Episcia

More Ceramics!

Here are some more of my ceramic pieces! The first two are of a lovely little bowl; it’s so varied and hard to photograph that unless I uploaded seven photos and a video I think you’ll miss out on some of its detail, but trust me when I say it’s really nice in person and is one of my best pieces thus far. All the rest are, as you can often expect of me, planters with drainage holes. I like all of these a lot and am particularly into the new white/blue/brown and deep brown/white glaze combinations.

The final image in the grid is wheel-thrown from an earlier cycle but has since been planted with an Episcia or “flame violet” cultivar! I am reminded by that planter that I should really make time to wheel throw again at some point, but then again I really like the personality and handcrafted appearance of my pinch pot practice…

Summer Plant Highlights

This is the first summer in at least six years that I have been present to witness and tend to my plants throughout. (Usually I do at least one artist residency, which typically takes me away for anywhere from five weeks to two-and-a-half months, but the pandemic put a pause on that practice.) I’ve been using the opportunity to try my hand at growing a tomato plant as well as attempting to hand-pollinate compatible flowers from my collection. Here are some photos from the past couple months!

Here we have, in slideshow order: A blooming Hoya kerrii, a Dyckia spp. flower spike, two flower buds almost about to open on an Echinopsis subdenudata 'Domino,' my Haworthia parksiana growing several flower stalks, several different images of my blooming Ledebouria spp., my Mammillaria karwinskiana ssp. nejapensis flower crowns, an Ibervillea lindheimeri flower, Rhipsalis mesembryanthemoides with a couple flowers, a blooming Uncarina roeoesliana, an Episcia spp. in flower, a Phalaenopsis flower spike that lasted for about six months (!), a Sinningia spp. flowering in a cloche for greater humidity, my tomato plant with a few green tomatoes in progress, a lush top-view of my Pelargonium dasyphyllum, an evening look at a reflective Haworthia spp., and an errant Phalaenopsis orchid root that grew through a neighboring plant’s felt coaster which I removed post-photo.

November Houseplant Blooms

Here are some of my November blooms!  I've excluded a few from display due to hard-to-photograph-well-for-various-reasons flowers (a couple of my ever blooming Phalaenopsis and Saintpaulia spp.), but there are more than enough that were accessible.  We've got a range of plants here; in order from top to bottom and left to right, they are: Episcia spp., Rhipsalis pilocarpa, Pleiospilos nelii, Mammillaria plumosa, Schlumbergera truncata, Quaqua incarnata, Mammillaria gracilis var. fragilis, Gasteria glomerata, Haworthia spp., and Faucaria tigrina.  I was particularly excited about the Quaqua incarnata blooms, as I've never had a Stapeliad bloom for me before; but I've also never had a Faucaria tigrina flower either and it's the Mammillaria gracilis var. fragilis' first time as well.  Admittedly some of the photos aren't when the flower was in full bloom; I'm quite busy and I'm not always around when they're at their prime.  That'll give me something to look forward to for future blooms, though!