The Variegated Thumb

Last year for Christmas my parents-in-law gave me an unusual gift: a mixing bowl.  I feigned gratitude until I opened my next gift: a box of bolts.  My mother-in-law was snickering, telling me that they went together.  Okay…

Next gift? Directions for building a potting bench!  Ah, now it makes sense.  My father-in-law told me he had bought the lumber and would deliver it to my house shortly.  They explained that the mixing bowl was for mixing my various soil ingredients and that I could cut a hole in the table top (if I wished) to hold the bowl recessed from the surface.

Completed potting bench

So, for the last 6 months or so I’ve had some really nice lumber piled up on the side of the house, and our picnic table has been covered in my plants so Christie hasn’t been able to enjoy her lunch breaks outside like she likes to do.  I had a free weekend a couple of weeks ago, so I pulled out the circular saw and went to work.  Just a couple of hours into it, I had something resembling the components of a bunk bed.  Another day of work and I had a very nice looking potting bench!

Top shelf of the potting bench

It fits very nicely along the wall of my greenhouse, right next to the door.  It also fits nicely under the eave of the house, where it gets a little more protection from the elements.

Now I have it loaded down with plants, leaving just enough room for repotting a plant or two on the work surface.  The lower shelf holds my bags of potting soil and extra pots.

I plan to stain it soon to protect the wood from long-term weathering.

What do you think!?!

I was walking around my front yard talking on the phone this week and I reached down and plucked a flower stem off of a “weed” growing in my yard.  As I was walking around I started looking at the flower spike a little more closely and noticed that the flowers were very intricate and attractive, although very tiny.  In fact, they looked a lot like an orchid.

Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis

The flowers spiral up the stem as they open and are all white, except for some yellow in the “throat.”  I emailed a picture to my orchid friend, Steve, who lives in Arkansas.  He knows a lot about miniature orchids and natives, so I thought he might be able to give me some guidance.  He was familiar with my plant and told me it is called “Nodding Ladies’ tresses” from the genus Spiranthes, possibly Spiranthes cernua.  There are a couple of other species that look very similar, as well.

[2010-09-24 Update:  I got a positive species identification on this plant.  It is Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis.  Thanks to the Native Orchid Conference mailing list for the ID help!]

Steve said that he has seen these in his yard before too and that he is amazed by their hardiness and survivability in mowed lawns.  Since I plucked mine before realizing what it was, I don’t really know where I grabbed it or what the rest of the plant looks like, but Steve tells me it is a very non-descript grass like plant.  I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more flower stems.

The USDA website shows that this plant is native to much of central and eastern North America.

Just days after posting about my Stapelia and Huernia plants I got my first bloom!  My Stapelia flavopurpurea had buds on it when I received it in the mail, but I wasn’t sure they would open after the shock of cross-country travel.  And they were very small, so I figured it would be a little while before opening anyway.  But the first one opened this weekend!

Stapelia flavopurpurea bloom - larger than life. This bloom is really just slightly larger than a quarter. (Click picture to see larger.)

Stapelias have two rings of corona.  The inner corona on this Stapelia is the tall and curly purple one, while the outer corona is shorter and yellow.  The species name flavopurpurea comes from the latin names for yellow and purple.  There’s a neat drawing of the coronas and more information here.  I got my nose right up to the bloom, but there is no odor for this plant.  There are more buds on the plant, so hopefully I’ll get to see some more blooms over the next couple of weeks.

Stapelia flavopurpurea buds. (Click picture to see larger.)

I also noticed that my original Stapelia (S. gigantea) has some buds forming on the long trailing stem.

Stapelia gigantea stem with buds

Those buds are held farther away from the stem than the flavopurpurea species.  The blooms are considerably larger, which is probably part of the reason.  They’re also much smellier.

Stapelia gigantea bud and new stem forming.

The appendage below the obvious bud appears to be another stem forming on this already long trailing stem.  I take this as a good sign, as most of the Stapelia giganteas I have seen in bloom are blooming from the ends of long trailing stems.  In fact, when I bought this plant, I picked out the one that already had a downward stem started.

