I've become an instant epi collector.

Hello to all on here. I am an avid gardener with about 2 acres,who will try to grow anything. In my plants I had a cactus that has gorgeous big red flowers every year. i was told it was an Epiphyllum so was on the lookout for more.
I never found any until early this year when I came across people with a trailer load at the local market. It turns out they were selling for an older lady who could no longer look after them.
Of course I bought them all. The price was very very cheap . There were more at her farm so I urged Hubby to get out our trailer and pick them up. I ended up with over 600 epis, numerous zygos and day lilies plus an assortment of other odds and ends in succulents bromeliads and cacti. I was lucky enough to get the entire lot for a minimal price just to give them a good home. I also ended up with 100's of pots and hanging baskets along with a large bag of vermiculite.
Sadly , I had to sell off a few to make room but I now have around 400 plants from seedling to mature with lots of cuttings in there too.
In Australia, epis are hard to buy .There are very few nurseries that do sell any and the prices are dear.
I have about 200 or so with name tags ( hopefully in the right pots ) and the others are nameless.
The condition of the plants when I got them was terrible. The poor woman had not been able to care for them for a few years and they were so sad. Any other plants would have died but these epis are hardy.
Within a month they were looking better and now I have new shoots and buds all over them. I cannot wait for flowers. It is going to be so much fun to go out and photograph each one .
I do get carried away in my enthusiasm so forgive me for rambling on. I am posting a pic of my own original red one full of buds, you will see a few of the others in the background under the tree. The others live in a large shade house built with the money from selling the excess ones. It has a timber back wall and Clear laserlite roof to keep out the cold and rain but let in lots of light.
I will post pics later when they flower.
I enjoy looking into these forums to see all your beautiful plants.
Have a happy day.

400 epies!!! WOW!!! I can you're gonna be busy. Please be sure and post pics when they bloom.

Jan

I'd love to see a pic of your shade house and epis inside. I have about 30, but I also have about 200 orchids with no greenhouse. And I have 15 hoyas, 30 amaryllis, and 6 walking iris. I get up at 5:30 to tend to them. I live on 3 acres and I have 13 gardens of varying sizes. My first epi was my mother's ackermanii with big red flowers. I think we have a lot in common. Nice to meet you, sunset!!

hello boojum. Isn't it great to talk with fellow enthusiasts so far away ?

My epi house is full now and the overflow lives in various places around the garden. Most of the overflow live out the front under a large cypress tree where they get lots of morning sun The pic above in my first post shows them in the background. I fell in love with epis after my original in above pic, flowered. I looked on a lot of American sites and was just amazed at the variety. After trying in vain to buy any here , I finally found some cuttings in West Australia and then not long after was lucky enough to sgore the big collection. They were and still are not in the best condition but I hesitated to cut them back too much as yet until I see the flowers. I will give them a very hard cutback later .I think the right time is after flowering as it is with most plants. It says a lot about their hardiness that they did survive where they were at all. I will put up a few pics so you can see the rest of them also some of the aporos, rhipsalis and zygos that were with them. I have been collecting zygos for a while now and have about 40 or so. some are the same but I did but some a few years ago with names. they are more upright than the usual pink ones, with bigger flowers.There were also some other types of plants similar to the aporo and rhipsalis.
I also have orchids. About 15 that don't flower. i have even bought some in flower and they never flowered again. I have tried everything but now I just leave them in their house . I have them potted in scoria which seems to suit their drainage requirements. One day I will go out and see a flower and faint.
I have been planting more bearded iris as they are one of my favorites. I now have around 50 colors and am going out next week to an iris farm to get a few more.
I have about 2 acres divided into sections for roses, herbs, daylilies, iris and otheres. I have a native section also and a cottage garden area. There is not much room left but I always find a space.
I wish i could grow more varieties but the weather here gets so cold in winter then really hot in summer and the way the weather has been lately it is all this in a day. we need a lot of rain but Australia is the driest continent and we have to learn to live with it. My plants do not get pampered and we live on top of a windy hill so they have to be hardy.
I must go as I have been rambling on long enough.
Happy gardening.

.

some aporos etc.

some rhipsalis ?

the zygos

Wow fantastic pictures 77 you must be like a child waiting for christmas .......when they flower oh boy what treasure to behold!

