Dennis - that Dudleya is a beauty! I have yet to find anyone around here who can grow Dudleya. Someone once sent me one in a trade and it lasted about 5 months before it looked so awful I tossed it. Bill, I just HAD to get out my Bible to look up your reference (and felt bad when I had to blow the dust off of it!) Anyway, as I was looking through my books for it, my husband asked what I was doing and I told him. He laughed and nearly quoted the passage - probably the only one he could quote (bad boy, bad boy!) So here it is, in the language of the "New International Version" (which I always felt more readable, though perhaps not 100% accurate...): Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But I had to laugh when I read the next verse... But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. Hm, beware all you who grow thorn-producing plants!! The wrath of God may be upon you! Peace back at ya, Bill! Denise in Omaha

Thank you, glad you like it. I haven't been able to ID all of them yet.. maybe some of you may know what I have. adp abq, I'm not sure which of the tree agave you mean (from top pic), the one on the right is gone already, afte more than 10 years, but I have a couple of them left in its place. The creosote bush was 'saved' from a place where road construction was taking place. It was about 1' when I transplanted it. osprey

An old post was resurrected! I have been swamped with life (work, kids, etc.) this year, that's why I haven't been contributing much of late. My apologies. I have also been involved with another somewhat related hobby: developing a reef aquarium. Let me tell you, many coral and other reef animals absolutely rival succulents for color and form. Yes, I do have a greenhouse, which serves 2 purposes: it protects plants from too much rain - especially my Mesembs during the summer and cactus during the cool time. I keep as many plants as I can outdoors unprotected during the spring-summer-fall. I overwinter pretty everything except the true tropical plants (Adenium, some Pachy) in my unheated garage. Soil mix of choice for mesembs and other smaller & slower species is a formula with various proportions of turface, garden coil, fine gravel and pumice. Everything else is in a mix basically of 50-50 turface to perlite. Fertilizer is diluted liquid algoflash for most plants. Bigger things just get a healthy dose of Osmocote slow release + micros in the spring plus added Mag + gypsum. x

I can't say anything more than everyone else has about your collection! INCREDIBLE!!! It really gives encouragement to newbies like myself. Thanks for sharing. Oh, and I'm glad you're having such success with Algoflash. That's what I've been using for the past 1.5yr and I'm very happy thus far. Looks like I'll keep using it! Again, thanks for sharing.