Intro pictures

I snapped intro pictures of the Mountain Crest order today. I also did three from The Next Gardener order that I hadn't done because I wanted to give the plants some time to recover from the trauma. I'm starting with the Haworthia retusa f. geraldii 'Star Cactus' [large], which is not a cactus. I pulled seven pieces off of it before I planted the main part. The long stem got a bit squished in transit and most of it is not visible here, but it may still put out some flowers. The image of the main portion is followed by two of the other plantings in 3D printed pots, and other pieces ended up in various bowls.

My favorite image of the day, the very fuzzy Echiveria pulvinata 'Frosty.'

Next is the Echeveria 'Black Knight.'

Three of the Chick Charms Sempervivums came in one container and for now I kept them together in a tall pot. I will split them up into their own 6-inchers in the next few days. First is 'Cosmic Candy,' then 'Appletini,' then the (relatively) small but showy 'Gold Nugget.'

Another Sempervivum Chick Charms, 'Berry Blues.' I potted it in a 6-inch, then a day later put it in an 8-inch to free up pots for the trio. This thing is already the biggest succulent I have and will continue to grow.

The fifth Sempervivum Chick Charms in this shipment is 'Lotus Blossom.' Like 'Berry Blues' and 'Appletini,' it already has offsets or runners or whatever you want to call them. As with many of these that have cilia on the leaves, it caught a lot of dirt during the shipment and it's hard to remove with a brush.

And now we come to the less joyous part of our review, the order from The Next Gardener. The first one is the Echeveria 'Rainbow,' the variegated version of 'Perle von Nurnberg.' You can see the potential here, but in my opinion this plant was damaged when it was sent and they should not have accepted a premium price for it.

Next up is Echeveria 'Linda Jean.' Meh. It should grow out of its leaf damage eventually.

Finally we have a tiny rosette from the Pachyphytum 'Apricot Beauty,' the real disaster of this shipment. The main stem lost most of its leaves in transit and eventually died. I chopped off this little piece off of a dying stem in an attempt to salvage something. They solicited a review from me for this plant, and when I rightfully gave them one star, they offered to send a replacement. It should arrive in the next day or two. (They didn't offer a replacement when I gave Rainbow three stars.) This cutting actually looks pretty good, but I paid for a plant, not a 1-inch cutting.

In fairness to The Next Gardener, the two 'Echeveria Purpusorums' they sent me are downright spectacular and already are two of my favorites. But besides the Crassula cv. 'Buddha's Temple'+ which is OK despite not having much of a root system to anchor it, the other three plants in the order ranged from significantly damaged to dead.