anything else I saw online, but I wasn't sure! That's super cool, thank you for telling me. I wish they'd label things properly at garden centres but I can't say I'm surprised (I think that's probably not the only one of mine the label isn't perfect on).

At the moment it's leaning waaay over to one side of the pot (I didn't plant it right on the side like that, I swear it's just... scooted over somehow!), so there's a lot of empty soil, and hasn't really started growing and new parts, just increased the size of the parts it already has, but I'll definitely keep an eye on it. I've had it for quite a long time so it might even be due for a re-potting soon (back to the MIDDLE of the pot where it belongs).