I’ll try to keep taking pictures as the bud matures.  Before opening, the S. gigantea buds look like balloons with a diameter of about 3 or 4 inches.  They are pretty neat.

A while back (a year, two years?) I was given some seeds for Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis ternifolia).  I don’t really remember what I did with them, but my guess is that I must have either planted a couple or scattered them somewhere around here:

Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis ternifolia)

I didn’t really realize until a couple of days ago that I had a new Clematis growing on our front porch ironwork.  When the buds formed I realized this was not one of our normal Clematis, which bloom in the early summer and have large purple blooms.  This was something different with small white blooms.  Then they started opening and I thought that it looked very familiar.  I still had the name “Sweet Autumn Clematis” in my head, and when I looked it up, it was a perfect match.

Clematis ternifolia bloom closeup

It struck me the other day that the “sweet” part of the name probably meant something, too, so I pulled some of the blooms down to nose level and gave them a sniff.  I was surprised to smell something kind of nutmeg-like to me.  I had Christie smell them and she thought they smelled like Root Beer.  Now that there are more flowers in bloom the smell is quite clear on our front porch, without sticking your nose into them.  It’s fun to have this early Autumn bloomer to complement our other Clematis which finished blooming a couple months back already.

Plants are very crafty when it comes to getting things done that they can’t do on their own.  Without the mobility of many other living things on Earth, a single plant can manage to breed with plants miles away and then transport itself to a new location, via a seed which was carried by a bird or wafted away on a breeze.  But like I said, plants have to be pretty crafty to get all of this done.

In order to carry out the breeding, plants must intermingle their pollen.  Since they can’t transport the pollen on their own, they have to attract some more mobile friends – like bees, flies, birds, moths and butterflies.  Many people are aware that brightly colored flowers are used for attracting some of these pollinators.  But some things that fly are not attracted so much to bright colors.  In fact, some flying things are attracted to some pretty disgusting things – like dung or dead bodies.  Don’t think the plant kingdom has overlooked these flying things.  There is a nitch of plants which attract flies which feed on carrion by disguising their flowers with the perfume of a decaying body.  Lovely, huh?

In fact, there are several different families of plants that take advantage of these carrion-feeding pollinators.  One group is the Amorphophallus genus from the Aroid family.  Another is the Stapeliae tribe from the Apocynaceae family.  These plants have a pretty good following of people who collect from the genera Stapelia, Huernia, Caralluma, Tridentea and others.  Stapelia is kind of the shining star of the tribe, but I find Huernia to have some really neat species.

I bought my first Stapelia (S. gigantea) back in April and it has been growing very rapidly this summer.

I bought 5 more plants over the last week from a couple of vendors on ebay.  Here they are!

Huernia aspera

Huernia aspera is the largest plant I purchased.  The others are pretty tiny starts.  This plant has nice, deep red blooms that are shaped like stars, just like all plants in this tribe.  These blooms are often pendulous, facing down and looking like a bell in profile.

Huernia penzigii

This is the most attractive plant while not blooming, with it’s silvery stems.  I’m not sure about the blooms of this plant, as I’ve seen conflicting pictures online.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see!

Huernia longituba

Huernia longituba has elongated blooms, as referenced in the species name.  The blooms have a base color of yellow with speckling of red on the inside.

Stapelia divaricata

Stapelia divaricata has very weird blooms that look like rubbery pale pink or yellow starfish.

Stapelia flavopurpurea - with a flower bud.

Stapelia flavopurpurea has really cool, petite blooms that almost have a touch of Passionflower-flare to them.  The plant I purchases has a bud on it.  I’m hoping it will open, but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it doesn’t since it just went through a couple of days in a shipping box.

These plants are succulents primarily found in southern and eastern Africa, including some from Ethiopia!  They like to be pretty dry and they don’t at all mind the heat we’ve been having lately.  With a little luck and a couple of seasons, I hope to be able to bring all of these to bloom.