Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Lori S. on August 04, 2009, 04:56:12 AM
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I have this one marked as Orostachys spinosa, but I am questioning if that species is correct, from the variety of forms that a google search brings up. (The little rosettes on the right are from a neighboring sempervivum.) Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you.
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Lori,
Doesn't look like spinosa...but from the looks of the sempervivum next door it could be out of character. Is the area getting lots of light?
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Lori it is definitely not O. spinosa perhaps JohnnyD or MartinR will post a shot they both have excellent examples.
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Orostachys spinosum as requested
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Thank you very much, Martin.
As I look more closely at my plant, it does actually have the congested center in the middle of the looser ring - though it is very small. So I believe it is actually O. spinosa... unless someone thinks otherwise? I had one previously growing in this area - perhaps with more light then - that had proportions (i.e. center to outer ring) like yours, Martin (but it was only a single rosette and I lost it when it bloomed).
So, what is the life cycle of this species... does it start with the congested little center rosettes and later form the looser ring around the outside? (I have some seedlings - a couple of years old now - which consist only of the tight central rosette.)
Carlo, this area has been overhung by a rose from above and by California poppies (that we have only recently beaten back), so it has not had maximum light conditions... perhaps that does explain its odd proportions.
Thanks all!
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I suspect this is O.spinosum that has had quite a lot of water.
It normally retains a distinct central boss of leaves which is the bit which survives througn the winter when most of the roots are lost.
Watering well just once or twice in a season - the first just around Christmas - makes a very attractive foliage plant for the early shows and it lasts well through the season. More water reduces the central boss and this tends to lose the general architecture of the plant.
I did write an (unpublished so far) article, with pics of it in flower. This was some years ago and may take a little resurrecting, but perhaps it's worth a try if anyone is interested. (I suspect the copy is on an old floppy and the pics will need scanning. :-\)
The theme was the variety of ways in which it propagates itself as it seems it is very reluctant to bloom. I would be interested to know if anyone else flowered it?
JohnnyD
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Johnny, this sounds like a good article for the main section of the site.......... 8).... please and thank you! :-*
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Thanks for the info, JohnnyD.
The plant is outdoors - the norm in this area - so it gets the moisture our climate provides (av. 40 cm annual precip) plus whatever supplemental watering is done (twice through the summer so far) to keep things going.
My first one bloomed in pre-digital days (pre-photography days for me!) so no pix.
Sounds like a fascinating article, and hope you will post it!
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I seem to remember that someone had seen a mention of flowering in Canada - but nowhere else!
Anybody know different?
I will try to scan the pics even if the article proves a little elusive.
Watch this space!!!!!
Johnny
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See the entry on the Gardens North site for it, attached:
http://gardensnorth.com/site/
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Mine has never flowered, but it is looking quite good at the moment, although a spider has clearly taken up residence ;D
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Diane and Martin, I was kindly sent some by Kristl Walek. How do you grow it?
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Mine is in a fairly standard mix of J.I. No. 2 and grit. It stands on the patio during the summer but from early September on it is under glass till April. I don't water from October to early March. As John Dower has pointed out you can, to some extent, control the openness of the rosettes by varying your watering. I got my plant as a rosette so have no experience of raising it from seed.
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Diane and Martin, I was kindly sent some by Kristl Walek. How do you grow it?
Mine has been grown totally under glass. With the amount of rain we have had this summer, I'm not sure how well it would have survived outside. It's probably grown in a mixture similar to Martin's, pretty gritty. I water it in the summer, perhaps a few times. Its leaves are succulent in nature so you can tell by looking at it whether it is too dry. Mine has never flowered, but I have wondered if the rosettes die if they do flower?
Sometimes it makes little offsets in the centre of the main spikey rosette, but sometimes under the rosette. They are like mini version of the large ones and just get bigger!
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Kristl writes that the rosettes do die after flowering and that they take about 3 to 4 years to reach flowering sixe. Which species is yours, Diane?
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Kristl writes that the rosettes do die after flowering and that they take about 3 to 4 years to reach flowering sixe. Which species is yours, Diane?
Mine is O spinosa (sometimes called Sedum spinosum). John's, Martin's and mine are the same, could be clonal as possibly from the same source.
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For interest this is the current state of one of our Orostachys spinosum. I will try to remember a follow up picture later. This plant has spent its whole life under glass but we have one outdoors in the crevise bed that survived last winter.
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I hope to spend a little more time soon on this topic but, in the meantime, see this:
http://www.ovrghs.ca/articles/Plants/Orostachys%20spinosa.htm
Wow!
JohnnyD
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For interest this is the current state of one of our Orostachys spinosum. I will try to remember a follow up picture later. This plant has spent its whole life under glass but we have one outdoors in the crevise bed that survived last winter.
i've never heard mention in cactus and succulent circles of Orostachys being hard to flower, i have seen pics of whole bowls full of flower spikes...various species, though...
nor do i think they are generally as moisture shy as some Rosularia(some of those are not rosularia anymore)..but no doubt depends on species...
