I attended Craig's LeHoullier's talk entitled "Epic Tomatoes" at Eva Perry Library in Apex Thursday night and it was very enjoyable as expected. While there I learned that next week's talk at the Cameron Village Library is on Tuesday night at 7 pm, not Thursday night as I had originally reported. The Eva Perry conference room filled up for his talk and I would expect even more people to attend the one at Cameron Village Library

Also, the episode featuring Craig on Growing a Greener World is on this morning at 11 am on UNC-TV Channel 4. If you miss it, it will be available any time by going to growingagreenerworld.com and selecting episode 803.

Lester, this is the one I have.

Mike (hosta200) I heard you want a sanseveria cylindrica tall. I have one for you. I even have something that is rooted and ready for pickup :-). Gets me one more free spot in my greenhouse. ... And you can check out the big guy (mother plant) that is in bloom now.

Vlad

Mike / Hosta200, we are interested to trade for this Kalanchoe. Just out of curiosity, is it 'Oak Leaf' or 'Fang'?

Vlad Pambucol, shouldn't you be posting the pictures of your flowering Sansevieria in the "flowering succulents" thread :-) ? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Vlad, would love to get the tall sanseveria. My email is hosta200@yahoo.com

Lester, It is Oak leaf and I have one with your name on it.

Does anyone recognize this plant that came in one of the pots from the Swap?

Just saw on Craiglist (free): Red Daylilies - 14 varieties (N. Raleigh)

https://raleigh.craigslist.org/zip/d/red-daylilies-14-varieties/6374159616.html

That looks like Tinantia pringlei.

You getting those daylilies CasaLester?

...I'm so not ready for winter :(

Jaimie - not so much into daylilies. Maybe this will be useful to someone else.

From time to time various gardening gems show up on the local free Craiglist, so it's worth checking. The items come from people unaware of the Swap, so it's an opportunity to recruit them. Recently we got a large chunk of Sansevieria cylindrica as the last item of a succulent giveaway - 5 min before its announced start time - everything else was already gone.

Les, I will get pix of the flowering sanseveria when the buds will open. They do smell amazing by the way.

Ralph, I got you a little present. ... Well, 2 presents.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sa7ErHX8skT5MfOt2

Let me know when you want to come pick them up and I'll put them out on the porch for you if we are not home

Vlad

Vlad, Tony from Plant Delights just sent an e-mail about xMangaves, a cross between Manfreda and Agave. Beautiful plants.

Hello Screenwriter ... oh yeah, mangaves are absolutely stunning with growth rates out of this world (for Tony, mine is not doing fantastically...) and I love them. I hope Tony will get some crosses that are even more cold hardy since they are a bit on the warm weather side. Have you seen his new crevice garden? Absolutely awesome. I may try to offer him some marginal cacti to see how they do in there. ... He has a few notocactus leninghausii that I am VERY interested in seeing if they make the winter.

See you

Vlad

... And Les' present:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/E7JogzJhxJ13mjGD2

Finally got that fern divided for us Les. It is ready for pickup. I potted your piece and I planted mine.

Let me know

Vlad

That's a great piece of fern, Vlad! BTW, your Edgeworthia seems to be doing quite well, especially given the dry spell we had. But it was watered religiously.

Vlad, interesting to hear about Tony's crevice garden. How many winters has it been around? We plan to add at least local crevice mounds on top of our raised rock beds for plants extra sensitive to moisture. So this topic is of great interest to us. Why, you think, did the crevice mound at JCRA (on the rooftop terrace) fare so poorly?

Oh yeah Les, the Edgeworthia is doing extremely well... We moved Christine's Edgeworthia last weekend in a different location so I pulled ... 20 plantlets out of it so I will have more to give by next year.

Yeah, interesting about the crevice garden at JCRA. I don't know why it is doing so bad indeed. I noticed that also. The only experience with a crevice garden I have is that I made one in a pot a few years ago and it is working VERY well. I have stuff that I showed in there all the stuff that I could not grow and was loosing because it was rotting. It worked very well.

