Surprise! It's booming! S. sellovii, Seemannia purpurascens

It was a surprising day in the plant room today. Not only did flowers just show up in bloom, I found enough rhizomes to stock a flower store!

This is Seemannia purpurascens. I've been waiting for such a long time and all of a sudden I was looking at the back of the terrarium that this has grown out of and *poof, I have a bud.

Apparently, they grow out of containers and off your shelf even with some judicious pruning.

 I think it's a quite handsome bud and I can't wait till it opens a little more!

The plant also makes cool rhizomes and ariel rhizomes. Worth the price of admission just to see the dark, dark foliage and all the fun stuff it produces!

 This was a total shock! I had a very, very scraggly plant that I recently staked and groomed and stuck in the back of a shelf with some larger Sinnigias.

Now, not only do the leaves look nice, the thing is in bloom! Yay!

I'm pretty pleased with this flower. I went online and couldn't find one that has the two tone colors like this one. I'm wondering if they start out two tone or I have an interesting one.

It might just get crossed with something to see if that two-tone color and multiple bloom will combine with a plant with large blooms.

 Compared to ones that have been grown outdoors, this is pretty tiny, but it's still in bloom and it counts!

I'm going to summer it out here in MN when the appropriate weather comes in another few months.

 This is a Nematanthus crassifolius that also sort of sneaked up on me with a flower. This one I knew about for a couple of weeks, but it's pretty exciting when you see it.

The flowers are quite large and waxy looking and as you can sort of tell the flowers dangle down on about a four inch pedicle. I would bet a hummingbird might find this pretty exciting too!

These plants seem to take quite a long while to grow into something interesting. Also, while they don't want to be soaking wet, they also don't really want to be too dry either, or you will lose leaves. They do seem to root cuttings well though.









This is a Eucodonia 'Adele' being shown off by Winston, who is thoroughly disgusted with having to pose with a flower on his very manly head.

He prefers to be left to his napping undisturbed.

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Streps 'Noreen', 'Neil's Freckles', 'Alissa', 'Pink Sunrise and Col. 'Firebird'

Welcome! Today you're in for a treat. Here are some very nicely shot photos of "What's Doin' the Bloomin' Today" sent over to us by guest blogger Janice!

This is  one of my favorites, 'Noreen'. I like the bright yellow and the fact that some of the upper petals show the yellow instead of only the lower three.

 Jealousy is a bad thing, right? This plant never seems to quit blooming for Janice. It's Columnea "Firebird".  I've visited on several occasions and this plant is always doing this. I'm pretty sure if I bought one it wouldn't look quite like this, but if Columneas like growing in your home, try this one out!

 Pretty in pink..... 'Pink Sunrise' has a lot of the bright yellow showing in the throat and nice big flowers.  Now if someone could get either a very, very ruffled edge or a frilled edge like Alsobia show, this would be just about perfect, right?

I think that 'Alissa' was one of the first all-yellow Streps. The flowers are nicely presented with just a hint of purplish white around the edges. 

Here's an offering from (yes, I'm going to BRAG a lot) one of our very own club members!!!! From Miller of Neil's Streps comes 'Freckles'. Love the distinct two-tone and the contrasting colors. I don't think it could get any better with any other color combination. When I figure out how to grow a decent Strep., this is going to be on the top of the list.

Thanks again to Janice. Please leave a little kudos for such nice pix.

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