If the second aloe is one of the ‘big box store’ varieties that grows big (it LOOKS big), I agree with greenknight on aloe arborescens. I have one that bloomed with the yellow flower stalk that shows up in the succulentguide photos. Big leaves, heavily toothed… it fits the bill, though, as he also m...

Soooo… I did a thing. It was painful (emotionally). It’s one thing to take cuttings and start new plants.
This was on a whole other level!

So… I did a thing. It hurt (emotionally)… transplanting pups, or starting a succulent from cuttings is one thing. This was on a whole other level!

Evan, the hybrid I was speaking about I mentioned earlier: "A sundew that does not require dormancy and grows nicely indoors under very very bright light is Drosera tokaiensis. It is a natural hybrid and will die if it sees much below freezing. It is a pretty nice looking plant and would grow ...

Have you ever checked the pH of the water in your planter? If you have limestone containing rocks it will be up around 8.3. I get what is called Yellow Mason Sand at the local garden center. Its pH before rinsing out the clay is about 5.5. After rinsing it is about 6.0. It is a silica sand. Fairly ...

It is often best to allow a cutting to grow as large as possible, at least to a reasonable size on the mother plant before removing it to root. Particularly with Cerei to avoid etiolation and narrowed growth until it resumes normal growth. See:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb3HHhr-xS4 I was jus...

Good thing you are using rain water. Hard water is death to VFT, as I can tell you know. My first potting of VFT I unknowingly used a pure limestone sand/peat moss mixture. I could see the immediate decline in the plants and tested the pH of the mix. Right away I knew my problem. Repotted in pure p...

I’m no expert here, but the dragonfruit I’ve seen is grown up a post or trellis (I assume mimicking it climbing up a tree in nature). Pop over to YouTube and search ‘growing dragonfruit’. I don’t know if this is the norm or not, and it’s not super decorative, but perhaps you could find an attractive...

Okay, I can’t find the photos of it FULLY in bloom (this was a few years back), but I have it nearly there. I’m still paging through the 50+ pages of aloes on the succulentguide.com page, but figured I’d post pics here in case someone knew the variety offhand. I’ve posted a couple of pics from diffe...

It should work - if you leave a cactus cutting laying around too long and don't turn it over it will grow roots on the bottom side. It will probably send up multiple shoots. What will you do with all these starts - use them for grafting root stock? I am considering making a grafted ‘tree’ from the ...

Your palm is most likely a Washingtonia filibusta ( filifera X robusta ). This hybrid is far more common in cultivation than either of the 2 species. They do the best with full sun regardless of the climate. Thank you! I’ll look into that species! The only thing I ‘know’ about it are the seeds (min...

Hello all, from central Minnesota here. Got my first cacti when my mother passed away some years back. They bloomed for me a few years later and I’ve been hooked ever since. See my ‘collection’ post in the blogs section.

etiolated: a new word for me! Looked it up and it meant what I assumed it meant. Thank you for the input! I assume I could propagate the etiolated section ‘log’ style so any pups would have plenty of support (assuming the thin section has enough healthy energy to root). Have a healthy rooted top sec...

…and my non cactus ‘pets’: One of my giant aloes. It bloomed for me once, but KEEPS making babies. An unidentified palm grown from seed that a coworker collected in Arizona. My fern/flytrap terrarium, with blossom. A hoya I got from my mother when she passed (a few of the cacti came from her as well...

Some of my (as of yet) unidentified cactacea pals (the last two are my new Epiphyllum cuttings, one is E. anguliger, the other I’m HOPING is different than my Oxypetalum).