Dendroseris marginata, Kniphofia caulescens, Aloe seedlings, and Aloe seeds

Today was a busy day working with my plants! First I wanted to give a quick update on the Dendroseris marginata seedlings because they went from barely sprouting to multiple cotelydons in a couple days of leaving the Zip-lock bag.

Cute little Dendroseris marginata sprouts!

I also noticed that the Kniphofia caulescens seeds from Plant World Seeds have begun to sprout. This is one of my favorite Kniphofias, I would say second to Kniphofia northiae.

Kniphofia caulescens sprouting

I decided to go ahead and transplant the seeds into a pot so they have space to grow for a while. I lay them on the surface then covered them lightly with wet seed starting mix and gave them a misting from the hose.

Mature Kniphofia caulescens clump (image from bornagainredneck.blogspot.co.uk)

The Aloe helenae seedlings had sprouted in a plastic vegetable container which had holes on the bottom of it. Unfortunately, my propagation area has developed a gnat problem which has eaten away a lot of the roots of the seedlings. I decided to go ahead and transplant them together into a pot and work on finding a solution to my gnat problem.

Half of the Aloe helenae seedlings which still had any roots

The Aloe alooides I bought from Rancho Soledad a few months ago has begun to drop its seed. There were already a bunch on the ground beneath the spike but I decided to stick a plastic bag over the entire spike and give it a good shake to collect as many as I could. I got quite a bunch!

Aloe alooides seed spike

Aloe alooides seeds in the bag

Probably tomorrow I will go ahead and sow the Aloe bainesii seeds I collected the other day from downtown and the Aloe alooides seeds. Should be fun to start having generations of plants.

Dividing Yucca faxoniana, Dendroseris marginata germination

This morning I decided it was time to divide the Yucca faxoniana seedlings. They went from a sprout to the leafy thing you see now in 2 months. Unfortunately, Yucca are notoriously slow growing and I have a feeling I won't see them with a trunk for many years.

Yucca constricta, Yucca elata v. verdiensis, and Yucca faxoniana

I got 13 Y. faxoniana seedlings in total, which is pretty good considering the seeds were $1.50 from Phoenix Desert Nursery. A specimen sized plant would cost me $100's, so I am saving a lot of money in the long run!

Yucca faxoniana divided into individual pots

Hopefully it takes less than 5 years to reach this point!

5 year old Yucca faxoniana (image from tropicalcentre.com)

I also planted out the Dendroseris marginata seedlings. I got 15 seeds showing root tips and a couple which had put out their cotelydons (I shouldn't have waited so long to transfer them out of the Zip-lock bag). I ordered seeds of Dendroseris literalis from Plant World Seeds a while ago but they never sprouted or did anything. They are still in the Zip-lock bag from months ago. So when the D. marginata seeds germinated after only a couple of weeks, it was hard to contain my excitement. These seeds were part of the order from Rare Plants, which I had great success with.

Dendroseris marginata sprouts!

Dendroseris are endangered trees from the Juan Fernandez Islands. They would probably prefer the climate of San Francisco over that of Los Angeles but that won't stop me from trying to grow them. They remind me a lot of the green tree collard, which has similar colored leaves and growth habit, though they are unrelated.

Dendroseris marginata (image from kevinspence.com)