Index Top

A. Meeting Location

B. Presidents Page

C. Officers

D.      Plant of the month

E.             Show and Sale

 F.   
Gone but not forgoten 

G.       Global Growing  

 H.
 The Smell of Success

The first question is Why do it? There are several answers, but the two most important are: 1) some of us have a strong need to nurture our fellow creatures. To us, there is a special joy that comes from taking a tiny seed and caring for the resulting plant for several years through to adulthood.

The first flowering of the plant you raised can give you an unbelievable high! About 30 years ago, I grew a packet of mixed Gasteria seed. I still have the one that I fell in love with, a Gasteria disticha var. tuberculata. It is soft reddish-green in color with white spots; the form is what intrigues. The leaves are distischous (lie one on top of the other in single file) and about halfway up, they bend back (reflex) in a most graceful way, like a ballet movement. The end of the leaf again curves up slightly.

2) Nature has created a marvelously diverse world for us to live in. Uniformity of type is an aberration of the human imagination (or lack thereof!) I'll give two examples: Sedum tatarinowii grew readily from seed and flowered in the fall of the same year. The plant produces ¼" leaves shaped like a little hand and colored blue with a powdery blue coating. It does well in shade or full sun with adequate water and good drainage. It produces a very large cluster of pale, whitish-pink, star-shaped flowers. Of the 20-25 seeds that I planted, about a dozen made it to maturity. Most of you know of my fondness for variegated plants. One of these seedlings is variegated yellow on the edges, not spectacular, but special to me and cannot be purchased from anyone! Another seedling has deep, rose pink (almost red) flowers. Thus from about 20 seed, I now have two plants unobtainable in any other way.

The second case in point is set of Haworthia emelyae var. uniondalensis (appears to be close to H. Bayeri) that I grew from seed. It was a small packet, and I had no idea what to expect: they had been labelled H. uniondalensis which meant nothing to me at the time. Of the 10 seeds planted in November of 1995, I have 4 nice sized plants (1 3/4"; adults get to be 3" in diameter). The leaves of these plants are matt, dark, deep forest green with flat, transparent, bullate windows (bullate = covered with what appear to be tiny bubbles) at the ends. I am sure that if I could read Chinese calligraphy, the characters that nature draws on the faces of each leaf would read "hope, prosperity, longevity, etc." However, in particular, one seedling is variegated with bright, creamy white that is pink at this time of year. The beauty of this seedling is beyond cost if you could find another like it.

A third question is When to grow? Almost any time of year is OK for the experienced grower. The beginner should stick with spring sowing. Even if a mature plant has a dormancy period, once the seedling is growing, keep it growing for a minimum of one or preferably two years. I keep learning. Those H. uniondalensis seed should have been planted in early summer. Plants that only grow in winter may not germinate until the following late fall or winter if you plant their seed in the spring. Summer growing plants seem to be less fussy about the time of year.

Many people grow their succulents and cactus under lights for 16 hours a day the first year to try to keep them going a full twelve months. Some plants with a strict winter dormancy may go to sleep in the fall no matter what you try to do! That why it's important to start early in spring. If you plant too late, the little seedling will not have had enough time to put way enough stuff for the long dormancy period. Patience is the key to the plant world, but its never too late. Why don't you start now trying to grow some of your favorites from seed?