Cactus, Succulents and like.

I had spotted this cactus suddenly sprouted a flower.
Something that never happen in my cactus garden and I was there at the right time to spot this bloom. This was one plant now turned into two. I was concerned that it would start to rot as when I was checking on this plant - I was just able to pick it up
(finding that the bottom section totally rot and dried up)
I had manage to re-set it and hoped it would survive and now it had rewarded me with a lovely bloom.

This Agave looking plant was actually rescued from a cut down tree. I had manage to pick up 3 pieces of it and was not sure whether it would manage to survive. Its somehow few weeks now and my closest guess is that it would have manage to pull through.

This Silver Squill was quite a challenge as I had placed this together with the daily watering plant. It appeared sickly and the leaves snapped and broken. It was suffering and I was not able to tell whether it was under water or over-watered.

Somehow I placed this out of reach and with weekly watering - it was able to pick up the pace and give such an adorable coloured foliage.

I had purposely left few sprouts of ghost plant leaf succulents here & there between many of the succulent pots and they are springing back to life. These are Tiger Jaws - doing very well after a strict weekly watering regime.

These 3 plants (top & bottom) are newly purchased plants bought from Sg.Buloh nursery for RM10.00 offer. They look lovely and I hope the manage to survive for many years to come. I had recently changed the small pots placing the rootball together with a new hardy soil mix (not the cocopeat mix which is usually found)

Top: Dischidia Oiantha

I had manage to get two of this hanging plants.
I find that they are not easy to get them from anywhere. I read that they are indeed slow growers and make take forever if planted using cuttings.
Regardless, I got them reasonably for RM12 from Sg.Buloh nursery.

This is a variegated type (not the common green) I was told that this one is slightly more expensive than the green counter-part. Well, I hope it grows heavy in my garden.

Ant Plant (Dischidia Pectinoides)

This is another from of Dischidia.
Now I'm having a craving to collect different types of these same species. I have another type which I had found growing on tree trunks (Button Orchids) but they are not so showy as these two.

These are recently purchased and awaiting to be divided and transfered to a bigger wood piece. They had finish blooming and I'm pretty sure soon there will be new pups appearing from the mother plant.
The sooner I would able the transfer them - the sooner the damage is lessened.

Other succulents which are randomly taken.
Top: Ice plant - they are in season with blooms. These are appearing for the first time in my garden after some time planting them from a very small cutting.

Below: Donkey's Tail.
Suddenly I notice that they are quite long and the leaves are easily breakable due to strong wind or accidents (a light touch during watering can even break off those leaves)

Cactus Garden - Part 2

Tiger's Jaw (Faucaria Tigrina)
They seemed to require more watering than the weekly routine. Seemed like too much watering can also cause stem & root rot. So perhaps 4-5 days light watering can bring the best for this type.

These are the most easiest of cactus. 
They had given out so many shoots over time that make-up 90% of my collection. I think once they establish in the pot - they tend to sprout out pups slightly from the trunk and eventually put out roots and fall taking out all the immediate space available within the rim of the pot.

Silver Squill.  - Ledebouria socialis

I had hard times with one.
Often end up rotting and barely surviving. Too much water kills too less water kills.
Somehow it had managed to established here with the cactus collection and doing very well after a very long period of time.

This succulent was rescued from the dump. 
The leaves didn't look like this when I picked it up.
 It was totally bare with few damaged leaves and stumps. 
It took almost a month to put up new sprouts and its totally beautiful. It has a powdery dust on the leaf surface like find gloss and its quite sensitive as they can easily snap when handled.

I have yet to identify the name of this plant yet. 
Right now there are more shoots coming out from these stem & doing very well so far.

I had placed my ginger plant here due the rat harassment that it always get its shoot bitten. For some time it got dormant and never recovered. This is a different type of a root family - I suspect it could be a similar kind of the herbal root type.

Other sharp pointy plants.
African Milk Tree
And ZZ plant - currently infested with scaly bug which I need time to administer poison over them.

Cactus Corner - Final Part

Additional Revised Notes:

These are the whole cactus collection which I have in my balcony.
These are Tiger Jaw - they tend to shriveled up when lacking water but they also end up rotting when in contact with too much water - I had 3 pots of these but manage to rescue only one.


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I had rescued this plant & manage to separate it into two potted plants. These are dyckia -easily confused with agaves (from the bromeliad family), they are tightly connected with each other and so it really took a lot of effort to separate them.
I guess the previous gardener gave up and threw away this spiky plant as the roots are no longer able to be in contact with any soil medium.
(The existing roots just hover above this ball of "porcupine")
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I manage to separate one piece after a long tug or war (almost gave up) and they are doing well so far.
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Followed by the Jade Plant given to me as gift from a friend who visited Cameron Highland few months ago. I asked him for a tea plant as Cameron Highland is very famous for it but somehow I guess the lack of time and all he got a substitute for me.

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I have been watchful in watering this Jade plant, I guess too much water might kill this plant.

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Its amazing to note that the Tiger Jaws (1st pic) was given to me by his wife 10 years ago. That time, they were still dating and single. Talking about Garden Chronicles - Its unbelievable to draw time-line with gardening and history, Don't you think?

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I got these 2 pots of cycad plant which I bought long time ago. I had kept it together with the rest of the garden plants below but somehow it was raining too long & too frequent and I fear this plant might just rot with all that stress.

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But I realise they don't do too well without water, there was a time when it was very hot and I have forgotten to water these about 3 weeks and all the leaves dried up. Nevertheless - I watered them back and a new leaf sprouted (I still haven't got the time to trim all the dead leaves yet)

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But the other strange thing is that the other cycad plant had overshot an branch with huge leaves.

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Strange - Didn't know cycad can do that.

