Repotted Pachypodium brevicaule

I was getting a little nervous as the trunk shape of this plant was starting to change a little (flatten out). I decided to go ahead and repot it and the do an inspection of the roots. I'm glad I did as the amount of root growth was pretty amazing!

 

Repotting also gave me a chance to use a mix with dry stall and the faster draining benefits it brings - the original mix I had it in was unamended Black Gold Cactus mix (which isn't too bad - but not as good as you can mix on your own). I'm much more at ease that this plant is doing well.

Flattening Out

I relocated some plants - mainly to group together plants with similar watering requirements. This also gave me an opportunity to take a closer look at the plants while I was moving them. The Pachypodium brevicaule showed some changes - notably the caudex seems to be flattening out.

 

 I'm not sure if this is a response to too much water (potential rot), or just the plant continuing to develop (preparing to spread out horizontally). It looks healthy and doesn't have any sunken spots that would indicate rot, so I'm going to go with the prospect that it is preparing to grow out horizontally.

Pachypodium brevicaule Progress May 11, 2017

It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure there is more girth to this plant than in previous pictures. Or at least that's what I'll continue to tell myself ;) If you noticed, I do tend to take lots of pictures of this plant. Yes I do like it a lot, but the real reason I take all these pictures is to document the growth rate and to track positive and negative trends. I have been warned that these tend to rot and it is very difficult to grow them on their own roots (a lot of people graft them on to other pachypodiums like P. lamerei). I'm going full speed ahead with the plan to grow it out as nature intended - watering well and deep in spring and summer, and dropping back in the fall from minimal to almost nothing when it goes dormant in the winter. I believe the media I have it in will support this and will help prevent rot (super fast draining, minimal organics). For now, I'll just enjoy what is happening - good, steady growth!

A Lot of Progress in a Month

I've posted a bit on this plant lately, but I want to show what a month's time can do for a young Pachypodium brevicaule. Here's a picture from a month ago. And yesterday - lots of leaves and definite added caudex girth! I got this plant late last year and it quickly lot its leaves. At the time I wasn't sure if it was losing leaves to shipping stress or if it was settling in to dormancy, but I figured if it didn't leaf out by June, I could write it off then. I'm really glad my new found 'patience' was able to overcome my desire to cut open the 'dead' plant. In well draining media (mostly dry stall), I end up watering this plant every other day. It'll be interesting to see the development over the coming growing season.

From Around the Garden - April 26, 2017

New growth on the Pachypodium brevicaule Euphorbia esculenta male flowers

Around the Garden - April 10, 2017

A few days late, but here are some pictures from a couple of days ago.

Update on the Pachypodium brevicaule April 9, 2017

It's taking longer than I thought it would for these leaves to fully emerge. I'm now wondering if the leaves are photosynthesizing at this size...

Back from the Dead (or a really deep dormancy)

I purchased this Pachypodium brevicaule back in August. Shipping from over 5000 miles away took it's toll on it, but it also being a very young plant also makes it vulnerable to spontaneous self destruction. It lost it's last leaf sometime late last fall and during the winter (a relative term in Hawaii) it seemed to get more and more dehydrated - to someone with less confidence, it would seem that this plant had died. The only reason I did not give up on it was it wasn't exactly a throw away plant. I decided to just leave it alone and see what happened - also, it wasn't brown and squishy like most dead succulents, so why not just let it be. Coming into this new year I started watering it and finally it is showing signed of returning (do you see the light green in the three central leaf bearing areas???). Based on observing some of the other Pachypodiums around our house and other gardens recently visited, this plant should have leaves out in a week. I'll post updates as events happen - but this brings up another interesting observation. In comparing the growth habits of my plants and comparing them to other growers here on Oahu, it seems as if my plants are 2 to 3 weeks (even up to 8 weeks) behind what others have happening. This has certainly proved true with flowering, but I have also seen the delay in sprouting leaves after dormancy. By my figures, the triggers could be moisture, temperature, duration and intensity of sunlight. Out on the Ewa Plain we get hotter temperatures, more intense sunlight, longer hours of sunlight and drier conditions - up arrows on all but the moisture measure... hmmmmm..... Update - I took this picture after work (4/5/2017) - I don't think it'll be another week - the leaves are starting to emerge now!!! Grow little plant grow!!!

March CSSH Meeting

Noe and La are a little disappointed that the program wasn't focused on Adeniums (because they missed a flute ensemble for this meeting). And we didn't pick up anything from the raffle (both the plants we were looking at got picked before our numbers were called). BUT I was able to purchase a really nice Pachypodium rosulatum from Perla. Here are a couple of pictures from this morning. I'm pretty stoked as this species is one of the most visually pleasing of all the Pachypodiums. Dr. Fitch brought in a Hydnophytum formicarum and two seedlings from it (AWESOME), as well as their Pachypodium brevicaule. And Noe and Marlon tried their hand at something new - selling some of the plants we've been growing in the back yard. They managed to sell a quarter of what we brought in, and we put another quarter up on the raffle table. Good experience for them (despite the enthusiastic look Noe has).

Pachypodium brevicaule

This one is from "Out of Africa". It lost most of it's leaves but the two remaining look strong. This shipment came in a couple of weeks ago and it looks to be adjusting still. This is one of the 'fattest' of the fat plants and I'm really looking forward to growing this one!