Graptopetalum Paraguayense

The Graptopetalum Paraguayense had sprouted a few roots (in water), so I decided to put it in a pot. I've seen this one grow very quickly and very big, see if mine does too 😀 I discovered the other day that this plant is not native to Paraguay ... but to Mexico! Seems it was wrongly identified, and the name stuck.

Colademononis ...

The colademononis hasn't survived ... but I didn't expect it to! I'm going to try and chop off a couple of the tips to see if I can grow anything from them. I've written to the eBay seller, and hopefully she will give me a refund - I'm not going to ask her to send me a third plant, just to see it rot away!

New Succulents

These arrived on Thursday, from Ireland (Succulents Ireland). I don't have any more of the smaller terracotta pots, so had to use a mixture of pots, but will re-pot them when (if?) I get any more of the smaller terracotta pots I bought locally. There is a little plant in a pot of water (at the top, right of the photo), and that's a greenovia, but it's unrooted and I don't want to put in a pot until it has some roots.

I was waiting for a couple of photos I'd bought from Next to be delivered yesterday (and they were), but when they arrived I discovered they don't have drainage holes, so ended up not using them. It's so hard, and time-consuming, to drill holes in ceramic ... I'm still trying to drill a hole in a mug I bought from a charity shop earlier in the week. So far there's just an indentation, but maybe from now until Xmas I will have managed to drill a hole!

The little teapot, I painted because the terracotta looked very dark, and I wanted the plant to stand out more. Not exactly how I wanted the teapot to look, but I think I'm going to re-pot that little Echeveria when I get some more pots, and I'll try and re-paint the teapot - maybe in a creamier colour.

Before and after ...

I watered the new succulents yesterday, and today I noticed that the paint had come away from parts of the pot! So, yes, I will have to re-paint it later ...

The two pots (or planters) from Next -

And the charity shop mug -

Sweet Potato

When I came back from holiday in March, I found a sweet potato I'd left in the kitchen (in the dark) had started to sprout. I think there were even roots coming out at the top. 

After a while I thought I put it in water to root, so I got a glass jar, stuck skewers into the sweet potato (as seen on a Milicienta video on YouTube!), filled the jar with water and balanced the sweet potato on the jar, and it very quickly grew these roots.

I then thought it would do better if I transferred it from the dark kitchen to the much lighter living room, and I cut off the really long bit, and some of the roots and damaged bits ...

... and I'm now thinking of putting the sweet potato in a pot with soil. The leaves have turned greener now, rather than purple.

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UPDATE - I threw away the sweet potato the other day, because it was surrounded by fruit flies, and it was rotting inside!  And it may have had some disease on the leaves too - there was some sort of white powder or spots on the leaves ...

New Cacti

I bought these two cacti today, at Gibralflora. The one on the left is a bluish colour, and the one on the right reminds me of the colademononis. The spines on the blue cactus are so sharp, but I think I got more of the fine ones from the furry cactus stuck in my fingers! There were spines from the blue one on the silicone "hands" mini tongs I used to hold the cacti whilst I re-potted them! 

See those spines?!

Haworthia limifolia

My Haworthia limifolia finally arrived! This is the plant which was missed out of my original order of three plants, from a Portuguese seller on eBay. It's been lost in the post somewhere, and so when it arrived ... whilst it should have looked like this -

... actually looks like this -

The annoying thing is that I got a final notice from the Post Office! The poor plant has been stuck in a dark box for weeks! Of course it's not the seller's fault that the plant has taken so long to reach me, although if he'd sent it with the original order then maybe it wouldn't have happened!

Lost and Found ...

I found these three leaves on the shelves - obviously fell off when I moved the propagating jars! There's one Kalanchoe tomentosa leaf and two Crassula pagoda leaves. Have put them in one of the saucers, with the rest of them. I lost another of the leaves, the Echeveria Clara. These three leaves have roots, but the Kalanchoe doesn't look very healthy, so we'll see what happens.

Replacement Colademononis

OK, so I've received a repacement for the totally rotten colademononis I got recently, but it's still not good! They sent 5 "stems", which is what I paid for, but I've already had to throw away one of the stems! It was like jelly and just fell apart in my hand ...

Here is the inside of one of the stems ...

Not very sharp photos!

So I've put the remaining bits in a pot, but I'm not going to water it, and see if it survives! I'm not sure what the state of the rest of the plant is, but I'm hoping it can be saved. I've written to the seller, and see what she says. 

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UPDATE - The seller replied later in the day, and said that the rotting was probably caused by the heat, but if it doesn't survive, to let her know.

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Various Leaves

This, I think, is from one of the plants from the GibralFlora arrangement ... That's my thumb, for size comparison.

This is Echeveria Lilacina (right) and Sedum Nussbaumerianum babies -

These are the Dabri Plants leaves, which I transferred to soil today - being over water to root didn't seem to be making rooting any faster. Some of them have little babies, and some have only roots. I've lost a few leaves, but fingers crossed for these.

The rest of the Dabri Plants leaves, which have been in this little pot for a couple of weeks. Again, a couple of little plants. The baby on the left is Graptoveria Fred Ives. 

Lithops

I've lost the two lithops seedlings! I checked yesterday, and the three had disappeared, but there's a new, really small one in the centre. It's to the right/top of the bright white "pebble" in the centre of the photo ... As for the other three pots, with the greenovia and echeveria seeds ... nothing at all!

Graptoveria A Grim One

The little Graptoveria A Grim One (*what a name!) has a few small roots already, so I've put it back in its little pot.

* Found out later it's because it's a hybrid, created by Bob Grim!

