Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Dyckia tuberosa

This spiky plant with the bright orange flowers took me an inordinate amount of time to identify. See, someone had told me it was in the Puya family, but that turned out to be a dead end to go down, and had me waste a lot of time looking for a plant I don't have. The bloom has lasted a long time, so that helps with giving me more ways to look for this thing. The flower is on about a two- to three-foot stalk, and the ants really like the flowers, so that's what you see in this closeup. Being vaguely related to the pineapple, I guess it's sweet and tasty to them. Be careful if you're trying to weed near this plant, since the spiked leaves have additional spikes along the leaf edges, making it extra scary and cruel to gardening hands. I've gotten several cat-scratch-looking cuts from getting too close to this particular plant. Finally, I kinda like this out of focus look at the flower from above. No real reason, since you can't see anything to identify it from. But, it gives an idea of just how far the bloom ends up being from the spiky leaves at the bottom.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Euphorbia Milii splendens (Crown of Thorns)

Euphorbias encompass an enormous amount of variety among the different species. Some look very much like a cactus, with large diameter stems and branches, and then some look like really spiky rose bushes with dainty flowers. This week I'm profiling the latter type (the other type is also in the yard and will get it's own day in the spotlight).


In researching this plant, I have found that mine is way too tall and gangly. This is supposed to be more like a bush than the four-foot-long spiky stem ending with six leaves and a smalle cluster of pink flowers like I have now. These tolerate significant pruning, and should be pruned to promote a fuller plant. I also found out how to propagate this plant, and it's one of the more tricky cutting propagaters to deal with (cut it, soak in water to prevent the sap from all leaking out, let it dry and callous over the cut, and then plant it with sparse amounts of water until the roots come out). However, if I cut it back, using the cuttings to make new plants and to promote the existing healthy (but lanky) plant to grow fuller, maybe I'll be in a position to replace the plant with rooted cuttings if I ended up pruning too far. Hopefully I don't go the other direction and kill the plant by too much pruning while also failing to get the cutting to root. I just keep hoping that my brown thumb is getting a little greener through all this research and learning.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Crassula perfoliata (Propeller Plant)

After a bike-riding hiatus I'm back to chronicling my backyard plant identification journey. Thanks to Amy for the tip on this week's plant. We both have this in our yards, but she was faster at figuring out what it was. I did look up the official name, though.

Sometimes called a red crassula or a scarlet paintbrush, this succulent took a very long time, probably three weeks, to come to full bloom. Initially, the flower was a set of barely-colored buds, like you see here, and then the red color became more prominent, and then each of the little buds opened into small red flowers with yellow centers. My camera appears to have eaten the pictures from that stage of the blooming, so you'll just have to take my word for the fact that stage was really pretty.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Indian Blood Peach

I really had no idea this was a peach tree -- there were no fruit last year. This year, however, we had tons of these little peaches.

The ones that weren't eaten up by birds were tasty and I enjoyed them all, since GB won't eat peaches (silly guy). The fruits are small -- maybe 2-3 inches in diameter -- and the stones were definitely a cling-type. Based on the varieties of peach that grow in this area, my best guess is that these are Indian Blood peaches, though it's quite likely I am wrong, and welcome whatever other suggestions I can get. I never noticed a flower, so I don't have that to review in the identification details, but just based on size, stone, and color, that's the one I settled on. There's another small tree in the front, so I look forward to the day that I can race the birds on two trees, instead of just one.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Hoya carnosa (Snowball)

This was such a surprise when I found the first group of flowers. Previously, I was convinced that it was a vine that was all over a tree, but was just a vine.
This shows you the woody vine that I had definitely seen, and it gives you a little bit of an idea of how the flowers were hiding in and amongst the leaves of this guy. However, once I found the flowers, I couldn't stop noticing them. The bees certainly found the flowers, even if they are hiding.
In this picture, which I took from underneath the flower bunch, pointed right up to the sky, you can see the flowers mixed in with some moss that is hanging from that tree along with the vines. I know you can't smell through the picture, but those flowers are sweet and I'm so happy that more and more clusters flower, because I love to just go out there and smell them. Mmmm!!!

