Oh, how pretty. Mine has not bloomed as yet and I am wondering if it is getting too much light. I have it outside but it gets light at night from the outside light.

I don't know Carrie. This one gets lights from two street lights near by and motion activated lights on the porch and garage which light up with most cars driving by and the deer who come to browse at night :-(

It seems there are several of Night blooming cereus varieties with different flowers, habits, fragrance, and requirements for blooming. Check closely for buds. This one almost slipped by me. Hope you get some soon.

That is one beautiful flower and a huge basket! Do you comment on how "strong and manly" your mulch guy is before you ask for help like I do? I'd love to be as strong as my DH but his big ole'man shoulders would look really,really wierd on my smaller frame.

I got 23 blooms the other night following a night of 12.

Now it is my turn to be jealous, Mara.

How pretty! I had one in a pot, yours looks way better in a hanging basket. I thought mine looked like crap so I got rid of it as one less to bring indoors.

Mara, I know that was a beautiful sight becaue I had one do that one time. Can I tell you my 'war story'?

I bought quite a large one years ago in a five gallon pot on sale for $5.00 because it looked like 'crap'. I transplanted it into a huge hanging basket where it grew very well hanging from a large chain under the pecan tree. It came to look quite nice, so much so that everyone thought is was a stag horn fern and I enjoyed it for the foliage alone.

But after a couple of years I noticed it had a lot of buds and waited eagerly for the unveiling. I had no idea what to expect.

One night about 10:30 the most delicious fragrance wafted into the sun room where I was up late reading. I thought "What in the world is that?" and went outside to look.

Lo and behold the epi was in full bloom with over 50 flowers. No kidding! It was gorgeous! The blooms were perfectly and symetrically placed and all facing outward. I half expected to see fairies dancing around it! The fragrance was heavy, but sweet. It must have drifted into all the windows in the neighborhood offering especially sweet dreams that night.

I ran to get Bob to look at it, but he was asleep. I didn't wake him because he had to work the next day. I looked at all the neighbors windows to see if there was a light on so I could share the sight, but all were dark. I went to get my 35mm camera, but had no film. By dawn the flowers had drooped.

So all I have is the wonderful memory. A couple of years after that we didn't get it inside before a hard freeze and I lost it.

My record was 56. And It was SO cloudy that they staid open the next day.I have cut this back and transplanted it smaller and then into another pot so I could carry it in easier. It was a 8' plant. The freeze has set it back since it got to 26 in our wood shop last year. Here is the Epi slide show from multiple years in the url slot below.. The first 11 are from this blush. I get about 5 blushes a year normally but this year, well, what can we say about this year... It got cool enough finally for it to make buds.

{{gwi:695686}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Epi slide show

WOW .............that is all I can say !!!!

*squeezing eyes shut tight* THINK THINK THINK!!! Nope, no room in the budget for a greenhouse.
Seriously, that is sooo gorgeous! I'm so amazed!

I will always try to keep this plant alive. I got the cutting from a plant of my mother's after she died. I call the plant Annie. She is a show stopper just like her name sake. Annie was a natural platinum blonde during the Marilyn Monroe days. I believe my mother is visiting me when this blossom flowers.

That is the most gorgeous thing I ever saw. Plus the photography is phenomenal.

I know PJ. It's like worth a greenhouse just to grow things like that. Or move to a tropical climate which is not going to happen.

Kind-O-Georgia O'Keefe there at the end of the slide show. Is it fragrant??? gorgeous pictures and a very impressive specimen. By the way, thats not the kind of cactus I had. I was WRONG again! Really Mara, that were "purdy". You win the prize in this category. Hands down.

Beautiful Epi photos Ragnaa and Mara.

I think that I lost mine in the heat and drought.

Roselee, I apologize for stepping on your thread. I love your basket. are your stapeliads getting ready to bloom. I can't get my epi that is like yours to let out more than one bloom a year. It looks sad in comparison to yours.

Thanks guys...I do love to climb down those blossoms throats with my camera. The wind messes with me and the long expossures. My new camera is a little stiff at close distances and low light. It wants to flash in Macro setting. I hate flash.

Hugely fragrant. I have an outside bathtub right by it and I ended up doing the work to take the bath surrounded by the flowers.

I don't have a green house. I wish. I put it on top of a metal cabinet in my husbands wood shop where I have my "kitchen".One of these years I will break my back putting it up there. I have to tarp it and stuff a heating pad in it when it gets really cold. One year , I was boiling water and putting the pot in the bag. What we do for our plants.

Mara, you or anybody else, can step on 'my' thread anytime you want to! I never consider a thread 'mine' and love it when people add their own photos and experiences. That your Mother is present when her namesake Annie blooms I have no doubt.

Somehow deep life lessons appear to be taught through the form and growth of plants for me. This plant seems to show that perfect symetrical beauty can burst forth what sometimes seems to be an awkward form.

Oh my goodness- that is all I can say! I have the plant from a swap- in fact I have two I just put them both in one big pot- they are growing but never flowered yet- I can not wait to show my husband this thread and the photos tonight. They are so beautiful- As I am getting ready for a swap this weekend he keep telling me to get rid of it since it has not done anything yet!- Now I can not wait

I think they are both pretty. Probably Mara's has been around a lot longer than Roselee's and shows a more mature specimen. I imagined an almost gardenia smell looking at them.

Mara, I remember the picture of the steamy "kitchen" and the covered in plastic plants. I think that was the year we had that solid thick ice 5" on the ground and I had the cactus sticker inflicted stigmata in my hand waving at you from the iced up back porch. Yep, that was a fun time. Makes me really look forward to winter. I dread wheeling those big pots indoors on the dolly but at least none of them are weepers needing a high spot like that big epi.

Very pretty Mara, those are just gorgeous.

Roselee's too, of course!

The only thing my one little epi bloom was good for was to flush Mara's magnificent slide show out of the closet :-)

But at least you had ONE, Roselee. Think I will show these pix to mine and tell it that this is what you are supposed to do..............!!
BTW, Mara, do you fertilize yours????

Roselee's Epi is a E. strictum and mine is a E. oxipetelum. Her blossoms will last into the day. Mine will not unless it is cloudy out.

Yea , Here it is in its winter spot. Hard to think of winter time when we are having fall crisp 90's. Second picture is when I realized it was below freezing in my "kitchen" that night. I think it was 12 outside. YUCK I had potted it up in a smaller pot and trimmed it back .The wind picked that plant up off a 2'high porch in that pot and threw it on the ground about three feet away and broke it so I did loose some branches off of it. and I trimmed it back further. My problem is keeping it small so it will be small enough to house. It is a real balancing act. They like to have their roots crowded but one doesn't want them tipping over in a pot that is too small. So now I have it in a light plastic pot that fits in my large VERY heavy planter that I do not move..Last years freeze did not help this plant. It is a bit tired still and recuperating. It staid around 28- 26 for three days.

Wow what a show! I had no idea they could be so happy in a HUGE hanging basket! The blooms are so striking and BIG.

I have one memory of this plant...up stairs in a bedroom. The Ohio farm house I grew up in. Most of the time is looked as if it were waiting for someone to drag it outside in the cold and put it out of pain. Talk about wild shadows. Old houses spawn enough shadows by themselves. Add one of these to the shadows and ho kid can sleep.

But then it would bloom! We'd wait up for it. Keep mom up, let dad sleep but hey, he'd be up long before daylight anyway. What an exciting treat.

Thank you for the show, the memory and the trip down memory lane.

smiles
c