Echeveria Hera Flower Stalk

I've removed the flower stalk from my Echeveria Hera, because the flower has dried up, and I want to see if I can propagate the leaves. The leaves are very small, so I'm not sure they can be used to propagate, but I can try.

Problem with eBay Seller!

I bought 6 items from a Spanish seller on eBay - some cuttings and some plants in pots. I received a small parcel on 9 July, which contained a plastic food box, with one cutting (Avonia) and one Echeveria Topsy Turvy in a pot. I assumed the seller had sent two parcels, so I waited a while, assuming the second parcel would surface soon, but after a couple of weeks, when it still hadn't arrived, I wrote to her, to let her know, and asked if she had sent two parcels. She wrote back to say, yes, she had sent to parcels, and to let her know when "I" arrived ... obviously meant to say when "it" arrived. (Probably used Google Translate ...) So a little over a month after the first parcel arrived I wrote again to say that the second parcel still hadn't arrived. She more or less called me a liar, saying that it was "rare" (ie "raro" as in strange/odd ...) that I was saying that I had received one cutting and one plant, when she remembers that she put the pots in one parcel and the cuttings in another, so as to protect the cuttings. Well ... obviously not, because I got one potted plant and one cutting in the same plastic box! She asked if I had a photo of the parcel I received, which I did, and I attached a photo to the eBay message. Maybe I should have asked her to send me a photo of the two parcels she's so sure she sent me! It's been a couple of days and she hasn't replied to my message, so I wrote to her again this morning. I'm going to wait until tomorrow, and if she still hasn't replied I'm going to get eBay to sort it out! I've bought from this seller once before, but never again! I want a refund, because I'm certainly not going to trust her to send me replacements ...

I have a post with a photo of what I received on 9 July on this blog ... titled "9 July 2019".

I can understand that things can go astray in the post, but if she's saying she's so sure she sent me two parcels I'm afraid now I don't believe she did send a second parcel.

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UPDATE - 17 August 2019
I messaged her again yesterday, asking if she's received my previous message - knowing full well that she was ignoring me! She didn't reply, so this morning I opened 4 requests for refunds ... and wonders of wonders, she's issued the refunds! Never again ...

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Three More ...

I received these three plants yesterday, from Portugal. It can be so difficult to know which plant is which, because they often look so different to the picture on the eBay listing, but because one is a plant and one an unrooted cutting, I think I've got them the right way round. Then there's the long plant, which may be a gift, I don't know ... and I have no idea what that one is ...

I've put the Graptopetalum paraguayense cutting in water to root, and potted the other two. I don't have any more small terracotta pots, so this is what I've put them in, for the time being at least.

Rooted!

This is my String of Bananas cutting. I noticed it on the floor, under the plant stand on which I have the pot of cuttings ... and when I picked it up I saw it had rooted! So I've planted it in the green wellies. I've also put the string of hearts cutting I had in the "rooting pot" in the wellies too. 

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I've just bought more succulents!! I can't even remember where I came across the name - Succulents Ireland ... but here we go again ... They had mini plants, and you bought 6 and got a seventh free, but of course it didn't stop there! Plus postage was 7 Euros ...

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I finally threw away the dried up fatsia ...

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String of Hearts

My String of Hearts is here, from Hungary (Dabri Plants on Etsy)! The leaves looked wrinkled, but I gave it a good drink of water, and when I came home tonight I think the leaves had plumped up a little. I intend to cut off some of the length so I can propagate, because I want to fill the pot more and make the plant more bushy. The longest vine strand measures well over a metre long! 

I've put it on the shelf over the TV for now, but I want to find a higher spot to maybe hang it from, or maybe put it on one of my new Argos shelves, somewhere where the long vines are shown to best effect.

Sabrina sent me this String of Tears as a gift, and again some of the leaves were dry, but I've put in the pot with the other cuttings, and hope it roots.

The Graptoveria A Grim One has one root, and I want to wait until it has more, and longer roots, to put it in a pot.

Burro's Tail

I've been trying to get this Burro's Tail to root since I received it on 25th June! I first tried over water - nothing. Then I put it in a pot and, again, nothing. So it's going over water again ... I should have had another one or two more of these since, but the parcel hasn't arrived yet. I got part of the order nearly a month ago, but she sent two parcels ... no idea why, and not a great idea! At least it hasn't wilted, rotted or dried up, which might be a good sign.

Leaf Propagation

I had all the leaves in two trays, and they were taking up a lot of space on the floor, plus a couple of the leaves dried up, so I've decided to go a different route ... or routes.

There were quite a few which had no roots at all, or had tiny roots, and these I've put over water. It's worked very well before, so fingers crossed for these!

And these others have either long roots, but no babies, or babies but very few roots, so I've put these into a pot of my succulents mix. If they didn't take so long to arrive I would order more, but some of these suffered a lot on the journey. We'll see how many plants I manage to propagate and grow into healthy plants.

The little pot I've used for propagating those leaves used to hold a citronella candle, which I've had for many years, and never used, as it was for outdoor use. I spent a while the other day, softening the wax with hot water, scraping wax, until I finally got a useable pot. I want to use it for an adult plant later on. It's quite shallow, but some of the succulents have very short root systems, so I guess it can work.

Fatsia Update

I'm afraid the fatsia's had it ... but I can't bring myself to throw it away! I think it's something called root rot ...

Fatsia, Lithops

It looks like my fatsia isn't going to make it ... The central trunk isn't looking too well, and the leaves are just hanging limply from it!

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Two teeny tiny lithops have sprouted! Unfortunately I can't see any germinated seeds in the other three pots, but maybe I just have to be patient ...

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