u/HomeForABookLover

This is obviously a commercial fake bonsai of some tree cuttings pushed into a cheap pot. It’s in the UK but could have been made anywhere

I haven’t seen this specific tree used before. Does anyone recognise them?

I’m hoping they are Dawn Redwood or Swamp Cypress, which I could “de-bonsai” and use as a cheap source of trees.

I was recently a bit naughty in sharing a Northern Hemisphere Geranium sanguineum in flower, for comparison with Southern Hemisphere Pelargoniums.

Both are colloquially known as Cranesbills. In the Northern Hemisphere Geranium pratense is probably the easiest to see why.

This is my Pelargonium aridum, just before the flowers open, and the resemblance to Cranes and Storks really shows.

Aridum is a low-growing to shortly caulescent xerophytic subshrub, with small, grey-green, finely pubescent leaves, often developing a somewhat thickened, semi-succulent stem base and fusiform tuberous red roots, shown here when I repotted into one of my Great Grandmother’s pots:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pelargonium/s/3nBtpUpGJp

Native to the arid western regions of South Africa, particularly within the winter-rainfall zone (e.g. Little Karoo, Namaqualand and adjacent semi-desert areas - apologies my South African geography is poor). It inhabits rocky slopes, gravel flats, and well-drained sandy or stony soils, often in exposed positions.

As a result of u/tazza107 sharing photos of his Graptopetalum bellum plants in flower, last spring I visited the UK’s National Collection of Echeveria, Graptopetalum, Pachyphytum (and inter genetic hybrids) to obtain a true species plant.

The plant I got is a pale grey-blue green, with the photos appearing more mid green than in life. The mother plant originally came from another collector in the British Cactus and Succulent Society.

Ive since purchased various other plants, and cultivars, and they are all much darker (see recent posts on r/cactusandsucculents). As seen in the photos.

It has stayed lighter than all the others, despite the same growing conditions.

This spring it has flowered, and they do look like bellum.

The International Crassulaceae Network does describe it as “mostly dark or grayish-green”:

https://www.crassulaceae.ch/de/artikel?akID=202&aaID=2&aiID=B&aID=1851

Has anyone else had experience of light grey/blue-green specimens?

My young P.triffidum is my next species to come into flower. I’ve photographed it next to P.kewensis as well as some normal zonales for comparison.

So…Triffidum refers to “it growing like a triffid”. What have I let myself in to…?

What I have found out is Pelargonium triffidum is a rather sculptural pelargonium with a semi-succulent, branching habit. It typically forms a loose, upright to spreading shrub, with fleshy stems that become somewhat woody with age. The foliage is finely divided to deeply lobed, giving a light, airy texture that contrasts with its more substantial stems.

Leaves are usually grey-green to mid-green, sometimes with a slightly glaucous sheen, and may be softly aromatic when brushed.

What I can confirm is it produces delicate umbels of small, five-petalled flowers, creamy and marked subtly with deep purple tones near the centre.

Pelargonium triffidum is native to South Africa, where it occurs mainly in the southern and south-western Cape region.

It’s typically found in rocky, well-drained habitats—often on slopes, outcrops, and seasonally dry scrubland where soils are poor and drainage is fast. Like many Cape pelargoniums, it is adapted to a climate with winter rainfall and hot, dry summers, storing moisture in its semi-succulent stems to get through dry periods.

In the wild it tends to grow in scattered, localised populations rather than forming dense stands, often tucked among low shrubs or in crevices where competition from larger plants is limited.

I managed to get agreement to borrow a friends greenhouse in return for replacing a sheet of safety glass.

This is my brand new sheet of 150cm x 60cm safety glass.

It hadn’t even touched the ground when it shattered in my hands.

Do people use safety glass in their greenhouse?

If this carries on their tomatoes will have a silica taste.

I shall try to not make a habit of this, but once in a while I think it’s nice to compare Northern Hemisphere Geraniums with Southern Hemisphere Pelargoniums. Especially when there is a botanical story.

At the weekend I visited a friend’s medieval physic/herb garden.

One plant in flower was a UK native - Geranium sanguineum, or Bloody Cranesbill.

It’s hard to see in the photo but the flowers have red veins giving its Latin name sanguineum (“blood-red”).

But its common name comes from its medical use of treating the “bloody flux” - what we’d now recognise as severe dysentery.

Under the old Doctrine of Signatures, plants resembling a disease or symptom were thought to treat it.
So a “bloody” plant for “bloody” diarrhoea made intuitive sense at the time.

There is some science too:

Bloody cranesbill contains significant amounts of tannins—compounds that:

- Tighten and contract tissues
- Reduce secretions
- Help constrict small blood vessels

In a condition like dysentery, where the bowel is inflamed, bleeding, and producing frequent loose stools, this would:

- Reduce diarrhoea
- Help limit bleeding
- Soothe irritated intestinal lining

It also has weak antimicrobial activity.