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This is Mother of Thousands (Kalanchoe daigremonitana) Also known as Devil's spine & Mexican Hat. I guess this one is considered more of a "pest" than a plant. A lot of gardeners just hate it as they are so invasive just sprouting their plantlet everywhere. Many gardeners wage war with this one & I guess most of them are still fighting the battle.

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I still like this one very much - more to do with the reason of lack of care & I mean literally. This one is going in a small sealed pot. I had placed these babies here and they have grown. I guess the heat had given them the stripes and spots - more like a leopard, don't you think?

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Do place your extra mother of thousands on rooftops where the sun shines and that they only have access to water by the rainfall. You will have the wild side of this mother.

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And finally the Mother of thousand together with the Basket Plant (Callisia fragrans) or Spironema fragrans. I wanted to do an experiment by placing them on my roof.

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Guess what - I got this result and they are doing so great after many months - and these are doing just great without any watering from my part.

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The mother of Thousand had "migrated" from the pot - that's explains why the pot is like that.

I'm still wondering whether to rearrange and repot them but as for now, I will leave it until I got more time to work on it.

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Notice that the Mother of Thousand reset the leaf shape to conserve water, they look like rosettes. Amazing isn't it?

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Cactus Garden - August 2009

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This is my very much neglected Cactus Garden. (If you would call it a garden in the first place)
I have been concentrating on the other garden below (pruning, replanting, repositioning, watering and all) that its just enough time to tend to just one.
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Anyway, I'm still happy the way this one turned out. I guess lack of attention helps this one.
I really don't know much of these cactus names, I have not seen any of it bloomed. And some I had been keeping them since year 2000.
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Below is my overall current Cactus Garden:
Some of the names are my closest guess, you are certain that their names do let me know as I can change & update them.
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Name : Sedum nussbaumerianum

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I bought this succulent (3 different types) in a very small pots (3 for RM10) Those were usually sold to new gardeners who would like to venture in cactus gardening and often time it was sort of a seedling and often they don't survive.

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I got them on 2002 when I can still remember that I was going with my wife and friend to a garden centre and my wife was experiencing the early stages of morning sickness when she was carrying my first born son.

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Only these two sedum plants survived and thrived.

The light green coloured one (Sedum nussbaumerianum) and the grayish green coloured one (Sedum clavatum)
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Name: Mammillaria Species.

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I guess these are the very common type of cactus found & sold here in many garden centres.

They are very easy to maintain but also be very vigilant about the soil and water condition - as too much water can kill the plant. I had lost 2 pots of these for some strange reasons which I have yet to identify.

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Regardless, there are many tiny plantlets that form from this one and nothing is loss as once planted in a new pot, they populate fast and easy.

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I got this plant from my my friend's girlfriend. Back then (2000) I was renting an apartment and we were bachelors. He invited her to the house and she was amazed with the amount of indoor plants placed inside. And thus, I got a gift from her ( a very nice collection of 3 different types of cactus in this pot)

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Well, as time flies, both of them got married (Ivan & Soo Bee) and I still have this cactus as my plant collection memories. What is left of the collection now is this plant called : Tiger Jaws.

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Tiger Jaws (pic. above)

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1) When lacking water, they look shrivelled and brown, once watered the look refreshed (green and full) But if over watered, they tend to get rotten by the roots to top.

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2) Like every succulent characters: Water only after the soil dries up.
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Name: African Milk Tree (Euphorbia trigona)

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This one is given to me by my office colleague. I think she was clearing all her thorny plants as she understood that its not good for her feng shui. Anyway, it was a small size branch when I first got it. Now its very well developed. I didn't do much of anything except watering and its look very happy for this moment.

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Unlike other common cactus, this one has tiny leaves at the tips. Also apparently - Crown of Thorns also comes from the same species. Also the sap is considered poisonous.

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Name: Pilosocereus species

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This one as I had said before in my earlier post - collecting them from the roadside when someone had cut and threw the whole thing off. I remember it was the time when my elder son was born and my wife was still in the hospital after her labour. I got this and the variegated Dumbcane. (which grew very tall as time when by)
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Name: Cardboard Palm, Jamaican Sago Tree (Zamia Furfuracea)

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Bought it from a supermarket where is was sold for a good price. I had changed the pot and placed it here as I was running out of space in my main garden. I understand this is drought tolerant and don't need so much water.
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A stem cutting of Sedum nussbaumerianum. (the light green coloured one)

They seemed to propagate easier & faster this way compared to using leaf propagation.

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Name (top pic) : Sedum Clavatum

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I had cut and placed these very nicely in a level and presented in bowl with pebbles for Christmas. The still look lovely after this 2 years except for the leggy part.

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But prefer not to disturb it as I like the unique trailing stalks. Sort of authentic kind of look.

The plantlets are easily propagated from the leaf but very slow. Much more easier and faster results can be seen when using stem cuttings.

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Again, like all succulents, stem cutting propagation must be done after the stalk dries up (leaving them to dry from few days to weeks) if not, they will tend to rot when in contact with wet soil.
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Name: Mother of Thousand

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It look leggy here, I wonder whether its a sign that is either healthy or lack of light. Surprisingly it didn't invade any of other potted plants which this plant is very famous for (considering it as an invasive plant)

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New sprouts of Sedum Clavatum from the stem cuttings.

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Name: Cardboard Palm

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The Desert Rose don't seemed to be doing so well and I have decided to put them here. Also too much water may cause root rot and I don't want to take any chances with it.
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I'm experimenting with some plants by placing them at the roof tiles.

These Mother of Thousand seemed like outcast (out of my garden) I found that it had been so well for these past few months. The water trail is actually coming from my A/C gutter.

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I have seen plants growing on rain gutters and wanted to experiment these plant on my roof area. It would certainly look good with green cascading at my balcony side.