Let's see your Euphorbias in action!

Here to start things off is a family portrait: mom, pop, and volunteer baby E. genoudiana, looking about as leafy as they get here.



The third plant just showed up one day next to that Adenium (in a 12 inch pot). They make excellent companion plants so I'm leaving them together for life. E. genoudiana is mostly a spring-summer grower though it does not actually go fully dormant in winter (and tolerates our winter rainfall). It makes bisexual flowers but is not self-compatible.

Female Euphorbia Obesa - hopefully, let me know if I'm wrong

She's dropped all the flowers now.

I took this photo of Euphorbia mammillaris var variegata today. I've been keeping an eye on it since it's located in all day sun. What it's done so far is lose most of the old spines, but the new ones are just shading into a rosier shade of pink. Also the part where the new spines are growing has sort of a bulbous look on the top that's a bit larger diameter than the lower arm. A couple of of the arms have grown new arms. Hard to tell how much of that may be occurring since they are closer together toward the center. I don't want to burn it up in the sun. Don't always trust the sun here. I moved a little cactus so a larger container could block some sun on it. I moved that one into dappled shade last summer and may do it again if the container doesn't seem to be blocking enough direct sun.

needrain said:I took this photo of Euphorbia mammillaris var variegata today. I've been keeping an eye on it since it's located in all day sun. What it's done so far is lose most of the old spines, but the new ones are just shading into a rosier shade of pink. Also the part where the new spines are growing has sort of a bulbous look on the top that's a bit larger diameter than the lower arm. A couple of of the arms have grown new arms. Hard to tell how much of that may be occurring since they are closer together toward the center. I don't want to burn it up in the sun. Don't always trust the sun here. I moved a little cactus so a larger container could block some sun on it. I moved that one into dappled shade last summer and may do it again if the container doesn't seem to be blocking enough direct sun.

Looks healthy! And yeah this sun is crazy strong here, I was thinking that I was unhappy that my plants only got like 3-5hours of direct sun but I think its actually a good thing now, especially during this adjustment season for my plants being in this caliber sun and heat for the first time.

So I left a few of my Euphorbias back in the greenhouse will get them shipped back to me eventually but the ones I brought with me is my E. esculenta, E. poisonii, and E. unispina.
I am going to repot all of them very soon finally found pot wide enough and shallow enough for how I would like to keep them.

The E. poissonii's and the unispina all took the longest out of all my plants to wake up out of dormancy. They just started leafing out this recent week after 3 months of being outside here in Texas and still dormant.

E. esculenta



E. poissonii




E. unispina



I'm definitely not great with growing Euphorbias but I tried my hand at their seeds one time and these are three of them. Still learning with Euphorbias and and sure to continue a lot more now that I'm in Texas!

Nice pics everyone!

Connor, it looks like your esculenta is pregnant (last pic), if you should ever want to play some more. The trick of course is to harvest the fruit before it explodes (or bag it on the plant, if you prefer). I like to wait until the fruit is mostly brown, then snip it at the base and put it in a paper envelope, where it will pop at its own leisure, or can be induced to pop under warm, dry conditions.

There's a sort of existential chapter in Florent Grenier's 2019 book on Namaqualand succulents (which I highly recommend by the way) where he talks about sound, or more specifically the lack of sound in this arid region, and concludes by saying "...if one listens carefully, the popping of dry Euphorbia capsules dispersing seeds can be heard". I put an envelope full of esculenta fruit in the sun a few days ago and that popping sound repeated semi-randomly every few minutes was an excellent addition to my day. The sound of a new generation coming into this world.

Baja,

Thanks for that catch!! It lives behind a post on my deck now and didn't notice that back arm was pregnant.
I did the bag trick once back in New Jersey once for a few seed capsules, I also let a few heads explode in the desert house benches hoping I'd get something to spring up in a bench, but it never happened.

And thank you for that book recommendation, that chapter describing that nature sounds idyllic!! I will have to order a copy!

And I don't think I ever got the chance to here them popping in the bag, they must have done it over night the time I got them all. But thanks to you I now know I can use heat to push them along!

My Medusa type Euphorbia - probably either esculenta or inermis - is growing okay. What it's not doing is growing like it did last year. It started out in full sun, but it began to develop a brown stress color, so I moved it under an oak tree. The tree is providing deeper shade this year because there hasn't been any hail and didn't suffer caterpillar damage while it was leafing out this year. The Euphorbia has lost the stress color and it doesn't look etoliated, but the growth rate is really slow. I think I'm going to trade places and let it hang from a tree with a lighter canopy where it will get more direct light from the sun. You can sort of tell how much shade in the current location in the second photo. It's the container directly above the napping hound.

Looks like a great place to take a nap on a hot afternoon.

Looks really healthy Donald! It's much fuller than mine! It'll be a good looking guy as it ages, you'll have to wait till it flowers to get an ID on it!

