Nice!

Your "Sjans" is so beautiful! Here is mine :) This is the trifasciata variety I think?

Yes, Trish, its 'Moonshine'

Yes Moonshine with a twist on the new pup coming up at the right side. I like the ones with some green cross bandings.

Love that Manolin flirt.

Mine so far right now is S. tri. futura Asahi.

Stush,

love your Asahi, Morgenstern, and Silver Frost... beautiful plants... all 3 are on my wish list!

Oyster, that Manolin is stunning, can't wait for mine to get that big!

All of mine were gifted to me by some very generous people here. Only way I can repay them is to pass the offspring on to others. Next year I should have pups again to give out.

Stush grows the most awesome trifasciata variety Sans, ever.

Very nice indeed. Now it is rewarding you with pups.

I have so many favorites, I'll try to get it down to maybe 5...

All so nicely grown! That Craigii though!!!!

Very nice!

I can't pick a favorite as they are all unique in some way or the other. I especially like that close up shot showing the subtle variations in color on Manolin and Boncel is beautifully displayed. I wouldn't call mine my favorite Sans. but I do like it a lot and haven't seen it around much.........Maryl

SANS. PARVA GILT EDGE

This is a close up of one edge:

Oooh, I'm mostly into trifasciata, but that gilt edge looks nice!

As does "Manolin".

I think I picked up a hahnii gilt edge yesterday, will post pic tomorrow.

I still love the Manolin, but there seems to be a new kid on the block. :)

My recently acquired Sansevieria Pinguicula. I-LOVE-IT!

@Oyster I am in love with your Sans but also, especially, your wallpaper??? THAT TEXTURE. Gorgeous!

@Tatiana That's so nice of you to say! I surely wasn't expecting any remarks on my wallpaper in a Sansevieria forum, haha. But you're right! I'm not a big fan of wallpaper since it's a pain to get it to stick neatly to the wall, but this one was a breeze! It's from Graham and Brown. I couldn't find mine online unfortunately, but maybe you will. They have more nice textures. :)

My Sansevieria Fernwood got some new shoes. Homemade from Portland Cement. Love it!

Very nice. You make this? I can't seem to get that perfect finish like that. You know cement unseasoned has a lot of free lime in it. It will sweeten the soil and sans like neutral to slightly acid. About 6 to 7 on the ph scale.

Would like to hear more about making that pot, too. It's gorgeous.

Hi Stush and Hibiscus, Thank you both!

I have used two microwave containers which fit into each other like a Babushka puppet. The larger one is greased with petroleum jelly at the inside, the smaller one is greased at the outside. I filled the larger one with cement and placed the smaller one inside and kept it positioned with some sticks and weights. I used quite a lot of petroleum jelly to make sure the mould would release. In the end it released easily and - surprisingly enough - the layer of petroleum jelly provided a nice texture on the outside. The bottom and top are finished with some fine 400 grit sandpaper. Sanding in the first 3 days after casting is really, really easy. After this period the cement becomes too hard.

The free lime is indeed a concern. The hardening of cement is a chemical reaction so there might also be other unused reaction materials in the finished product. Not sure which materials and doing some research would become project 1001, so I just leave it at that. A simple way to avoid leaching into the root-zone is to isolate and use a plastic inside container, or some household garbage bag. But I'm also experimenting with plasticizers like polyvinyl-alcohol. Not only to reduce leaching of materials, but also to provide some waterproofing for electronics.

I have some 15L plastic pots with 2m Sansevierias in my living room which I would like to keep at a steady 30C - 35C at the root-zone. I've selected cheap cement as a casting material for my heating elements. It's just a round cement slab with some electronics in it which is placed at the bottom of the container. But to avoid any hazardous situations - like short-circuits and leaching - the finished cement heater should provide some waterproofing.

In the past i've used 'Waterglas' (Na2SiO3, Sodium silicate) to waterproof ceramic pots, but it turned out that waterglas becomes soluble again if it gets in contact with water. Well, my Musa's were not that happy when I accidentally chemically waterproofed their roots. It appears that waterglass only truly hardens when it is applied and chemically reacts with cement and not ceramic. So, plants died - well they abruptly terminated to be honest - but I did learn a thing or two. Now I'm experimenting with polyvinyl-alcohol, or wood glue as an admixture.

It just reminds me, the pot I used for waterglas is the same pot I used for my S. Manolin in this thread. If you look closely at the photo in my post from June 25 2017 you can see the accumulation of waterglas salts at the inside edge of the pot. The S. Manolin sits safely in a plastic container again.