Another experiment I did a few years back is that I made a mixture of rock - any I could find: drainage, pea gravel, burnt clay - and I planted a few difficult cacti in that. I used a rectangular planter so something rather big. This experiment was also incredible. The stuff in there is exquisite.

I have the furn waiting for you on the porch Les when you want to stop by and pick it up.

Vlad

Vlad, I will try to get by around noon after I do my volunteer thing at the arboretum on Tuesday. Thanks!

Hey Ralph ... I do not have the plumerias on the porch for you!!!!!

I have to set them up for you.

Text me or something and then I will have your number to get to you in a mre direct way.

919 413 2591

We have a long list of candidates for seed purchase from cactusstore.com and would like to solicit feedback from fellow traders regarding the potential availability of these plants in the future here. The last thing we want to do is to invest a couple of years raising a seedling only to see twenty of them show up at the Swap. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Conversely, if you see anything of particular interest to you, please let us know and you may be lucky to see it show up at the Swap one day.

Aeonium tabulaeforme
Agave havardiana
Agave macrocantha
Agave utahensis v. kaibabensis
Agave victoriae-reginae v. compact form (tends to make lots of offsets)
Beaucarnea recurvata
Crassula tetragona
Deuterocohnia longipetala
Escobaria vivipara
Eucalyptus neglecta
Euphorbia ferox
Euphorbia horrida
Faucaria species mix
Fenestraria aurantiaca
Fouquieria splendens
Lithops species mix
Nananthus transvaalensis
Oophytum nanum (like Lithops)
Rhombophyllum dolabriforme
Pachycormus discolor
Sarcostemma viminale (like E. tirucalli)
Sinningia sellovii
Yucca rostrata

Casa Lester, I will hold my peace. However, I love to see these growing. I am eagerly awaiting to see the photo gallery party!! I still am trying to wet my feet, to growing anything, other than edible or fragrant, but am amazed at what you, John, Ralph, Vlad, Lora bell, Karen, to name a few, do with the plant collections!! I have a deep respect to all those who grow them with a passion. You all certainly do!! Hats off!!

Hi Casa Lester, I am interested in the Sinningia sellovii -- especially since hummingbirds love it.

Vlad, thanks for the Plumeria. And your yard still looks fabulous. Question. What are you going to do with the tomato plants?

Glad you got them Ralph. I was thinking to keep one tomato plant in the greenhouse. A friend said, ... do you want some tomato plantS? And I said ... sure i'll take ONE. ... So his wife sent me 8 :-)

Would you like some?

Les, I would love to see the first four on your list show up at a future swap. Am not sure if one of my Deuterocohnia’s is longipetala or not — if not I’d like to see that one as well. I’ll have to see if I can dig out the tag without too drawing too much blood. I’ve got the Sinningia sellovii and will start you a cutting next year. It’s gone dormant now.

Someone is giving away components of a build-yourself house-attached greenhouse:
https://raleigh.craigslist.org/zip/d/greenhouse/6500276786.html

We were disappointed that most of the flower buds on our new Edgeworthia seemed to had frozen and fell off, but a few still remained and bloomed, although without any major noticeable scent.

Les, I was at the arboretum today doing the Sunday tour (I had a family of 4 from Ontario who didn't think it was too cold) and the Edgeworthia there seemed unfazed by the weather. The one in my backyard is near a line of pine trees and also has not suffered any obvious cold damage. Both of these are partially protected from the wind and likely have lower levels of soil moisture due to competition from other plants' roots.

Hello Les. Give it time. You have seen my paper bush in front of the house. It is a monster! It is in absolutely full bloom and it looks like a snowball of cream and yellow. Absolutely unbelievable. Now for the scent, you can only smell it (pure observation for me) when it is nice outside ans warm and sunny. Mine is so strong that you can smell it when you park your car in the driveway. It is awesome. I know ... Pictures... I will try to post some. This dam' weather needs to turn nice again though!

My smaller bushes (I have another crop of one stick-like bushes starting ... fyi) don't bloom or they have the blooms die.

Vlad

Vlad, how’s your Akebono? I just got one to try again.

Yeah, Karen, about that ... :-) I am trying to not look too much at it. ... I am 90% sure the root is still good since I think I see some bud/new branch coming up. The mother plant ... I don't know yet. Definitely the blooms are done and not alive. I do hope it will leaf out.

