Orthophytum Lemei not dead after all!
Lars
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
This is how the plant looked June 6, 2018, right after I bought it at the World Bromeliad Conference in San Diego. It looked very dry and almost dead, but I did not have any other Orthophytum at the time. It also did not have pups, but it was the only one for sale, and so I bought it, even though it was not cheap at $15.00. I repotted it, and it continued to look dead, and so today I decided that I needed the pot more than a dead plant. I cut off the flower stalk and tried to pull it out of the soil, but it was firmly embedded, and so I thought it must have some good roots. Then I noticed pups at the edge of the pot
and so I decided that it was not dead after all. However, I do think it needs a bigger pot, since the pups are coming up right at the edge of the pot. The weed in the pot is volunteer chives, and so that is not really a problem. Anyway, I was very happy to see new plants where I was not expecting them.
Here's the other Orthophytum that I bought at the conference:
Orthophytum Sucrey X Gurkenii, which has been multiplying ever since I first got it, and I have another shoot in another pot. I was never worried about this one.
It will be interesting to me to see the Lemeii when it blooms, as the flowers had gone to seed when I bought it. It is very prickly, however.
How big of a pot should I put it in?
You can see that I've been watering it, since the chives grew, and so I guess I am taking okay care of it. At first I thought it would not need much water, but now I water it about once a week.
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