Can't wait! I'm on pins and needles!

150 inches of rain a year, I cannot imagine. I used to live in Pennsylvania and our average was 36 inches a year and I thought it rained a lot. (It rained about every third day.) Here, the average is 16 inches, but since average is just a bunch of numbers added up and divided and this is the West, we rarely get exactly 16 inches. We usually get less, with an El Nino year thrown in every once in a while to raise the average. For example, during the last El Nino we got 40 inches in a couple months.

terrafirma said:No, not yet...Though it does appear to be 'ready'! Checked on it this morning. Seems to be hanging down more. Looking like it's getting 'heavy' and beginning to open.
Fingers crossed!

oh my!
we need timelapse video and smellevison

microb said:Tarev - come and get some rain. We are forecast to get up to 10 inches in the next two days due to Tropical Storm Hilda. Average 150 inches a year.

If only I can pull some from your area there microb I can easily imagine that 10 inches of rain, I grew up in the Philippines were sometimes the monsoon rains is just amazingly strong, makes you think rain is coming from below the way the water rises fast and more rain downwards, sideways pouring ever so heavily, then we get average of 20 direct hits from typhoons, on top of that. Life in the tropics! And these days, typhoons there are getting much stronger in intensity, too different from the time I lived there. Hope TS Hilda will not be too much there!

Dirtdorphins, looking at your photo, are you sure you didn't miss it??? It looks an awfully lot like Epi oxypetalum, which blooms at night and hangs/is finished in the morning.
I would have thought yours was ready to open on the 13. In the evening!

I have a large Epiphyllum phyllanthus ( related to strictum) which came from Guyana / a small village named Hubu on the Essequibo, many years ago. It is a sprawler and right now full of of buds. Here was one open around 11 pm on Wednesday and hanging down the next the morning, see upper right on that plant.
Sometimes the flowers won't open at all, (cleistogamous) as evident by large red seed pods forming in weeks to come.


I should mention these blooms are very fragrant!

Are ALL epi blooms fragrant or just some?

Ursula - Those bloom photos are awesome!!!!

I like seeing a picture of the whole plant. My cuttings have a ways to go before they look like that! I keep telling myself that patience builds character.

Ursula that's not mine (mine are all just barely rooted cuttings and have a long way to go before I miss the first monumental bloom while sleeping between working, maybe I can luck out and schedule vacation to coincide with flowers haha)

Jeez, I hope that Tara didn't miss the flower--that would be an epic disappointment after all the anticipation

as far as I know, many of the species are quite fragrant but not the hybrids...someone please correct me if I'm wrong

dirtdorphins, you are right. I have a red one that blooms its head off in March and there is no fragrance. But....the blooms last all day.

Sorry, yes of course, it was Tara's picture showing a bud ready to open. My mistake!
@terrafirma, how did it go?

Becky, I don't know which of the "thousands" of Epiphyllum hybrids are fragrant, surely there are some, but so far I know that Epiphyllum phyllanthus, pumilum and oxypetalum are very fragrant. All three are night blooming species. ... Dirtdorphins also mentions fragrant species.

None of my hybrids are fragrant. I'm not sure if they open during the night, but they are open during the day and stay open for a couple days.

The only fragrant one I have is Queen of the Night. No fragrance on any the others as far as I can tell.
Will post some plant pics later.

My noid hybrids has no fragrance either, but they usually start blooming around 9pm then stays on for the next day, if temps are in the low to mid 80's they get to stay one more day, before they dry out. That is the only thing that I find irksome with Epis, very long anticipation and one day wonder...so easy to miss the show if you happen to be out that particular night/day.

I am sooooo disappointed.
My epi did not open. I checked on it every evening before bed, and every morning, first thing. The bud is hanging straight down. Still firmly closed.

@Ursula, I'd never heard of epis' susceptibility to this cleistogamy. To be honest I wasn't familiar with the term at all. Do you think it's possibly what happened here?

Talk about anticipation, I think I just saw the last bloom of my day bloomers for this year Now I'm thinking about only 28 weeks to go before I can look for buds for next year.

Aww..I feel your pain Tara! I have a similar epi in early Spring, so many buds forming..only to have them all blast..not even one managed to show..haaay...thankfully the other containers fared better. So got to have more around so if one container disappoints maybe the other ones will do better.

Mike, oh yes..the bye bye stage...and the very long wait for beauty to return!