Sunset, I don't have aporos and I don't even know about zygos!! but I have 3 rhipsalises. In the garden I have roses, irises, daylilies, peonies, phlox, lilies, etc. My big obsession is beardless irises and I know some key hybridizers and have some rare species ones. I adore your shade house. They look so happy.
What do you fertilize your orchids with? If they are healthy, and don't bloom I would guess they need fertilizer. Ask the pros on the orchid thread.

So I have all these epis, but so far, very few blooms. You've got to get them to bloom so I can drool!!!!

What a pretty picture b :)

Thanks chrissy. Here is my Disocactus phyllanthoides bloom-the only one I got all year! But I see one more bud now on a second plant of this. I bought both in full bloom but this is the best I do!

Very pretty! :)

Here's the plant when I first bought it. Most of it died but I manages to get one decent cutting and one bloom.

Sunset will your epis start blooming soon?

Wow! You lucky Duck! What a dream to have all those epi and pots! Good Luck!
Cant wait to see the blooms you will have!!!

Hello boojum and chrissy, I see you are in here too. I have been out looking at my epis this morning and even though there are buds , it will be a little while before they flower as it is still cool here. I think the warm sun encourages flowers to open more quickly don't you. ?
What a beautiful garden boojum.. I'm afraid mine is not so tidy. I have what I like to call organised chaos. For me , lawn is a garden waiting to happen. I have no lawn at all. There was a small piece when I first came here when I married hubby 7 yrs ago, but it seems to have disappeared.
Must have been eaten by plants Ha Ha.
I like that pink epi. It looks a bit like German Empress. I will keep you up to date on the growth of my flowers. The first to flower will be the large one in my original posting above. I have a cream one I got from an old lady whose garden I used to do until she died. I had never seen a large epi in flower live before but it had a bud last year that just grew and grew until it was about 6" long on a long stem . It opened to a flower that would be at least 8/9" across. I have a pic from last year. also one of a bit of the garden . The willow tree in the middle was a stick about 12" long 7 yrs ago.The purple is a native hibiscus.
The sun is out and it looks like being a good day to be outside so I am off to talk to my plants. Have a happy day all.

The cream epi from last year.

It is German Empress!! Or Deutsche Kaiserin. Love the creamy one and I love lime and purple. So pretty!

Beautiful 77 and hi b :).......I have the twisted willow because I love the bare twisted stems for decoration and the florists go nuts for this thing , my sister in law gave me a cutting off her tree and she sells bunches of the bare branches to the florists in her area .....5 dollars for three 3ft twigs!
the willow is lovely!
Have a great day!

Hello again boojum and chrissy. Chrissy , I took a cutting of a twisted willow and grew it on in a pot for 2 years. Now I have it in a bonsai pot and it is going well. I also tried out a Claret Ash , which is now 6 years old in it's little bonsai pot. I have too , a Liliy Pilly which looks really well in flower. It has been in it's bonsai pot for 3 years now. i have a nectarine wbich will go into it's bonsai pot next year. i had never done this before but it's fun to try.
Boojum, I have a couple of plants of the German Empress. I thought they were just a sort of cactus like a zygo until I asked a garden expert one day. Imagine my surprise to find I had more epis. I have one that is a paler color too. Could be a different one or just a paler version of the Empress. Picture from last year.

Wow I haven't done bonsai stuff but it may be a new experience!
I read somewhere that you should start a bonsai in an orange half (from seed ).
Your pic is lovely! and I saw yours b in the bloom of the day.
beautiful pics I really enjoyed looking at them.

Thanks, chrissy. I almost gave up on epis when it started dying. I was overwatering it and the medium didn't drain. Now I carefully water its cutting and have changed the growing medium of all of them. I have heard that these have a short life and that you should make cuttings often just in case. Leave it to me to pick the one with a short life! When I started on my orchid extravaganza, I picked a vandaceous orchid-much harder than the usual beginner phalaenopsis! I guess when you start with a more fussy plant, the rest look like a piece of cake!

