Agave Seedling You Say!!!!!

I do........that is an Agave havardiana seedling that finally popped out of the soil yesterday! I have planted 4 seeds of the following Agaves: celsii, havardiana, ocahui, ovatifolia, parrasana, utahensis eborispina, & victoriae-reginae.  I was really excited to get them going so they were in the freezer for a short amount of time (6 days). But of course the seeds were planted August 3rd, so I guess a week is not that long.  
This is the first Agaves I have tried, I think after this I'm going to try some Aloes. I'll try to keep up with the updating. As a matter of fact I have a collection of cactus seedlings from a July 14th planting that I'll show in the next couple of days and I guess I should show the growth on the seedlings from the July 14th 2012 entry. Stay tuned! 

Agave havardiana seedling

 

 

Pine Cone Cactus

Succulents and cacti are both very odd and interesting the way they grow. Some take many years to grow, like the Saguaro which will not start branching out till it is around 50 years old. Where others some take only a few months. The photograph below of the Tephrocactus articulatus var. diadematus was taken on May 25th and the next photo was taken this afternoon. What is very interesting about this is the bottom plant is from the mother plant that I have had for about five years still looks the same, it has never branched out.

 

 

Echeveria imbricdo in Bloom





Actually there are two plants in the pot, but only is in bloom. I purchased them about four years ago and this is the first time either one have bloomed. The flower colors are quite outstanding with that strong yellow inside and the soft coral outside.  You can see the flower stem coming out of the one Echeveria and its about a foot long. The two Echeveria plants are six inchs across, the one blooming is around a foot and a half tall. The other droops over the side and the stem is only about six inches in length. After the one is done blooming, I'm going to cut both of them back and re-root them, hopefully the stems will sprout out with plant heads. I look at it as refurbishing old plants, that's what is amazing and great about succulents.  

 

Echeveria is a large genus of flowering plants in the Crassulaceae family, native to semi-desert areas of central America, from Mexico to northwestern South America.

 

The genus is named after the 18th century Mexican botanical artist

Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy.