Thanks everyone. ilovetogrow, these are two plants together, which (as they get older) I'm hoping will fuse into one. longaeva54, they all seem pretty easy to grow, but some species are much slower growing than others. jv44, thanks for the kind comments and I'm happy to have inspired you. I'd love to see what you do with your Adeniums and Agates. I'm sure they will look fantastic! greenclaws, all were bought as plants, most of which I either grew larger or in some cases pruned shorter before I potted them into the pots they are in now. I actually should have taken pictures earlier in the year when they were all leafed out. Hopefully come this spring I'll do that, so the difference in leaf shape can be seen on all of them. rcharles, I bought both of these A. sp. Tanzania from Out Of Africa Plants nursery. The A. oleiofolium and the A sp. oman I got from Arid Lands Greenhouses. I think Arid Lands has all 3 of these Adeniums available now. I also love the look of the caudex on sp.Tanzania. Not only it's shape but the caudex has a really nice color to it. I also have the Adenium pictured below, which I purchased several years ago as Adenium sp. Tanzania, but it has a very different looking caudex. However, both the leaves and the flowers look exactly like the ones on my other Adenium sp. Tanzania, so it must be that species. Maybe it was grown from a cutting and that's why the caudex is different?

Great plants! It's always interesting to see what others grow. You have a lot very spiney non-cactus plants. The range of Euphorbs you have is fantastic! I wanted to note that Pachypdodium namaquanum is a winter grower (summer dormant), which explains your observation that it likes water in winter. It is an opportunistic grower, and can grow in the summer if kept too dry in winter. Normally, it should leaf out in late August/early September, and drop the leaves around mid-April. Keep it relatively dry the rest of the time. Most other Pachypodiums are from Madagascar, and are summer growers/winter dormant. So culture of this plant is different than other Pachys. It's native legend is interesting. It goes something like this: A long time ago, the Nama people were forced out of their Namibian homeland by a stronger tribe. They crossed the Orange river into what is now northwestern S. Africa into Namaqualand, a relative dry and rocky place. On their journey they encountered large plants about six feet tall, leaning into the winter sun to the North, towards their beloved homeland across the river. Legend has that some of the tribe was so homesick that they were transformed into the plants they still call 'half-men', forever gazing north towards their lost lands across the river. I love this plant and was lucky to find one about ten-inches tall around 2004. It came from the collection of a well known deceased grower, and folks were selling remaining plants to help his widow. Now, seven years later, it is 17-inches tall. Early on, I kept it very dry in the winter, and it dropped it's leaves in the fall, growing them again when I resumed watering in the spring. I finally learned about it's proper growth cycle, and it leafs out in late August, and drops all of its leaves in early May. Wonderful plant, but a slow slow grower. Brad

That is an Agave I've never seen, though I do have an A. pendula hybrid here (ID'd long after I found it), pictured above. One of those zone 10 Agaves one only sees in CA, I suppose.

That is a great example of microclimates JoJo! The time spent at the minimum temperature (minutes, hours, days) plays a big role in what temperatures a plant can survive. So does the amount of water in the plant, and in the soil. Dry plants are much more tolerant of cold compared to wet plants. Plants in the ground can survive colder temperatures than plants in pots. I have found most of my plants can tolerate much lower temperatures than typically listed. These lows are brief, just a few hours at most, and it's at least 20 degrees warmer during the day. So plants that are supposed to not go below the mid-thirties F can tolerate minimum temperatures in the high twenties. Agave ferdinand-regis is listed at both +5, and -12 in the list above. The difference between a minimum average temperature, absolute minimum temperature, and Fahrenheit and Celsius scales is often confused. Minimum temperature listings should be regarded with great suspicion, even when coming from a more or less credible source like Desert-Tropicals. It is better to research the plants natural environmental conditions. I would not give much credence to this, or any other so called 'minimum temperature' list. There are too many variables for these to be accurate to any degree. ;) Brad