Good morning chrissy and boojum. It is raining. Now isn't that just lovely. Ha Ha. We desperately need rain , but today, with the Show on ??? I hope it clears up in a while for day. One should not look a gift horse in the mouth and rain is rain, but I want people to come and buy my plants. If it is raining they won't come out. The Show will be a little less this year anyway, as due to the equine flu , there will be no horses and the day has always been a big part of the local showjumping calender. The plants will love though.
Chrissy, you should have a go at a bonsai project. I was told by a man that does a lot of it , that the best way for beginners not really into serious bonsai but just wanting to do as a hobby, is to either look for dwarfed trees that have been eaten by cattle and grown small or just odd trees that never grew properly. Getting a tree from a nursery will work too. Look for something you like and put it in a pot that has been cut in half. Leave it in this pot for 2 years then take out and prune the roots and plant in a bonsai pot. I never shaped the ash but did use a bit of copper wire to shape the lilly pilly .
Must go and get ready. The sun has just come out but I'll wait and see what the day turns out like. At least it's not windy. It was during the night.
Happy day

Will you send some pics of the Show?

HI Sunset

Lucky you to find all those epis.. and lucky for the plants and the other lady who owned them to find someone to care for them as she obviously used to! I can't ever find anything like that around here either. Have to get starter plants online! I had one bloom on one once upon a time. Was so excited, but it was a night bloomer so I missed the biggest part of it! And nice set-up you made for your epi house!

Boojum

Georgous German Empress- that's one I've been wanting! Where ever did you get a large blooming plant?!And what beautiful irises! Great shot!

Thanks both of you for showing pics
Diane

Diane,
I got the epi at a local farm and garden. Sometimes the oddest places get these cool plants and they don't even have a clue! I'm always checking-I feel like a raptor waiting for the right deal. Then I swoop down from the sky and......hand over my credit card! Sorry, got a bit carried away there with my metaphor.

ha ha ha better go join we garden addicts....it is such a funny thread and we all can relate! :)

Hey I can idientify with your raptor and'prey' analogy! HeHe But I've never gotten that type of thing! Guess you're a better bird of prey than me LOL
Diane

Hello all . I have just arrived home from the local Show. It was a bit of a fizzer, as due to the equine flu quarantine , there were no horse events. this meant a lot of people that usually come, were not there. The day was terrible with really cold, gusty wind, but at least it didn't rain. I know we need rain and now I am home , it can rain all it wants.
I did sell a few plants though, so that means I have money to spend on more irises next week.
I am thinking of moving a few plants and making a larger iris area. I have abed of natives that can move and the area is in full sun also well drained , so should be ideal.
I like you analogy too boojum. I can be a little like that too.
Ha, who am I kidding ? I am a lot like that. Hubby says I can smell a plant nursery or a plant bargain miles away. I think some of us are born with an inbuilt plant finding gene. Hello from downunder, Diane. I have been out looking at the epis again . Hubby said why don't I just camp there until they flower ? It's a bit too breezy for that.
I could bring them all inside in the warm and watch in comfort. Somehow I don't think Hubby would be in that. Now that I have learnt a bit about epis, I am not surprised that German Empress is one of the most popular ones. I was talking to the person I bought some epi cuttings from quite a while ago and he said he finds it hard to get that particular plant to grow easily. I have a pot full of cuttings that came off mine before I knew what it's name was. They seem to grow like weeds here. . Pity I can't send plants overseas Diane , or I would send you some.
I am amazed at the amount of epis available in USA as they are harder to find out here in Aust.
I should stop looking at those US sites as it only makes me drool . I do envy you over there with the variety of plants available.
As chrissy will tell you, we are sometimes limited in what we can grow in our own areas because of the wide range of temperatures and also the soil over a lot of the country is basically poor. It does need a lot of building up . I throw blood & bone on every year and keep up the mulch. Most of my mulch these days is the plants themselves as I let them grow into each other, which covers the soil.
Show us some of your US garden pics, boojum and Diane..
Sorry I can't put any pics on of the show. It was not worth taking the camera out.
I am going to put my feet up now and have a welcome cuppa. No chocky bikkie though, I ate them all. Don't you all just love Tim Tams ?/
Happy gardening.

Well I hope these warm you up everyone....kissing cusins of the eppys...(you have some now 77)