Isn't that picture fabulous?? I'll get my order in soon and make sure that cyanandrus is on it. A challenge now and again is fun! My mind is already rolling about how I could try to grow it. In the winter, on the bottom shelf of my plant stand would be perfect. It's downright cold next to the floor! Our house is drafty, so there would be no worries about it getting too hot, that's for certain! Or perhaps in the east window of the back entry hallway. If it were in a terrarium, it wouldn't get the blast of cold air when the door is opened, but it's always cool in that part of the house. The terrarium would allow for the self-seeding, too. Hmmm... LOL
Please do be sure to let me know how they germinate and grow for you. Will you sow those in the same mix as your other seeds?
Blooms, buds, & seedlings
RainGazer, I have many varieties of streps, but I don't know how to fertilize them. When I look at the flower I can't see any pistols or staymens? What do I need to do?
Hi Gloria!
That's the Kitten Face I got from you! The Blue Mars and Cherry Pie are from you, too. Thank you so much for them! I sent you a dmail to see if you have any Streps available right now, too. Just let me know. :o) If you do, we'll see what we can work out.
I honestly don't know why you don't see pistols or stamens. Doesn't make sense to me, so I am really not sure. I fertilize mine now and again, no set schedule, and more often than not they just get warm tap water. But when I do fertilize, I use Peters AV fertilizer or fish emulsion. I tend to use the Peters when they're growing and looking well, but the fish emulsion if they're sluggish or don't look as healthy as usual. I've found Streps to be very forgiving. I let them dry out between waterings. I try not to let them wilt, but sometimes they do. I've not noticed that bothering them, either.
Maybe you could post some pictures of your blooms and we could all figure out something that way.
It's great to see you!
mrsbonnie,
I'm so sorry, I skipped right over your posts, but I didn't mean to! Your plants are lovely! The Snow Rose Memory is gorgeous! If you ever have an extra baby of it, please let me know and I'll see if I have something to tempt you with! ;o)
oh, this is funny :P
The stamen and pistil are sometimes hidden inside the flower, so it's necessary to slice open the flower to pollinate it. The stamens will be ripe first and are often visible when you look. Then the pistil becomes more prominent. So this means that you often need to have two flowers at different stages of blooming to pollinate.
When the pollen is visible, you can usually grab the pollen from outside of the petals with a finger and thumb, and pull the petals and stamens off together, leaving the pistil still attached to the plant and ready for pollination. It's not a pretty or delicate operation....
I would assume that like other hybrids, some streps may be missing pieces, so it's also possible that you have one of those.....
Thanks for clearing that up! I've not had one that I couldn't see pistil (and I do know the correct way of spelling that - I had a momentary lapse...LOL) or stamen, so I didn't know what to tell her! You're so smart!
Wonderful pictures Amy. Your Aeschynanthus 'Black Pagoda' is a pretty cool plant. I joined the gessie society also.I ordered seed and they just came in today.It took 2 months to the day. JAN
Thanks Jan! I'm going to take cuttings of the Black Pagoda as soon as I get time to do it. I'll take enough to share with several people, so just let me know if you'd like some of them.
Glad to hear your seeds finally arrived! 2 months will be fine for me, as I've got some seeds to sow now to keep me happy til then. LOL Please keep us posted when you sow them and how they do.
Oh, and I meant to add that I don't think my Bristol's Hug Me is correctly named. I looked up some pictures the other day, and that's just not it at all. Keyring helped me out and suggested it looks rather like Jealous Heart. That's the closest match I can find. It's lovely, in my opinion, whatever it is. ;o)
Oh, so glad I came across this thread ... Great Reading! I just got some Strep seeds from Jannich and I've never tried growing Streps or any Gessie from seed before, so wish me luck! I printed out the info for sowing them and can't wait. I so hope I can get them to germinate and grow for me! I have had AV's for years, but never tried Strep's before joining DG. I've got a couple of small ones from trades and they seem to be doing pretty good so far ... I'm just sitting on pins & needles waiting for them to bloom!
Love that little Sinningia .... gotta go google a source and maybe get a couple of those cuties for my terrariums!
Thanks for all the Beautiful Photo's and the Really Great Information!
Lin
I've got TONS of those little Sinningia pusillas!! Give me a little time to get them separated and into their own cups and I can send you some of those, if you'd like.