Great Idea! Thanks. On pots like this, I would use 'Sand Mix' which is Portland cement and fine sand mix. No gravel. Cement mix or Concrete is a mixture of Sand, Gravel and Portland cement.

When I was into building fish ponds with concrete, advise said to use vinegar one week after the concrete hardens and it would remove excess lime. It will also weaken the surface and expose some gravel. Or wait a few years. Good Idea to use plastic bags inside of pot with a plastic pot inside. I think that is what I will do.

I seen some stores who make there own cement statures use a very cheap mix with too much sand and the result is after a few years, it crumbles from the weather. Burns me up that they would be so cheap as not put enough Portland Cement in which would only cost a few dollars more to do the job right. They over charge for it any way so why not do it right. They use a rubber-latex mold which pops the cement out easily.

I purchased an pond alligator from a road side vendor on my way down Myrtle Beach. He wanted $69 and I saw them sell for over $100 so I complained about the mix and he assured me that he uses a vinyl additive to his mix and it will hold up for many years. Well 20 years later, it still looks the day I bought it. My yard deer is another story (from a local vendor). Became land fill after 5 years.

Look up hypertufa or papercrete. Hypertufa you have to leach the lime out of but supposedly you don't have to with papercrete.

Oh, all your sans are so exotic. So nice.

I always drool when I come over here and snoop around you guys and your san collections. All so pretty.

This is my best sans so far. This san and I were both pretty old when we met. It is one of my favorites and been with me since last spring. Sister had this plant a long time, in a cruel dark corner of her very dark family room. She had the plant several years and has been spot on on her watering, though. The plant grew straight and stiff, with unblemished leaves. All that darkness finally took it's toll and it started to slowly take on a yellow in the leaves, so I repotted it for her, and made her give it more light. She gave me half the plant. Both are doing fine now, and it's really fun to now grow it together. I had a few pictures but this is the only one I can locate on my phone. It's pretty awful. Any guesses on names?

I love seeing all your exotic sans everyone. I am hoping sellers start getting a little more variety up here when spring comes. Thank you for the san show.

Hi Stush and Robdb8, thank you for your tips. I haven't experimented with sand (yet) since P.Cement is cheap and I don't need any additional compression requirements. I really like the fine details provided by just P.Cement. And to be honest .. a few months ago I threw out a 25kg bag of sand which I didn't touch for years except for tripping over it repeatedly so I'm a bit hesitant to buy a new one haha. But if I get the change I'll throw a new bag into my shopping cart.

I'll try and test the vinegar tip on some test cubes. Currently I have submerged my test cubes in a bucket of water, just to keep it damp and improve curing strength. Immediately in the first few hours I noticed some precipitation at the bottom of the bucket. I'm not sure what this is, but it might be Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) or something. It keeps being formed while my cubes are submerged. I've PH tested the water bath and it is a solid 12.

Currently I have experimented with polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA, diluted D3 wood glue), acrylic (diluted acrylic caulk), Glue Stick (Melted and diluted. Not sure what this, some poly- thing I guess. Maybe also PVA) and acrylic paint (diluted). I still have to examine the results since I want to keep the test cubes submerged for at least a week. Also I'm experimenting with diluted silicone caulk (turpentine, white-spirit / naphtha) for brush application of a waterproof sealant on the inside of my pots. I'm also intended to use this as a cheap moulding alternative, but I haven't done any tests yet.

So yeah, quite some experimenting going on here. Like you said these admixtures are important for longevity. Especially in an acidic environment like outdoors. Probably not so much indoors, but it's nice to have some waterproofing, improved detail and maybe some coloring. And it's a fun DIY and learning project! A few weeks ago I mistakingly thought P.Cement was cured by simply oven baking and just evaporating the water from the cast. Well ... I have learned many new things since then haha. I love these experiments.

I also like things such as resin casting. But P.Cement is much, much cheaper than resin. Every time I go and buy some 2-component resin material for some project work I'm struck by the overall price. That's why I love P.Cement, 5 euro for a 25kg bag. Just add water and the finish is beautifully industrial. Maybe I'll incorporate some clear resin as a nice detail in my Cement work in the near future.

All the best from The Netherlands.

Interesting stuff on making concrete pots.

Laurie, I'm assuming your sans is a trifasciata type. Offhand I'd say its a variety of trifasciata called Robusta, but need better pics to be sure. Robusta is short, usually less than a foot tall, with wide leaves for its height. Color and banding is same as trifasciata.

If your plant is taller than 15 inches, then it's probably trifasciata species which can grow to 5 feet.

Russ