Cacti & Succulents Garden

Both Aloe and Agave are succulents. They both have a rosette of fleshly leaves with spines. All agaves and some aloes are stemless (or nearly stemless). Both have varieties having small rosette and large rosette. Have a look of the picture below, can you tell which is which? Well, the left one is aloe bloomii, and the right one is agave americana. Although they look similar,  the aloe and agave are only distantly related, with their last common ancestor thought to exist around 93 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth. Aloes are native to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; agaves are native to America continental --- across the Atlantic Ocean. Some aloes can grow into a tree up to 30' tall. Agaves will stay on the ground, with rosette size varying from 6" to 15'. Another important difference is their flowers. Agaves only bloom before they die. It takes 5 to 40 years for agaves to be mature. Then the growing point (center) develops into a tall flower...

Jade plant is one of the most popular succulents. Official name: Crassula Ovata Origin: South Africa and Mozambique The name "jade"  borrows from  the green-colored gem. As the plant grows big, the green stem turns woody, which make it look like a mini-tree. Therefore, jade plants are often trained into a bonsai (盆栽). An example is shown below. There are more than 1000 varieties of jade plants. Here I introduce some common ones. True Jade The one in the first picture is considered as "true" jade plant, which has shiny green oval-shaped leaves. If it is exposed to direct sunlight, the leaves will have red tips. (sunlight impact can be fined in another post https://succulents-minwei.blogspot.com/2017/09/planting-and-caring-cacti-succulents.html) It has small white or pink flowers. Tricolor Three colors:  white, green, and yellow, narrow color stripes. It has pink flowers. Variegata Quite similar to tricolor, but the color stripes...

Well, Cactus family is part of big Succulent family. All are able to store water in fleshy tissue in their stems, leaves or roots. Most have developed distinctive features to help reduce water evaporation and withstand their hostile habitats. They can even cease active growth and become dormant in severe conditions (e.g., extremely hot summer in desert). The bizarre appearance is the result of unique evolution in such environment. Interesting observation 1: why cacti have ribs rather than smooth surface to minimize water loss? Ribs could be deep or shallow, depending how much water it store in the stem. Pretty cool, isn't it? If it was smooth, then it would have wrinkles when losing water ---- not cool at all! Interesting observation 2: cacti have areoles, pad-like buds, from where spines, shoots and flowers grow. Sometimes they are not easily visible. This is the difference between cacti and other succulents. Interesting observation 3:  nearly all cacti and some other succ...

I am excited to start this blog. Growing Cactus and succulent has been my wife Ann's hobby and mine for a while. We have collected quite a lot along the years, especially after we moved into our new home two and half years ago. Naturally we get the idea of backyard nursery. In this blog, I will introduce you our collections, share decoration/design ideas, care tips, and many more. To most people, cacti and succulents are their great aunt's jade plant (which survived all these years despite her).[1] Yes, they are quite easy to grow. They can survive in harsh conditions, since some of them grow in desert or high elevation mountains in nature. Most importantly, they are beautiful! Many of them have the astonishing appearances, which will amaze your guests. Colorful rosettes are the 'flowers' which bloom forever. It becomes more and more trendy for landscaping and interior decoration. For instance, Rosettes are used in wedding ceremonies as center piece. Lastly, a warni...