Love all the blooms Mike!

ChiChi Castenago - the branch shape is unusual, not a good quality bloom but there are more coming





Meadow Rose

So lovely! I have two more buds, after those two I will be done for the season.

Mike ChiChi Castenago has to be an E. crenatum. That looks just like mine. Very different foliage that the rest.

I now find out that is considered nocturnal or diurnal. Mine opened up during early evening and was still open the next day so I considered it a day bloomer but I guess it lasts two or three days vs most other night bloomers that last just one night.

Now I have to study up on "species" "family" "genus" etc - well maybe one day.

"The more you learn the more you realize how little you know"

I just happened to catch an argument on the subject when I was on DG, years ago, or I would still be wondering about it. You and others have posted pictures of "noid white" on several occasions, and I always look for foliage because the flowers look so much the same.

I have learned not to go crazy with the names anymore, getting them to bloom nicely is already a challenge, but it sure is wonderful to get the name right when the tag is actually correct.

Only half of mine had a tag. The rest were pass along cuttings. There are so many unregistered crosses out there that names are not important unless you plan on selling. Mine isn't a named cross as Mike's is, but it is a different species of the same distinguished by the ric rac type foliage.

A new red NoID opened. The bud looked like it would open any day for the last two weeks. It opened yesterday afternoon or evening and looks like it is closing this evening. Not sure if it is a night bloomer. It is a very short lived bloom. But it has been almost 90 degrees today.



It is not pure red like our possible Ackermanii cross. It has pink in the throat.


The light pink NoID and the medium pink NoID are blooming again and there are more buds. And our orange NoID has a bud.

Cooler weather sure makes a difference! Hasn't gotten over 75 here in several weeks. Flowers seem to take forever to open, but still only last 2 days.

I also have a noid starting to open now, our temps reading 93F. I am sometimes confused..do they want this warm..or just the mid 80's. 70's makes them bid their time.

I'm as confused as you, Tarev. Mine are blooming very poorly this year, and I don't know what to blame it on. We're not seeing any sun until 3:00 or so, so it could be lack of sun, but we are in our fifth year of drought, so maybe that's part of it. Not many plants can take our high ph water for long, and we never got enough rain to leach it out. I just don't know.

I'm having the same problem here. It's been so cool that the buds just sit on the plants. I have a well, but the water has been tasting kind of funky lately, and if I'm noticing it the plants are too. I do have some new Epi's that I've gotten to see their blooms this year, that's been really nice. My garden is confused on the whole this spring, half of them have bloomed and are already seeding and the other half are being slow to start.

My epi blooms are actually better this year considering, like two noids finally showed me its blooms, before it just blasted. We did have cooler conditions with rain a few weeks ago. Maybe it is the rain stash it got? And I have to admit I was spritzing more often this time compared to last year. I thought I understood the temps but apparently not...oh well! Just glad to get some blooms!

Not just my epis, my other tropical heat loving plants have been really slow, due to the longer cool down. Not that I am complaining, I like the cooler temps, but I do miss seeing more active growth which should be more apparent by now.

Here is the one that started to bloom today, 17May: It gave a bloom in late April as well, while I was away, so it is really being generous to me this year

around 6pm


at 10:00pm

What does a blasted bloom look like?

Carl, this is one of my blasted noid buds last April 2014...just not enough there to make it bloom:

Thanks. I guess I haven't had that problem yet or haven't noticed it.

How big is the pot that it is growing in? I tend to use at least 1 gallon nursery pots. My big ones are in the 5 gallon pots.
A number of the broken pieces that I just stuck in pots of soil (that had iris seedlings that died) bloomed this year. Some look like they need to be repotted.
I'm going to have to get rid of some. And my medium pink NoID seriously needs to be hacked back severely.

I also want to try hanging baskets. Does any one have helpful hints?

I grow mine in just 6-inch containers. My understanding was it likes to be root bound. I have some of them hanging with some hang-a-pots hooks or sometimes just by another bigger container, due to lack of space issues I have opted to go vertical, if I can:

inside a bigger container:


this one is enjoying hanging, found the container and hanging wire at Big Lots one time:


In plastic 6-inch pots, using hang-a-pots to latch upright on the post: