Welcome aboard. I think you will love being here as much as I do. Nothing boring here.

Splendid collection!

Beautiful collection !

Cheers guys. Can anyone answer my question about the cylindrica skyline in the last pic. Should I repot to a pot with drainage ?

Dave, all depends on your experience with Sans. If you watch how much water it gets ok, but one mistake and it could rot. So it is best to re-pot using a high drainage mix with drain holes in the bottom and never let it sit in water. Sooner or later it is known to outgrow it's pot and break it.

Very nice Sans. The Kenya really caught my attention

Hi Dave, excellent collection so far. Regarding your picture 'quite a few pups on this cylindrica', it isn't cylindrica. The very narrow leaves and especially the dark purple leaf sheaths at the base reveals the identity as sulcata. That name was changed to bacularis some years ago.

Your first picture looks like trifasciata Futura Simplex.

The trifasciata varieties are mixed up as far as leaf propagation. Your Gray Lady (Silver Princess) does propagate true from leaf cuttings, but Moonlight does not. Leaves from it will produce the cultivar Robusta, basically a Futura Simplex without the yellow margin. Leaves from Futura Simplex will also produce Robusta. Interesting about your picture of the plant from Moonlight though, it shows a plain green plant with no banding whatsoever and looks more like Midnight. It should have the banding of your Futura Simplex, so maybe this one has broken the rules.

The cylindrica motem and the Skyline are choice!

Russ

Russ, Looking at his 'Moonlight' pup, It's possible it has grown in too dark of an area. I have seen sans look like this from dark places.

Always a pleasure reading your posts Russ.

Stush

I didn't think of that Stush, good call. It'll be interesting to see what Dave says about the light it's been grown in.

Dave, you just lost a great sans source with the recent closing of Ernst Specks' nursery in Germany. You still have Brookside Nursery which is one of the world's finest sources of sans. They started in England but moved to Italy and then France, but I just saw a 2016 Google map on their website that indicated they're in Hints, Tamworth, Staffordshire. So maybe they've moved back. You might check them out if you're not aware of them.

Russ

Hello,

I ordered plants from Brookside Nursery in august, they were sent from Spain. Maybe they now have multiple nurseries in Europe or their offices are located in the UK for taxes purposes ...

Plants arrived in perfect condition, well packed, delivery took 8 days by mail. Their website isn't up to date, some cultivars aren't available at the moment so the best way is to contact Alan Butler via mail and ask for the cultivars you want.

Savantfou.

Thanks for all the helpful replies and Russ, you are right, I've just checked and Its the bacularis 'Mikado' I think. The moonlight isn't really in a particularly dark area so not sure whats going on there but heres a pic of the moonlight that the pup came from. As you can see not really moonlight colour:

Noticed a new pup on my cylindrica skyline !

Dave, Mikado is a style of planting, not the name of a sansevieria. So your sans is simply bacularis (sulcata). This has caused a lot of confusion since the pots full of rooted leaves has hit the market under the name Mikado. They're marketed as 'air cleaning' plants and designer pots for the table top. Wholesalers are using a variety of leaves, here in the US they're most often sold using Fernwood leaves, but we sometimes see pots with sulcata (bacularis) and cylindrica leaves. Of course the 'design' is ruined when all those leaves start producing pups, I suppose the wholesalers hope you go out and buy another one.

I didn't catch it earlier, but Moonlight is known here by the name Moonshine. Your plant is quite dark, is there any chance it might be another variety? I would trust Alan Butler's labels, but maybe not some other sources. There is a new variety going around called Black Robusta (official name is Midnight) that looks much like your plant. Dark green, no banding or markings of any kind on a short, Futura-sized plant. This could explain the color of both your large plant and the offset. There is a variegated form of it called Midnight Shine, with yellow edges on the same unmarked, dark green leaf.

Congrats on the new offset on Skyline!

Russ

Ahh right, cheers Russ. With regards to the moonshine/moonlight I'm not sure. I can only go by the label but its not really anything like the awesome colour it should be unfortunately. Will have to keep a look out for a true moonshine to add to the collection in the future.

Dave, Moonshine should be one of the easier sans to find, there's a doctor's office near me that has them planted en masse in the parking lot area. They haven't grown well there because they're in full sun, the Laurentii's planted in shade look much better.

I don't know if you know about the German website sanseverix.com, quite a few good pics there and the usual European names might be of benefit to you. I just noticed they have a Platinum Princess shown that appeared to be the same as Moonshine, which they also list. But copying and pasting the description into Google Translation, the Platinum Princess apparently retains its beautiful light pea green color in old leaves, where Moonshine's turn much darker green with age. Very interesting.

Please keep us posted as you get new sans, some of the ones you've already collected are very hard for us to get here in the States.

Russ

Russ, your translation is correct. I purchase Platinum Princess from Monika G. that delivered pictures of this cultivar to Sanseverix.com. The world is small!

BTW...Dave, nice to have you here!

Unfortunately they are pretty scarce over here. That Platinum Princess is fantastic Liberyx.

Liberyx, your platinum princess looks pretty tall and the leaves thin, like a trifasciata. I wonder if you actually have Silver Queen, not Moonshine.

Vitorama, I understand your objection very well. It is because I took this picture from the side. But if you look at the second picture I took today, you can see that these leafs are wide, like in 'Robusta' group.

Anyway thank you indeed for your suggestion.

Dave, it looks very similar to yours... like a twin.