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Tropaeolum major (Nasturtium)

I ran across this flowering weed-vine in the yard, and decided that it was too pretty to call a weed, so I have accepted and embraced it into the HIAHS fold.

While this is commonly referred to as a nasturtium, that genus name is used to describe a type of watercress. The scientific name of this guy is one of those that I need to find a Latin expert to know how to pronounce, so I think I'll stick with the common name. It's an easy plant with lots of bright orange flowers. There's basically no scent, but that's okay. I like it anyway.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Cacti Opuntia (Prickly Pear)

The prickly pears are in full bloom and are amazingly beautiful. The number of flowers on the plants just blows me away.



The flowers, up close and personal, are suprisingly complex and detailed. They are also bee magnets, and I sure hope they are making phenomenal honey off these types of buggers. I didn't manage to catch a pollen dude in action, but I've seen plenty out in the yard enjoying themselves. These cacti appear to be spineless, but they actually have very small spines that will get a person pretty good if you get too close. Mostly, the spines are just supposed to spontaneously fall off as a mutation that was performed to try and make a desert plant that could be used to feed livestock. I prefer bees in my backyard to cattle, though.


The "pears" are also are pretty nifty looking. Sometimes called "cactus figs", I would suggest being extra careful with the peeling of these before munching down.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Echeveria setosa (Hens and Chicks)

This groundcover exists in several places throughout the yard.

It's fuzzy and has these clumps of reddish-orange flowers. The flower stems are about 6-8 inches long, but the flowers are quite small. I had asked my mom when I last visited her if she knew what that was, and she said it looked like Chicken and Hen, but it turns out she had the name backward.


This is a closeup of some of the flowers. Echeveria setosa is a succulent, so I don't have to water it a lot -- just a bit if it starts to get really warm. It's really nice that this plant flowers for a long time -- just adds to the general appeal of the latest entry in the HIAHS yard.

The primary distinguishing feature I've noticed on this plant is that the leaves are all fuzzy, like it's trying to be your favorite stuffed animal plant. Most of the other succulents in the yard have smooth, almost plastic-like leaves.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (Tropical Hibiscus)

This showy bush is currently covered with big fluffy blooms. It has clearly been in the yard a while, and is large and established -- just like I like my plants -- harder to kill that way.


It's a large bush, about eight feet tall, and I've seen up to 15 of these six-inch blooms on it, and that is a glorious sight. There are several types of hibiscus, but this one falls in the tropical group, which is good because it turns out to be in a south-facing part of the yard, where it gets as much sun as it wants, and more.


I do like this one. For a tropical plant, it needs very little extra water in our part of the desert, which is surprising. There are other tropical plants in the yard that need a decent amount of extra water, so it's nice that this one doesn't have that requirement. Woohoo! Go hibiscus!

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Aeonium davidbramwellii

The larger aeoniums in the yard were harder to identify, for some reason. I'm starting to think that most of the time that's because it's a hybrid. Here's one of the mature rosettes in the yard:

While this one is on a 2-foot-tall stem, many of them in the yard stay at ground level. It has also been blooming in some of the plants, and that's been a treat. While there is no smell, here is a close-up of one of the flowers (they are quite small):

Even though I didn't completely settle into a species, I picked davidbramwellii (anyone think that might have been named after the guy who first classified them??), mostly because as the leaves age, the edges turn reddish, which seems to be a distiguishing characteristic of this one.

This plant, unlike other succulents, does like extra water. Without it, some of the bottom leaves start to die, so it gives you a signal that it's ready for water. As an idiot gardener, I'm all for a plant with a big, flashing, WATER ME! sign.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Bougainvillea

This is a bougainvillea that we have in the front yard.
I did a lot of digging to try to figure out what kind it is, but have run into a bunch of dead ends on that front. Let's look at the data we have on the three pure species that exist, and how my plant relates to them:

Leaves -- The leaves most resemble the peruviana species, with oblate, hairless, evergreen characteristics.

