I hope you saw my last blog post, I will be back in the office in a customer service capacity next week.  I usually spend my Saturdays with you, so I wanted to touch base with our community, but we're going to refrain from listing more plants until I get caught back up on paperwork.  We'll be back to listing in March. 

I did want to share with you that we plan to break ground on a few climate controlled greenhouses in late spring and we have already been collecting some of your most coveted rares for in-house growing. 

Don’t get too excited as this will be a long process that will take years to come to full fruition, and rest assured we'll never quit importing South Korea as they have the most beautiful rares and hybrids in the world, but the ultimate goal is to ship the healthiest plants around and have a full understanding of each individual rare we grow.  You can only get that level of expertise by growing and monitoring the plants yourself. 

Right now we have about 150 mature specimens we are pupping and more leaf props than you can imagine.

Thought I would share what we’re up to behind the scenes and here are five that peaked my interest this week.

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My favorite this week is this variegated Amethystinum.  This plant will most likely only give us variegation in stem offsets, variegation is not always passed down through leaf props.  In order for us to produce this plant in any kind of volume we’ll need multiple, mature pupping plants.  But her rarity and beauty intrigues us and we’ll look to add more of her kind into our breeding program. 

You will notice she is a little wrinkled, she is semi dormant right now and we will only be watering her for limited periods until the spring, at which point we’ll probably plump her back up with water therapy. 

Next on my list of curiosities is this dwarf Rainbow.  I’ve never seen a rainbow bloom.  This rainbow is fully mature, her stem is almost tree-like in appearance and forks with three sunset-hued rosettes, each coming in at about the size of a quarter.  Even the bloom clusters are compact.  Don't worry, echeverias are predominantly polycarpic and will bloom many times over the course of their lifetime.  If grown indoors you can trick your echeveria into blooming by increasing the intensity of the light it receives per day. 

Another plant that strikes my fancy are variegated moonglows.  We are growing quite a few of these at the moment.  Crassulas one of the few genius of the Crassulaceae family that have active growing cycles in the winter.  Side note, we should be watering these more frequently than we have been, but I was out of the office for a large part of last month and these guys are getting thirsty.  They water prop beautifully and we’ll be plumping these lovelies back up soon.  Moonglows look their best in winter by being protected from cold temps.  My favorite is this triple with a gorgeous buttercream albino head.  Never seen one like her. 

Next up we have a Tiramisu showing her beautiful bell-shaped blooms.  We will start working with seeds in the spring of 2020.  So seeing our rares in bloom always excite me.

Frills always hold a special, ruffly place in my heart and this frill hybrid is throwing fantastic color and texture.  No color enhancements here, she is just spectacular right now.  Don’t you want to just pull that leaf?  I like my plants ‘clean,’ but when they are semi dormant I try my best to leave foliage until it drops. She is almost undoubtedly some derivative of Etna, but her mature foliage is much more dramatic in its curls and she stays dense and compact. 

Last up we have a variegated Pulvinata, sometimes called 'Devotion.'  These fuzzy plants are one of my favorites because they are touchable without destroying farina.  This plant has a nice mix of both chlorophyll-producing leaves and fully variegated leaves, which rely on the rest of the plant for its nutrition. 

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I'd love to know which varieties you think we should keep our eyes on and what you'd like to see us start growing in-house.  

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-Crystal