Edited because I momentarily lost my grasp of the English language. ;o)
This message was edited Apr 10, 2007 12:16 PM
Oh Wow! That would be Wonderful! I will gladly pay for packaging and postage! I just googled and found that a place called Kartuz Greenhouse has them. Are you sure you will have a couple to spare? Oh, I am so excited .... (((((( ))))))) doing a little "Happy Dance" here!
I will dmail my info to you Rain. Thanks So Much!
Lin
Look back at the picture from Apr 7, 2007 8:37 AM. There are probably 40 or 50 babies there! LOL Trust me, I can spare a few or more! ;o) Plus there are tons more in the wine glass with the original Mom plant. I'll need to get the larger ones out of that community pan and into their own little pots. I'll have to see if I've got anything small enough for them. It will probably be a week or two before I get them sent to you, if that's alright.
That's fine Rain! I am not gonna put a rush order on Free Plants! LOL. Whenever you get the time is great with me! I have a few terrariums that I think will be perfect for them! I need to do some reading on these babies! I think you or someone else said they self seed? Can they also be propagated by division or rooting of leaves like AV's? Oh, I am so excited! I dmailed you my info.
Thanks again!
Lin
I would love a piece of your Black Pagoda Amy.Thanks.
You're welcome, Jan! I'll try to get that done today, but my husband has an actual day off and finally might have time to help me with our kitchen remodel project. If he does, I'm going to take him up on the offer to help! Bless his heart, seems like everytime we start a project here, he gets so busy with his other obligations and has no time here to help out.
Lin, Keyring sent me a Sinningia pusilla last year. From that one plant came all of the ones I have! It does self-seed quite prolifically! I also let a couple pods mature then cut them off and sowed them in a separate container. I really don't know about other propagation methods for them. Seems like there was a thread on here about cutting a tuber in half to propagate a Sinningia, but I don't remember for sure. And even if you can, the tubers are quite small on the S. pusilla, so I'd be a nervous wreck cutting it. I have a couple other larger Sinningias that I took cuttings of (they had gotten leggy), took off the lower couple sets of leaves and put the cuttings in moist soil and they rooted. I don't think leaf propagation would work for these, but again, I'm not sure. With the S. pusilla, the seeds are all you really need to have more plants than you need! LOL
I was absolutely terrified of that tiny little plant when I got it, and dmailed Keyring saying so. ;o) I've come to find, though, that they truly are no trouble at all to care for. I water them now and again, but since they're covered, that doesn't happen often. My larger S. pusilla has four blooms on it now. I think I'll cut off all but one when they're spent and see if I can keep it blooming rather than forming seed pods. I've got to leave one pod to mature, though. LOL
Amy ... Thanks for that great information! It's Awesome that all those babies of yours came from one plant! Wow! They are baby making machines! I will be so excited if I get a lot of them like that .... I love planting in different sized glass jar's and vases and such for terrarrium conditions! I have a couple of mini AV's, and I'm thinking about trying one or two of them in terrariums! So, the S. pusilla comes in a large version also? I am learning so much here! Is the larger one the size of a Standard AV? They are just such gorgeous plants!
Lin
No, it doesn't come in a larger size, they're all micro-minis. I just meant that of all mine, the largest one (which is still tiny) has four blooms. Let me run snap a picture of it...
The wine glass it's in is about 5 inches tall and 3 inches wide.
Hmm, well that didn't give size perspective very well. Let me go see what I can find to put it next to that everyone knows the size of...
Ah yes, a soup can and parmesan cheese container! LOL Not a very classy photo, but this is my largest Sinningia pusilla...No laughing allowed at my creative photography skills! ROFL
Is that not the sweetest?
Oh, I Love it! Great perspective putting it next to the soup can & cheese dispenser! My hubby and I don't drink, but we have a few wine glasses that were given to us as a gift back in the 70's ... I have one with a plant growing in water (almost 3 years now) ... and that is such a great idea for a micro mini pusilla plant! Love it! Thanks Amy!
edited to say: and I notice it looks like you are using a little plastic bowl for the lid, to keep the humidity in. I have used plastic wrap ... now I have a new plan for testing plastic bowls as lids!
This message was edited Apr 11, 2007 11:09 AM
That is actually a yogurt cup lid. The kind that comes with cookie crumbs or M&Ms to mix in the yogurt. I don't really like the look of them so much, but it fits perfectly and it's clear, sooo til something better comes along.... I have used plastic wrap and it works well. I wet my finger and rub it around the rim of the glass to moisten it so the plastic wrap sticks better. The yogurt lid is just quicker to slap back on. LOL
We don't drink wine, but these glasses belonged to my MIL, so I had to find something to use them for. Precious memories and precious plants...what better combination?