Where did you get your from?

Vlad

Vlad, I got it up at Pine Knot Farms, at one of the hellebore festival weekends this year. I think it was there from Superior Plants Nursery. I also got an Edgeworthia papyrifera 'Eco Yaku', which was a Pine Knot offering of a (likely?, possibly?) diploid version grown at the arboretum, in case mine doesn't leaf out from a new shoot this spring. It got really slammed by the late frost last year and spent the summer dying way, way back. If it does come back, then I'm ahead with a second, since I almost never see it offered for sale compared to E. chrysantha. If you've never made the trip to PKF for the Hellebore Festival, I highly recommend you look into it next year.

Where did you site your Akebono? Sun, part shade? Am looking around my yard trying to figure out what I want to do and hoping it will be a good match with what the plant would like me to do.

Hello Karen,

We have been to PKF. That's where we got the Akebono.

What is the difference between the Eco Yaku and the normal one. The pictures I find don't tell me much...

My Akebono is in the back yard somehow in the sun. It probably has full sun in the middle of the day and then shade. Probably it gets sun from 11 am to 2-3 pm.

See you

Vlad

My first Edgeworthia was E. chrysantha 'Gold Rush', from PKF. It was the most money I'd ever paid for a plant. A few years later I got one labeled E. papyrifera at Montrose that was smaller all around, leaves, flowers, branching structure, just the entire scale of the plant was more delicate. When I looked it up the consensus seemed to be that E. papyrifera is probably actually the same species as E. chrysantha, but that papyrifera is diploid and chrysantha is tetraploid and that's why the former is a smaller plant.

I'd not seen another labeled papyrifera for sale until the other weekend at PKF - the cultivar name of 'Eco Yaku' came up in my search as a plant grown at the Raulston arboretum with the description: " 'Eco Yaku' is a superior form of this species, collected by Don Jacobs (of Eco Gardens) on an expedition to Yakushima Island, off the southern coast of Japan." I've read that 'Akebono' is also smaller and likely diploid.

My papyrifera from Montrose was seed grown, so even if the parent plant was an Eco Yaku clone, it will be genetically different. I'm hoping I might get some seed in the next few years from the two ... if my first one is still alive that is.

JCRA has a propagating class May 26 and June 2. You can take cuttings of Eco Yaku as well as other plants at the Arboretum during this class. The cost is $100 for members. I took it a couple years ago and got lots of unusual plants, and some, like Acuba, almost all root.

Dam' Karen ... teach me more master!!!!!!

We have to have a serious talk about diploids and tetraploids. I did not realize that there are so many forms of Edgeworthia. Also, mine, as big as it is and as buzzing with life all the time, it never put seeds out.

Vlad

I'm such a nerd.

Mike / Hosta200, are you coming to the spring swap? Curious about our discussed trade of Kalanchoe 'Oak Leaf'.

Yes I will be there and will bring the kalanchoe

What would you like in exchange? In terms of Kalanchoes, we have a few nice 1+ ft tall K. pinnata. Otherwise, please go and check our lists in the current trade thread for the upcoming swap (tomorrow).

I'm good, maybe I'll get something from you in the fall.

On second thought, if you have a start of Cylindropuntia imbricata I would take that. I lost mine this winter.

Confirming C. imbricata. No damage whatsoever on the mother plant in its first winter in the ground.

Vlad's Cyrtomium falcatum division, in spite of being evergreen, has dropped most of its old fronds, most likely due to transplant shock. But it is replacing them nicely with new growth.

Very nice! Also, it is a legend they are "evergreen" ... The old fronds look pretty bad after winter. Anyway you end up cutting them (almost) all off

Hey Vlad, hopefully you can also share your experiences in the new thread on cold hardy succulents

Oh yeah. I would love to. I will take a look at that thread

Am so excited to have drupes on the new Edgeworthia papyrifera that I got this spring. If I can catch them at the right stage of ripe and then get them to germinate ~a year from now, it will probably only be another decade before flowering. So why am I so excited? I don't know but have decided to just enjoy the moment.