T-rex Plants Blog
Published weekly. Ish. You can also follow along on Instagram at @trexplants
The Humble Split Rock: Pleiospilos nelii
Originally printed in Volume 56, Number 04 of Espinas Y Flores - the San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society Newsletter for April 2021. For many of us, the experience of first spotting a split rock is the same: walking through the nursery or garden center, and you see...
Care Diary: Aloe Hybrid Collection Update
With spring in full swing in San Diego, many plants are starting to wake up. I'll do a quick tour of my aloe hybrids in this post, which are beginning to really expand their growth or produce regular bloom stalks. I've been doing some intentional pollination of...
Why I Shower With My Plants And You Should Too
You read that right. I'm that crazy plant lady who showers with her plants. Before you hit that back button, let me explain. It's only my houseplants, and I'm not like, bathing with their leaves. We happen to have a shower large enough that I can stick a few in there...
Care Diary: Neoporteria senilis – or is it Eriosyce?
Neoporteria or Eriocyse senilis is a goofy, frizzy looking cactus that is easy to grow, stays small, and produces the biggest display of brilliant flowers I've ever seen. They're uncommonly available, and are listed under either genus. They're very variable, and have...
How to Repot Your Cacti: A Guide for Beginners
It's one thing to bring a cactus home from the nursery or hardware store, and another to actually get it out of the pot and into a new one. For the absolute novice, figuring out how the navigate the spines can be daunting, as well as figuring out what "good" soil...
Care Diary: How to Care for Lapidaria margaretae, the Karoo Rose
Caring for the Karoo Rose, or Lapidaria margaretae, is refreshingly easy and straightforward for a mesemb. Similar to Split Rocks, they are a fairly forgiving species that puts up with most novice mistakes. It's the lone species in its genus, although it used to be...
Are You Paranoid Or Are Those Spidermites: Identifying and Treating The Dreaded Pests
This post contains affiliate links! If you find the information here helpful, please consider shopping with one of the links. It helps pay for my server costs! Last updated: 4/14/2024As your plant collection grows and you add more and more rare plants, a certain type...
Why Plants Are Shipped The Way They Are
Bless the internet. Thanks to people all over the world connecting online, the spread of information and online sales has skyrocketed. Pile on a great big heaping serving of global pandemic, and this past year has been absolutely bonkers for online sales, including...
The Most Common Mistakes New Plant Parents Make (and how to avoid them)
We all start somewhere. There's no shame in being a beginner, and even less in making mistakes. The only thing to shame people about is how judgey and rude many experienced growers can be towards newbies. It's also worth noting that often, the folks that are the most...
Care Diary: Echeveria “Bambino”
Echeveria Bambino! A cute little hybrid I picked up from a Hawaiian importer that has some absolutely beautiful plants. This one was a hybrid I picked up because I thought, originally, it'd be a fairly pale and powdery hybrid (I was going through a distinct farina...