Amaryllis Magical Touch

Amaryllis number 18 for the year is called Magical Touch.



Another new one, and it's lovely.  Deep raspberry red, with streaks and a white picotee edging.  Nice!

Mammillaria backebergiana first re-bloom

My Mammillaria backebergiana cactus is blooming, with beautiful fuchsia flowers. There are 25 buds so far and more developing!



I got this last March, at the tail end of its bloom cycle, with one of the horrible strawflowers hot-glued to the top. The real flowers are so much prettier than the fake ones.





You can see the spine damage caused when I peeled off the glue; the damaged areoles were in the very top center growth point when I got the plant. So it grew an inch in one year, and the damage is an inch down the sides now.

Greening
Sue Brady

Gray and brown and faded green,
Dirty snow piled in corners,
February wears on me.

March roars in and brings more snow
Then it melts and snows again,
Will springtime ever come?

Then… a shoot, a spear, a spike!
The exuberance of crocus
Begins to push out winter.

Daffodil and snowdrop,
Tulip, hyacinth, muscari,
The bulbs know spring is here.

Samba

Amaryllis Number 17 is another new one, and another mislabel.  It was supposed to be Ambiance, which is white with red streaking.  This is not Ambiance, it's Samba, which I actually think I like better.



It's very striking.  The flowers are very flat, and are carried in a tight cluster at the top of the scape.

And just for fun, here's a current picture of the amaryllis table....I mean dining table.  Oops!  :-)

Phalaenopsis, yay!

I have a Phal blooming now, and it's a rebloom!



This is Phal Liu's Triprince, which I got last June.  The original spikes lasted a few months, then I cut them off and it grew a nice new leaf over the winter.  A couple months ago I noticed a little nub forming, and it was a spike!

It's so gratifying when a new orchid reblooms in my care for the first time.

Micro-mini

My Lepanthopsis astrophora orchid is blooming again.  Actually, it's never really stopped since it first bloomed last March, though it did slow down a bit when it was really dark this winter.  But now the days are getting longer again, and it's blooming on two new spikes!



Despite its small size, this is an incredibly beautiful orchid.  Each flower is 1/8" tall, but so perfectly formed, and the color is an amazing glowing fuchsia-purple.

It takes my breath away.

Misty

Amaryllis number 16 is another new one this year, named Misty.



It's very pretty, with its pale pink flowers striped with rose and a green throat, and is mildly fragrant.  This variety is also unusually different from my other amaryllis, in that it is trumpet-shaped.  I like it!

I'm not, really...

It's 11:30 at night and I'm browsing eBay and other plant vendor websites, and thinking about ordering a backyard hobby greenhouse kit. I really need to go to bed before I do something rash.

Not-Hercules

Amaryllis number 15:



This was supposed to be Hercules, with an extremely large deep pink bloom.

It is not.  It is a medium-sized plain red bloom.  I still like it, since it's a good deep red and the flower is nicely shaped, but it is not Hercules.

Bulb mislabeling strikes again.

Echeverias are very pretty

Here's the flower of my little Echeveria "Ramillette", another small rosette-forming succulent.



So pretty, with its bright yellow flowers flushed with orange.



As you can see, the plant itself looks very much like the Pachyveria "Claire" that I showed a month ago (which is still blooming!), to the right of the Ramillette. 

They are NOT the same, though.  Even aside from the color, which is a pure clear yellow on Claire, the flowers are quite different, being carried more up right and clustered on Ramillette and more cascading on Claire.



I like them all.  Every single one of all my many plants.

Exotic Peacock

Amaryllis number 14 is blooming, and it's a stunner.



This is Exotic Peacock.



So beautiful, with its triple layered flower.  As a bonus, it's mildly fragrant!

Chamaelobivia bloom

Another cactus flower is open today, Chamaelobivia.  This is an intergeneric hybrid between Chamaecereus and Lobivia, although both these genera have been lumped into Echinopsis now.  So I guess this is just a plain old Echinopsis hybrid.



It doesn't matter what it's named- isn't it gorgeous.



This is about as tall as the plant will get, but it will form a clump of stems over time. 

[Note to self:  You have not adequately planned ahead for when all your plants grow and get bigger over time.]

An actual spinning post

I had a fun weekend, and went to a spinning group in Pendleton!  I even brought the BIG wheel!  Yes, it's a pain to lug around, but it's the wheel I love to spin on the most. 

And I do love it dearly even though we had a few hiccups at the beginning, during which it refused to have any take-up whatsoever even after I cleaned everything and oiled it and even put a new drive band on.  Turns out it was entirely my fault, because one of the wheel uprights had gotten slightly out of alignment during the trek over the mountain.  The wheel is a diva, but when everything is where it's supposed to be it spins like a joyous bird in flight.

This is New Hue Handspuns BamHuey "Doh! Doh! Bird."  It's very bright.  It's extremely bright.  It's even brighter than it looks in this picture.



It's loud and cheerful and fun.  Emma has already claimed whatever yarn results, and has requested a scarfy-shawly thing.  Good thing I bought this fiber with her in mind.



I got about half the fiber spun yesterday.  The color runs are fairly long, and I'll be chain-plying to keep the colors separate.  I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Subtle crown

I just love this little cactus, Mammillaria lasiacantha var. denudata.  It has a perfect little crown now.