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Here is the same plant, showing the difference between the beginning of August and mid-October.
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Gracious, it is scarcely recognisable for the same being, Lori!
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Here is my orostachis spinosa flowering last July in the rockery. It does flower periodically when one of the rosettes is big enough and offsets are not numerous. I have still another clump(let) which produses a lot of offsets of smaller size which never rich the flowerting size
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Sorry I missed seeing this topic earlier....Lori, I would have said right away that your first post was in fact O. spinosa---without sufficient exposure to the elements (heat & sun) or lack of maturity.
I've had some of my clones do what yours did (too much shade, moisture, etc).
Even once they assume their proper shape, they will stay more on the greenish side if they do not have enough baking (and enough of a cold winter). Since global warming my plants do not get as silver anymore as they used to in the days of -45C winters.
Once you have enough plants in the garden, there is good flowering most years of the plants that have reached their 3-4 year stage---that is---if they are not rushed to grow up too fast by pampered conditions---in which case, they flower faster. And once they flower, they are exactly like semps. The mother dies---and the ring of babies (see picture) is left to continue. Perhaps I had very happy mothers, because they usually produced *a lot* of offsets.
For my nursery, I would steal the babies, line them up in flats--and easily have a few hundred new (young) clones coming along every year. If I deprived the non-yet-flowering sized mother of her babies, she would invariable rush to flower prematurely.
It's a fantastic plant---extremely hardy---and I am curious how it will fare in my warmer and wetter climate of Nova Scotia.
I realize I have posted some of the same pictures here as in my article that JohnnyD linked, but I am sure you won't mind seeing them again.
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I just went out to my new garden here---and this is how my transported babies are looking today after a very stressful 6 months in pots, in trucks, in limbo and finally a few weeks ago, in the ground.
And a flat of offsets just put in the plunge bed this morning.
They look sad, but I know they are tough plants, so am optimistic about next spring.
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Kristl, it will be interesting to see how they cope with a wetter climate. I have to bring my plants under cover for the winter, they definitely don't like our wet, mild winters with occasional frosts.
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Best of luck Kristi with your babies...... this plant is definitely one I will look for with that gorgeous rosette and sensational towering flower stem! Sedums grow well here :)
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great plants, kristl..i have some seed to start this winter, have never grown it yet;
have you found any other species hardy? were the extra silver forms a diff form, or just situational?
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Hardy succulents are indeed among my favorites...and here are a few of the other Orostachys.
I grew out a number of plants from seed originally received as various permutations of O. spinosa (var. minima, minuta, etc), which I later decided were O. thyrsifolia, although I am still not 100% on the chosen name. I do not believe minima or minuta are accepted varieties of O. spinosa, although many are floating around the marketplace under those names.
And some others---these were all perfectly hardy in the Ottawa Valley at temperatures not dissimilar to yours, Cohan, but often without the snow cover. How they will do here in much milder Annapolis Royal, only time will tell.
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a few more...
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these are all killer, kristl! i will need to watch for seed of these available!
i have seen several of these species (online etc) before, but these are some of the nicest examples--i think some of these may look best in cold places? certainly i dont recall seeing those colours on iwarenge, of course, could just be my memory...
i had a friend in coastal delaware (z8?) who grew some very nice orostachys, though i think he may have pulled a lot of them into the greenhouse over winter... he had nice growth and flowers, but i dont remember much other than green; another in san diego has some, which are definitely too green for my taste...
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Kristi, such gorgeous Orostachys species and you give the impression they would grow in the conditions I have here in the Alps - erubescens dark form is to die for - is is available as seed/plant?
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Except for O. spinosa and thyrsifolia, none of the others ever ripened their seed in my old climate. Flowering was late, and hard frost too early. And of course one needs to have A LOT of plants to get even a tiny bit of well developed seed. So it took me quite a while to build up my stock of O. spinosa to have enough plants flowering each year to be able to offer even 30 packs of seed even in my own catalogue---and these always sold almost instantly.
I bought the cultivar Jade Mountain from Beavercreek Alpines and the remainder were grown from seed or trades through my former involvement in the Cactus and Succulent groups.
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Except for O. spinosa and thyrsifolia, none of the others ever ripened their seed in my old climate. Flowering was late, and hard frost too early. And of course one needs to have A LOT of plants to get even a tiny bit of well developed seed. So it took me quite a while to build up my stock of O. spinosa to have enough plants flowering each year to be able to offer even 30 packs of seed even in my own catalogue---and these always sold almost instantly.
I bought the cultivar Jade Mountain from Beavercreek Alpines and the remainder were grown from seed or trades through my former involvement in the Cactus and Succulent groups.
i've done a little checking around--boy! hard to find anything other than spinosa/thyrsiflora!