We're Gonna Need a Montage

I was in Billings today and as has become my custom I stopped by the usual places to look at succulents. The local shops Roots and Gainan's have some good-looking plants, but I'm not going to pay $12 for something without an ID tag. There was some type of Haworthia with the translucent leaves at Gainan's I was tempted by, but there was no tag. At this time and place, the best stores to get succulents with ID tags are Home Depot and Walmart, and the ones I bought topped out at $5.97.

I started at Home Depot and found something that was on my wish list, Sedum adolphi Shooting Stars in a 3-inch pot. On a whim I stopped at Target next to see what they had, and the answer was, "Just go to Home Depot." Then it was the fruitless trips to Roots and Gainan's before I went to the first Walmart. (Yes I went to more than one.) There I found the ruffled Echeveria Neon Breakers (3"), Crassula perforata variegata (2"), and something called Senecio haworthii Cocoon Plant (3"). Neon Breakers was on my wish list, the Crassula with its stacked, variegated leaves is similar to some that are on my list, and the nearly-white Cocoon Plant was a target of opportunity. The genus Senecio also includes succulents like String of Pearls, but the Cocoon Plant looks nothing like that.

I was going to limit myself to four plants today, but at the second Walmart I found an Ice Plant, identified as Lampranthus deltoides but supposedly now known as Oscularia deltoides. Apparently there are many varieties from different genuses called Ice Plant, so this isn't the one on my list. But the online description sounds pretty good. Supposedly this one will spread (or trail out of a basket) and produce masses of flowers in the spring.

Unless I give up on my three frost-damaged Sempervivums, I am out of four-inch pots. I just ordered a 3D printer so I'm not going to buy any more 4-inch pots, but delivery is scheduled for next Wednesday. I decided to put the Neon Breakers in one of the new 6-inch squat pots, and I had to rough up the root ball for it to fit. I still have four more squat pots, but I decided to do a montage of the other four plants in another recent acquisition, a 10-inch ceramic planter. I wasn't going to plant it up until spring, but there was a need for its services. All four of these plants look like they will be easy to divide and use in future montages.

The first image is the Neon Breakers. In the second image, clockwise from upper left are the Ice Plant, Cocoon Plant, Shooting Stars, and Crassula.

All of the places I went to today have small planters (5-8 inches usually) with 4-8 varieties of succulents. They are packed in much more tightly that what I did. The ones at the local stores are pieces of art and are priced accordingly. The ones at the national retailers are a way to buy an assortment of plants and a planter for relatively cheap. I have considered getting one of these and using it as a starting point for an arrangement, or perhaps pulling individual plants out. But you run into the problem again of no ID tags. Maybe this spring if I'm trying to fill out a container, I will get one.

I used focus bracketing for both images, but rather than have the camera step through the focusing, I manually selected the focus points. Nine points worked well on the planter, and I was using a tripod to maintain the ISO at 100. The Neon Breakers is already out in the garage and I shot hand-held, which at night required an ISO of 1600. I used four focus points and I could have added a couple more closer to the camera. After I water it in a few days, Neon Breakers will get a better portrait taken.

For now the planter is in my office. It will only get morning sun, so I need to find a place for it in a garage south window under the grow lights. But I'm running out of space. I've got four pots of parsley that have been an aphid battlefield for months. They take up half a shelf under a set of my newest grow lights.

"Parsley, I'm gonna have to let you go."