@baja_costero you are right my E. esculenta is very pregnant!! I'm going to cut it off in a day or two once it's a little less green

I find they turn completely brown before they pop, so I usually wait until I see some brown in case being on the mother plant confers some advantage for ripening (which may not be the case). The fruit may blush red, but that's not the color I look for.

Smotzer said:Looks really healthy Donald! It's much fuller than mine! It'll be a good looking guy as it ages, you'll have to wait till it flowers to get an ID on it!

It did bloom . There were about three blooms scattered on a couple of arms. They were white. I thought it was probably early and that it would bloom heavier later, so no photo. They were so small they looked like a piece of debris that had hung on the arm. I'll have to wait for a better attempt at bloom. They weren't too impressive, so they may not have even been normal blooms.

needrain said:

It did bloom . There were about three blooms scattered on a couple of arms. They were white. I thought it was probably early and that it would bloom heavier later, so no photo. They were so small they looked like a piece of debris that had hung on the arm. I'll have to wait for a better attempt at bloom. They weren't too impressive, so they may not have even been normal blooms.

Mine never gets a heavy bloom either only ever a few in a couple arm s. Nothing like pictures of them blooming I see. and yeah they are very hard to even notice sometimes looks like small fuzz the first time I saw it blooming.

The first couple of times the plant flowers, there's just a few scattered cyathia. Later on it should bloom in abundance, like this:



The flowers have a great smell and the first couple days they open, the patio becomes intoxicating.

You both have your plants in fairly small pots by my standards. The plant has the potential to get big, if you let it. My final pot size here on the patio is 12".

E. bupleurifolia pics here from today and Friday showing the appearance of new blooms.



This plant is the father or grandfather of dozens of seedlings, some of which are still around here. He was selected for that purpose because he branched relatively early.

Baja_Costero said:The first couple of times the plant flowers, there's just a few scattered cyathia. Later on it should bloom in abundance, like this:

• Euphorbia (Euphorbia esculenta)
• Uploaded by Baja_Costero

You both have your plants in fairly small pots by my standards. The plant has the potential to get big, if you let it. My final pot size here on the patio is 12".

Not sure why the quote didn't work. But Yeah it is going to get a new much wider pot very soon! It used to be so little that I treated it like my others as far as putting goes. Just didn't want to do it while it was in dormancy and then still adjusting to the new environment. But soon I will and hopefully it will take off.

Mine is actually planted in I think 100% lava. It was an experiememt to see how esculenta would do in just aggregate and it was a success because at the time I hadn't switched the desert house from overhead misters to all drip lines, and didn't want to rot the roots.

I got to tell you setting up and entire desert house into an automated drip line system was the best watering system I ever put together, everything was in super fast draining soil with water getting delivered directly into the pots for short intervals but at a higher frequency and I got very steady faster growth on all my plants. And I stopped getting fungal issues from too high of humidity

Here a couple of Euphorbias that are still hanging around in my collection, not sure of the ID on either. One is clearly in need of a bigger pot, but given it got a bad case of sunburn last summer, I was not sure it would be worth it, but it has moved on from that really well. I have a giant E. tirucalli 'Firesticks' in my front yard that looks like it grew half a foot every time I look at it, and I have another few in pots. I am of a mind to expand my collection a bit, but the initial focus would be be on larger growing, AZ full sun capable, in the ground plants (like E. resinifera and some of the arborescent Euphorbias).

First plant looks like

Euphorbia (Euphorbia polygona var. horrida)

and not

Euphorbia (Euphorbia polygona 'Snowflake')

because the cyathia are green, not red.

E. resinifera is an awesome plant but it's not in a hurry to get huge. So don't skimp on the size there, if you can afford it. I will get out some time and take pictures of the 2 clones that have been in the hill above the house for about 10 years, very gradually working their way toward moundaliciousness.

E. venenifica here leafing out for summer....

Thanks Baja for the comments, I never thought it was 'snowflake', which I actually do have - it is just on the front porch where I do no take too pictures too often. That first plant actually is still in the original pot, and I remember there being a name on the label, so it may still be there.

I do not think it is a straight up polygona var. horrida. It's habit is generally wider than tall stems, which with the coloring might make you think of 'snowflake', but I always knew it was not that.

There is an arborescent one that people grow here that can easily take full sun, it is not one of the obvious ones. When I remember the name I will post it. I will also try and get a picture of the single stem that is left of my 'snowflake' - it had a major set back last summer and now I have just one long tall stem left.

It looks like I need to decide what to do about this Firesticks once it cools down. It is getting tall enough that I should probably shape it some to get it more tree shaped as I doubt it will suddenly stop growing:

The tallest 'branches' are 7-8' tall at the moment. As with most Firesticks it is very bushy.... so pruning it will be difficult and possibly a bit of waste as right now it is actually turning into a shade bush for a couple of Agaves.

That plant looks very happy in the summer sun.

Polygona is a variable species. I have polygonas here that are wider than tall.