Hey guys. Repotted my cylindrica skyline and the roots were a bit clumped up and not brilliant as there was no drainage in the oval ceramic pot it came in. This piece below came off. Can I just plant this up and hope for the best?

Hi,

personnaly before planting it I would let it dry a few days or even cut the base (preventing any rot to progress upward). If the piece is more than 10 cm, I'd cut it in two pieces, let them dry and plant them.

Don't over water it at first ! For about a month the leaf cuttings won't have any roots so no water is needed. When I reproduce Sans. I just check every two weeks for roots. I pull very gently the cutting, if there are roots it won't come of the soil.

After roots appear, water a little and wait a looooong time for a pup to appear.

Savantfou.

Dave, I would trim off that very thin tissue where the leaf surrounded the stem, then put it on a bright but sun-free windowsill for a few days to a week. Once the cut parts have completely dried plant it in a well-draining mix. This time of year many people put propagations on a heating pad, but if you keep it at 70 degrees or over it should be okay but will take longer to produce plants.

I'm not sure what you get with Skyline leaf propagations, probably the species cylindrica rather than variety Skyline but we will see with your leaf. Personally I have trouble seeing the difference.

Russ

Thanks for the quick replies Savant and Russ. Thats awesome. Will let you know how I get on.

Another quick question guys. We will be putting the central heating on soon as its starting to get colder here in the UK. Will it be ok to leave the sans in the pic below where they are, on the radiator cabinet. Considering a lot of the heat is thrown out through the front of the cabinet and deflected from the top. Will the heat do some damage ? It will probably be on for around 6hrs a day.

How warm, or hot, does the top of that radiator cabinet get? I don't mean the air around the plants, I'm talking about the surface itself that the plants are sitting on. Obviously if it gets really hot, I would move them or raise them off the top with an air space between. An attractive varnished shelf with spacers underneath would work but many ways to get that job done. Some light heat transfer to the pots would probably be beneficial during winter, but I'd be very careful with those beauties.

Russ

The actual top of the cabinet only gets slightly warm so perhaps it will be ok and maybe act as a heatmat ? Heres another few sans I've acquired last week. A cylindrica samurai, a kirkii pulchra silver blue and a golden hahnii

Must stop now. Running out of space !!

Sounds good Dave, hopefully it's not going to be too warm. I wonder if you can 'take the temp' on that surface with a thermometer.

Nice acquisitions! I wasn't aware Samurai was a cylindrica type, I'll have to check that out. Be very careful with watering on your Golden Hahnii, they're super sensitive to overwatering and cold, especially both at the same time. You do have an easier-to-grow clone with it's wide, green edges. Some clones have very narrow green margins (or none) and with less chlorophyll to process food, they are much more picky to grow.

Leaf cuttings of Samurai and Silver Blue will propagate true, but Golden Hahnii leaves will produce regular Hahnii with no variegation, or very infrequently an albino plant with no green which won't survive without the mother leaf (with chlorophyll) attached to it.

Russ

I'll try with the thermometer Russ. With regards to the samurai, not sure if its classed as a cylindrica but thats what the label says. Good to know about the propagation of the samurai and silver blue. I've read that the golden hahnii's can be a bit hard to keep healthy but as it was cheap, thought I'd have a go.

Cheers.

Dave, thinking about how to 'take the temp' of that surface, you could put a small pan of water on it for 5 minutes or so and then put a thermometer in that. It should give you a fairly close actual temp.

In my area here in central Fla Home Depot sells Golden Hahnii, occasionally Jade Dwarf Marginated, and a few other trifasciata varieties for $3.88. Do lumber yards and department stores like Walmart sell sans in the UK?

Russ

They only sell the more common varieties of trifasciata . The more fancier ones I've had to find online.

Was at the local supermarket today and came across some small cylindrica's which I didn't bother with, but this caught my eye so for 7 quid I bought one. Is this a Sansevieria pinguicula ?

Nice find Dave. Not pinguicula, but I'm not sure what. It kinda looks like patens, but Idk for patens to have those channels.

Cheers Katrina. Just googled and it does look pretty much like the patens.

Good eye Katrina, you're good at this ID thing! It is patens. Very nice score Dave, especially from a grocery store. You'd never see that here in the US.

Russ

Been looking for a Moonshine/Moonlight for ages and couldn't even find one in the UK online. Went to do the weekly shopping in the supermarket and couldn't believe I found a Moonshine for 6 quid with the ceramic pot as well ! They had a load of sansevierias on a shelf, the usual stuff but there were 2 moonshines sat at the front. Thats definately it for now !

It's a beauty!

Dave, that's a great buy and a beautiful example of Moonshine. It's a bit over $7 US, I'd pay that in a heartbeat for this potful. You probably already know that a leaf cutting from it will produce Robusta which is basically Futura without the yellow edge.

Russ

Thought I would post an update. My Suffruticosa and skyline have both gone mad and produced a number of pups between them :

The pup I took a while ago from the suffruticosa has amazingly started growing its own pup already ! :

The silver Princess has done really well since the last pic I took:

And the cutting from the Silver Princess (grey lady) is doing nicely :

The Motum Kenya has gone crazy also ! :

And here are a couple of new acquisitions. A cylindrica v Boncellensis (think thats correct?) :

and a Boncel :

I take it the Boncel variety are a dwarf type cylindrica or will they eventually grow as large as other cylindricas ?

Wonderful plants, Dave. The Boncels I have seen haven't grown larger than 14-16". My full size cylindrica is 2.5' tall. Huge difference.