At current count, I have about ten trays of seedlings, and individual pots (2″) numbering around 160. I had a stretch of time late last year where my seedling mix was apparently off, and several trays struggled – including seedlings I up-potted during that time. … Continue reading Haworthia Seedling Step Up
Although my blog has been updated less – and I’ve been posting less lengthy information (but more frequently) on my Instagram account asphocrossing, this blog still gets some occasional traffic and lately I’ve been toying with the idea of putting together a more structured bit of publications on the things I’ve learned in the last couple of years.
It’s been a twisty route that I’ve taken over the last few years, but my journey into my current hobbies went something like this:
* I bought a house, and got interested in…
* Landscaping and taking over the garden that I inherited with the house;
* Propagating plants cheaply (through seed, division, rooting cuttings, etc)
* House plants
* Succulents
* Specific succulent species – narrowing my collection!
* Propagation of succulents
* Breeding and hybridization
* Seed-raising succulents as it’s own hobby
That’s included things like:
* Building indoor light shelves for the basement
* Using technology to help (wifi outlet timers, grow lights, heat mats, etc)
* Disease preventing and treatment
* Effective methods to hunt down and find rare plants on your wishlist
But what I want to know is…. what questions do you all have that you’d be interested in learning more about? Leave a comment and let me know, and I can hopefully share whatever information I’ve gathered along the way that may be useful – or point you in a direction that can help!
Mostly I’ve been posting to my Instagram account lately, but I wanted to share a free pride and joys. I had enough Christmas cash to splurge on some more rare seeds even though my seed starting is a bit full up. I ordered some variegated haworthia maughanii seeds off Japanese hybrids that ran about $1 per seed. On top of the difficulty germinating, there’s no guarantee that the offspring would be variegated. The likelihood should be about 12-25%.
Gambling wise I did well, even though I had a mishap with a variation I made in my sowing technique that led to losing a lot of the seedlings. But I have at least three that are showing signs of variegation, and one older Bayeri seedling that spontaneously developed variegation that shouldn’t have. Happy surprises!
Now to wait 3-5 years for an adult size plant. With luck until then!
As the weather cools down, two echevaria are blooming at the same time… Difractens and chroma. Not that I really look forward to seeing to start any echevaria from seed but pollen laden flowers make my fingers twitch.
...Because I Find Weeding to Be Great Stress Relief 