Brachts -- These are the colorful leaves that most people would assume are the flowers, but the flowers are actually at the center of these colorful paperlike brachts. The plant in our yard is closest to the spectablis species, with the bright magenta color and the triangular shape.

Thorns -- Yes, there are thorns, but they are deep inside the plant, and generally blunt, so I haven't maimed myself yet. Here, again, we match up to spectablis.

Flowers -- The little parts at the center of the bracht (at least before they fall off) are white, aligning best with glabra.

Habit -- This characteristic is primarily around what the plant likes to do and how it grows. Since this one blooms multiple times and grows very densely, we have another checkmark for spectablis.

So, what do we have here -- three nods to spectablis, with one each to peruviana and glabra. This would normally tip me to the leading species, except spectablis "is noted for its hairy leaves and stems" which my plant clearly does not have. As such, it is likely some sort of hybrid of these. Now there are 300 hybrids of this showy flowering plant, so my technical term for it is a big pink bougainvillea bush. How's that for fancy? Regardless, it's pretty hardy and just blooms whenever I water it as much as I can manage. Conveniently it's in an unshaded south-facing spot, which is good, since as a tropical plant, it prefers tons of sun, too. I like it when I find another plant I probably can't kill, but with a bit of care will bloom like it's 1999.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Aeonium haworthii

I recently became a very lucky girl on my quest to understand my garden. The previous owner of the house, we'll call her Misty, had lived in this house a long time, and appears to know everyone in town. About 25 years ago, she commissioned the garden for this house from a local landscape artist she knew. Well, he still lives in SB, and came by last week to give us some pointers on the garden. He gave me all kinds of information about what some of these plants are, what I was doing wrong with some of them, and ideas about where to place some additional plants I'd really like to add to the yard. I now have a cornucopia of information, and weeks and weeks of details that I can use in this little feature on HIAHS.

But enough about my dumb luck as I was approaching some lean identification weeks.
This is Aeonium haworthii. It's a very small aeonium, with the succulent rosettes only measuring two to four inches across. While it appears to be rare hardy and nearly invasive, it grows easily in moderate conditions without much watering or other assistance. Here is a closeup of some of the smaller rosettes:
While the leaves end up looking like a flower, there is actually a flower that can grow on this guy. I haven't seen that happen, and am not certain that my exact version will flower, so I'll just stick with the leaves-arranged-like-a-flower state that I have now.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Rhipsalidopsis gaertneri (Easter Cactus)

I decided I better figure out what this one was, because I appears to be trying to kill it, despite the massive numbers of blooms. Here you can see the base stems that look like they are all dying with green sections and tons of blooms at the end, despite it all.

Meanwhile, to give you an idea of scale, here are the blooms in their detail on the edges of my fingertips -- about an inch across, but very bright and happy.

While the common name of Easter Cactus is well agreed on by the various sites I looked at, no one can seem to decide which Cacti genus it belongs in. Some put it in Schlumbergera, some in the Epiphyllum group, like our orchid cactus friend, and it was previously referred to as a Zygocactus, but most seem to put it in the Rhipsalidopsis genus now, so that's where I decided to keep it. Even though they can't agree on a genus, they all have it in the species gaertneri -- backwards, I tell you! How am I supposed to figure out what they are if everyone else doesn't agree?

Anyway, I was supposed to be watering this guy up until it bloomed, and then let it get dry between waterings. I kinda did that backwards, and is likely why this guy is in such a bad state at this point, even though it is healthy enough to flower. I'm trying to do better now that I know what it is. We'll see. Man, am I glad I lucked into an established garden that I can't probably damage too badly.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Jasminum Polyanthum (Pink Jasmine)

This lovely vine doesn't technically grow in our yard. The root system is based in the neighbor's yard, but the vines come up over the fence and we get to enjoy them, so I figure they count as being plants I should know about.