But remember this is medieval science - experimentation where doing nothing would be fatal so you might as well try.

Plants are a wonderful source of medicine because nature and evolution have found ways to synthesise chemicals.

But modern medicine is an extension of medieval medicine - researching better and better treatments. Modern herbology and homeopathy arent. Best stick to medically prescribed treatments for things as serious as the bloody flux.

My Gymnocalycium bruchii ‘enorme’ has come into flower.

It’s rather odd describing a small cactus as ‘enorme’. It’s certainly larger than typical plants but it’s not bursting out of my greenhouse.

I’m rather fond of clustering Gymnos. But you need to be a bit careful if purchasing this species. In the UK the more common larger form of bruchii stays solitary. Do try and find plants that are already offsetting.

Its hard growing cacti in Scotland in a small greenhouse. Today I found a lovely, 15 year old, single stem Echinopsis hybrid had turned to brown liquid.

So on a more happy note: Echinocereus is a stunning genus of cacti with loads of floriferous species. This is one of my favourites - Echinocereus coccineus - the Scarlet Hedgehog cactus.

Wait…but this is light pink with a beautiful green tinge.

This is SB236 (SB236 is a field number referring to a specific wild-collected population).

I’m out of my botanical depth but I believe this population is considered to be natural hybrids between E. coccineus and E. dasyacanthus. Sometimes seen as E. x. roetteri and E. coccineus var rosei.

If you can find it, I recommend. Mine is about 30 and has formed a 50cm wide mound of 5cm wide heads.

Its hard growing cacti in Scotland in a small greenhouse. Today I found a lovely, 15 year old, single stem Echinopsis hybrid had turned to brown liquid.

So on a more happy note: Echinocereus is a stunning genus of cacti with loads of floriferous species. This is one of my favourites - Echinocereus coccineus - the Scarlet Hedgehog cactus.

Wait…but this is light pink with a beautiful green tinge.

This is SB236 (SB236 is a field number referring to a specific wild-collected population).

I’m out of my botanical depth but I believe this population is considered to be natural hybrids between E. coccineus and E. dasyacanthus. Sometimes seen as E. x. roetteri and E. coccineus var rosei.

If you can find it, I recommend. Mine is about 30 and has formed a 50cm wide mound of 5cm wide heads.

I probably posted this plant last year as it’s very familiar yet truly unique. These aren’t very big yet, as I have just split it to propagate it, just before it came into leaf.

Rhodiola rosea is a quietly impressive plants—compact, unfussy, but clearly built for survival. It forms low, clumping mounds, usually no more than 20–30 cm tall, arising from a thick, woody caudex. If you ever get the chance to cut or disturb it, there’s often a faint, surprisingly pleasant rose-like scent from the rootstock, which feels at odds with the harsh places it grows.

It’s hard to find botanical information as the internet is overwhelmed with evidence free herbology. Probably because of the rose scent.

The stems come up in tight clusters, fleshy and upright, carrying closely packed leaves that are typically obovate to elliptic. They’re succulent in texture, smooth, and often edged with slight teeth towards the tip—nothing dramatic, but enough to break the outline. The whole plant has that slightly glaucous, water-storing look you’d expect from a member of the Crassulaceae.

That family connection becomes more obvious the longer you look at it. Like other Crassulaceae—Sedum, Sempervivum, and their relatives—it’s built around water storage and efficiency. The leaves are thickened to hold moisture, the stems are soft rather than woody above ground, and everything is geared towards coping with drought, exposure, and thin soils. It even shares the same quiet architectural logic: tight, economical growth with very little wasted energy. Knowing that, it starts to make sense why a plant that looks almost “garden succulent” at first glance is perfectly at home on cold, windswept rock faces.

Flowering is neat rather than showy. At the top of each stem, it produces a dense, flattened cluster of small flowers—yellow to greenish, sometimes taking on warmer tones as they age. It’s a dioecious species, so individual plants are either male or female, but I’m yet to work out what I have.

What really elevates it for me is that this isn’t just a succulent curiosity from far-flung places - it grows wild in Scotland, particularly along the western and northern coasts, where it clings to maritime cliffs and ledges, as well as in rocky mountain habitats further inland. You’ll find it rooted into cracks in exposed rock, often alongside thrift and other salt-tolerant species, dealing with wind, spray, and poor soils as a matter of course.

There’s something quite striking about that—this fleshy, succulent plant, tucked into cold, wave-battered cliffs in places like the Highlands or Shetland. It feels slightly out of place until you realise just how perfectly adapted it is: compact, water-storing, and anchored by that thick caudex that lets it persist where very little else can.

It’s not a plant that shouts for attention, but the more you look at it, the more deliberate everything seems—compact growth, fleshy leaves, efficient flowering. A Crassulaceae through and through—just one that’s traded deserts for cliffs and cold.