You'll notice I use lots of coffee cups and such to set my plants in. I live on coffee, so what better to collect than coffee cups? I tease my husband about being Eeyore, completely stoic, showing no emotion. LOL He really does show emotion, but he's much more level than I am, so I tease him about it. Got my Eeyore cup when we went to Disney a couple years ago. We have two Belgian Malinois, and it's hard to find things that are Mal related, so I snatched that coffee cup up as soon as I saw it! The cups are prettier than the plastic pots anyway, and I get to combine all my hobbies and interests. :o)
And just because I can, here's a picture of my girls. :o)
Oh ... Beautiful Girl's! I miss so much having a dog in the family! Someday! We have four cats! Had three of our own, then adopted two from my MIL. One of her's is no longer with us and neither is my Dear MIL. Then when my Mom passed away we inherited her cat (two years ago) .... they are older cats so we are waiting a few more years and then will definitely have a dog again! Would love to have one now, but it's so hard introducing a dog to the family when these cats are afraid of dogs. Last year we took care of our Neice's dog (mini rat terrier) and that dog just wanted to constantly chase and bark at these cats. My neice and her husband also have 2 cats but he likes them! So ... it will be a few more years yet before we can have a dog in the household! I love when we visit my sisters and their family's .... my youngest sis has a Golden Retriever and an English Springer Spaniel and two cats. And, my oldest sis and her family have a Yellow Lab, a Black Lab/Rott mix and an English Mastiff - all huge dogs, but the Mastiff is just over a year old and is over 200 lbs! His name is Bubba and it fits ... he is a neat dog ... so big, he just lumbers about and sometimes can't get out of his own way! His papa weighed 280 and mama was 240, so he's huge and still growing! Love those dogs .... called Gentle Giants!
Well ... I'm getting way off topic here, so .... later .......
Lin
You may have quite a wait on those cats...ours is 18 and still going strong. He was my MIL's and FIL's cat so we inherited him. Our girls LOVE to chase cats, but they won't bother our cat. They know he's completely off limits. Others are fair game and sometimes they end up walking me, instead of me walking them, when they see any other cat. The Malinois is one of the four breeds of Belgian Shepherd, and the shepherd does come out of them around our cat. They gently nudge him in the rear with their noses to try to direct where he goes. He doesn't cooperate, though, he just sits down. Drives them crazy!! LOL
Love the Mastiffs! I'd like to have one someday, but I'm so hooked on Mals, I think that's pretty much all we'll ever have, except that we do want a German Shepherd and a Dutch Shepherd one day. I'll still always have at least one Mal, no matter what, as long as we are able to have dogs.
My daughter has a Chihuahua mix, brindle colored. She looks like a miniature Pit Bull! LOL
We had one cat live to be 24 years of age! Our Vet at the time said she was the oldest patient he had ever had! We rescued her as a kitten of about 10 weeks old and she was a cherished member of our family for many years!
I love your Mal's! They are Beautiful animals! When we get another dog, some day, it will probably either be a Lab or Shepherd. We both love German Shepherds and also love Labs and Retrievers! So, who knows what breed it will be until that day comes! I grew up with dogs and cats and fish and birds .... come from a long line of animal lovers! Mostly rescues, but we did have a pure bred Alaskan Malamute at one time! Unusual in Florida, but he was a member of the family, so lived indoors. Some folks don't think of their pets as "Family", but rather as posessions and don't allow them inside at all. I have never been able to understand that, especially with dogs who are pack animals by instinct and want to be with the "family"!
I love sinningia pusillas.These little mico mico are just to cute.This one is seed that Ki sent me on Rio das Pedras.It's setting seed now:)
All our animals are indoor pets. Couch potatoes is more like it! LOL They're definitely family members to us. We love them dearly! Two of ours are rescues - one of the Mals and the Chihuahua - and the other Mal we bought from a breeder. The rescued Mal is purebred, too though, as we got her through a Mal Rescue group and know her history.
I love the Rio das Pedras! Ki is sending me some seeds for it and I can't wait to grow them. They are adorable, and so easy to grow! Thanks for posting the picture of yours. :o)