Based on the lovely light fragrance, I knew it was a jasmine. Armed with pictures, I found it is called a Pink Jasmine, because of the pink bloom clusters that turn into pristine white flowers. Apparently, in some climates it can be a deciduous vine, but here it stays green all year with the flowers starting now and covering the plant in June (if I remember correctly from last year -- it hasn't happened this year, yet).

The big plus for this plant is that it's not mine to take care of. Periodically I rinse the dust and cobwebs off the leaves, but mostly it's the neighbor's plant. I like easy, and I like pretty, so this vine really does the trick.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Epidendrums (Star Orchids)

This one suprised me by turning out to be in the orchid family. The flowers are so small, they reminded me of the lantana bushes from Texas. I guess that's why I was so sure they had to be nearly a weed, only pretty. Our versions are purple and orange, and you can see the long-stemmed growth in this picture.


The side view of one of the purple clusters can be seen here. The picture ended up being fuzzy, but I really tried a lot of times (darn macro setting on a tiny flower that keeps moving in the wind), and this was the best I got. Meanwhile, I'll close out with a pretty top view of an orange cluster that sat nicely for its portrait to be taken:

So, as I mentioned before, I was surprised that while investigating the boat orchids of last week, I came across a picture of these guys. Wasn't expecting to find them there. However, on closer review, the petals with the central showy beak that is common in orchids, not sure why I didn't make that connection. Oh, right, I'm a plant idiot trying to change her ways. Regardless, these are definitely Epidendrums, also known as Star Orchids, and these are nice and hardy (which should be read as Heather will likely not kill them). However, the fact that they are long and gangly in my backyard means that I'm not fertilizing them with a low-nitrogen fertilizer (no duh -- not fertilizing them at all, yet), and I'm not watering them enough. At least I know how to keep these guys going stronger in the future!

Tiptoe Through The Tulips: Cymbidium (Boat Orchids)

This homely plant looks remarkably like an iris with its long straight leaves and its clustered appearance.
It just sits in the back against the fence, quietly enjoying life, until the day comes along that it POOF blooms all over the place. That day was recently here at the HIAHS household. Here you can see one of the stems with several flowers on it.

You can also see a closeup of the flowers here:

Gorgeous little orchids that they are, my identification journey took me to find that they are most likely in the Cymbidium genus, and are also known as boat orchids. While I'm likely going to kill this plant with its watering needs (don't let it get dry, but don't let it be too soggy), it appears to thrive with the cool nights we have here. Plus, it is definitely an established plant, so I'm hopeful that with that on my side I won't do so badly. Meanwhile, it's good to know what I should be doing with that little guy.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips: Epiphyllum (Orchid Cactus)

Several things collided at once to lead to this new feature on HIAHS. One is that I seem to need a motivating reason to post periodically, or we'll end up with no new posts here. Another is that we have a bunch of plants in our yard (!It's really ours now, so I better get a handle on it!) that I really need to identify -- who knew that California plants would be so different from the Texas plants I already know? As a result, I'll be taking a picture (or multiple pictures) each week of plants in the yard here, and then working on identifying them. And you'll get to be witness to all the botanical mistakes that I'll make along the way. Lucky for you!

Our first entrant for TTTT is this lovely hanging cactusy thing in the yard:








It hangs in the trees, and the blooms are 4-5 inches across. It appears to be one of the many epiphyllum hybrids (not sure which one, but it might also be a type of disocactus, but that seems less likely). Sometimes referred to as Orchid Cacti (though those bloom strictly at night, and ours is more of a day-time bloomer), they shouldn't be watered more than once a week, as they get grumpy if too moist. Mostly, though, they just pick up moisture from the air, so they do fine on their own. Usually they will flower in the couple of days after being watered, so if you're coming for a visit, remind me to water it, so you can enjoy all the pretty flowers on it in person.

I hope my tentativity (sounded better than tentativeness in my head, grammar be darned) with plant identification gets better. I think we all will be able to see pretty clearly why I didn't become a botanist.