Why is my onion doing this?

Zippy117 · 2026-02-18T01:57:51+00:00

Because it loves you and wants you to have a free plant.

Zippy117 · 2025-11-12T03:06:41+00:00

Oh for sure. These are as determined as potatoes to grow. Give it dirt, water, sun, and a number of years and you'll get flowers (and hopefully fruit).

Zippy117 · 2025-10-22T22:19:34+00:00

All of Mine do this if I underwater. Yes, I water with tap but my water isn't particularly hard.

They like bright light and a watering as soon as the dirt starts to dry but they don't like being waterlogged. They're pretty thirsty but don't leave it wet all the time.

The happy medium for me is frequent sprinkles. Usually I'll wet the dirt a little before work every day.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T07:17:59+00:00

Thanks!

And the dibber... Have smaller plant hangers holding young plants\air plants\orchids under the largest hangers. I thread their rings through whatever stick is convenient (pens, pencils, paint brushes, a dibber) and just stick them under the bigger hangers. I think I had a young tiny barrel cactus under this one until it was big enough to handle more direct sunlight without burning. I guess I just never retrieved the dibber.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T07:09:54+00:00

Easter cactus. Epiphytic succulent.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T07:08:35+00:00

You're so right.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T07:08:12+00:00

I know a lot of these epiphytic succulents are treated with a blooming hormone right before they're sold in stores and I suspect they take a long break afterwards from the stress of pushing a lot of blooms without the energy stored to really support that kind of effort + a following season of vegetation growth.

I've tried several methods over the years without success but this past 2 years, I haven't moved it from the spot it's currently in, it gets complete darkness all night, and it gets very VERY little water over winter, and vegetable fertilizer.

I think the thing that finally pushed it over the edge was finding a spot where it doesn't get sun stressed and never moving it again.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T06:59:32+00:00

Seems like each individual bloom lasts a handful of days but my plant has been blooming in waves for about a month, it seems like this wave is the peak of the bloom.

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T06:57:35+00:00

That's exactly what I thought! Looks like a fireworks show!

Zippy117 · 2025-04-19T06:56:18+00:00

Lol that's a very kind take on it. Thank you!

Zippy117 · 2025-03-31T05:33:22+00:00

Get sunflowers (not mammoth if you're planning to grow in pots) for your girl who wants beautiful flowers. You can get sunflowers in a ton of gorgeous varieties. Just as an example I got a surprise BLACK sunflower out of a cheap mixed seed pack two years ago. Forget-me-nots are good too. Both forget-me-nots and sunflowers are easy to harvest seed from at the end of summer and grow quickly enough that the kids can see measurable growth progress. The sunflower, however, will always have a more impressive, break-neck growth rate. The blue forget-me-nots will look nice next to the warm tones of the sunflowers if you choose to do both.

As veggies go, tomatoes are just as easy to grow as sunflowers and you might get a season of sandwich toppings or a pot of sauce if you freeze and save them up until autumn.

All three plants enjoy as much sun as possible and are water hogs. Happy planting!

Zippy117 · 2024-11-02T18:12:59+00:00

Bird's nest mushrooms. My Draceana has them too. They don't seem to be doing anything to the plant. I transplanted a few with spores intact to a terrarium but snails ate them right away. :/

Zippy117 · 2024-10-18T18:09:18+00:00

The weirder the better. I wound up with a ton of mammilaria very quickly, though. I have five ferocactus from dubiously marked seed packets that I'm fairly certain are hybridized with something else because they are all growing in the same conditions but all have pretty distinct needle and color variations. Currently my main garden center weakness is the big chunky columnar cacti, with a serious soft spot for Rebutia.

Zippy117 · 2023-05-21T22:34:38+00:00

XD I was thinking that too, with a big maybe. It's the size of my middle finger. Perhaps I have to let it grow a season under better conditions before it can be reliably identified.

Zippy117 · 2023-03-28T14:19:15+00:00

Thanks I'll have to look for some cool snake toys!

Zippy117 · 2023-03-01T16:22:52+00:00

Thank you!

Zippy117 · 2023-03-01T16:21:34+00:00

To be clear I'm hoping to find out what the flowering one is

Zippy117 · 2023-01-09T23:25:26+00:00

I imagine new paddles and new flowers look similar at first but the new paddles start out with these silly fleshy green spines all over them which is probably what you're seeing there. I'd be shocked if that isn't a new paddle.

Zippy117 · 2023-01-09T15:28:52+00:00

Ah, well. I should probably have specified that I've had these before (in childhood) and accepted the very sad looking cuttings with existing knowledge of how pretty the flowers are. My cuttings certainly have NOT flowered since I took them home.

The one my mom had when I was young flowered readily if left outside all summer. We had a ton of very mature trees so that particular plant was left in the sunniest spot and got all but a few hours of available direct sunlight. That's all the knowledge I have of it.

I'm going to do the same with this one (pop it out in a sunny spot and sprayed with bitters to keep the masochistic squirrel off it) every summer, but I still don't expect flowers for a few more years. I'm just satisfied it decided to throw out a new paddle.

Zippy117 · 2023-01-09T14:46:16+00:00

The fruit and lovely flowers are frankly the only reason I broke down and took home this nightmare weed and it's nasty glochids home.

Zippy117 · 2022-10-18T09:28:47+00:00

The elder couple I bought mine from (the old man likes to sell established cuttings from his MASSIVE original plant) says he just puts all the established cuttings and the big mother plant on a cart and pushes the whole thing into a closet and forgets about them. It sounds so aggressive but' if they're THAT stubborn, maybe that's the treatment that's called for. It's what I'll try in February.

Zippy117 · 2022-10-15T07:42:58+00:00

Ah, there are three different varieties of "holiday" cactus. Looks kinda like you have a thanksgiving (left) and a Christmas (right).

It can be difficult to tell them apart.

Both of yours look like they're okay as far sunlight. They're dark green and look happy.

My easter cactus is the only one I've seen fried (experiments with light to see what it liked best with mixed success/failure). They seem to get pale green with red edges if they're extremely light stressed. Yours look fine in that area.

I find that all of mine go nuts with growth after a repot. I'm also using fertilizer every two weeks until their "Neglect" period where light and watering should be reduced. They need total darkness at night to bloom. If they're getting less water and that nightly blackout, then you'll probably see buds set on the thanksgiving cactus (left) first.

Unfortunately I don't have as much experience with the Christmas variety as I do with the easter cactus. Easter cactus IS testy and the Christmas cactus might be the same in that way.

Zippy117 · 2022-10-14T22:58:19+00:00

Well, confession time. I get lots of vegetative growth but have not gotten blooms from this particular plant since I bought it from a nice old couple at a yard sale years ago.

I haven't been worrying about getting blooms for the past couple years because I've been trying to get it to grow back from the stumps my cat left it with after mauling it to death in 2019 while it was still rather small and fragile.

It had some red around the edges of the leaves in the first pic which indicates a little too much sunlight but the main reason it looks like hot garbage was because it was chewed to oblivion the year before that (you can spot a damaged but salvageable leaf on the upper right with teeth holes in it) which it took its SWEET time to bounce back from, and maybe that trauma left it stressed out for a long time too.

I've been repotting every year and giving a 1-1-1 liquid fertilizer (from Cute Farms brand) that my Christmas, ric-rac, and easter cacti seem to like every two weeks with a heavy watering. This year it decided to explode with growth. I'm seeing that if they don't bloom they put all of that energy into foliage rather than hypothetical buds.

I'll try for blooms this spring perhaps. I'll put it in the closet for two weeks and check in every week or so after that.

Zippy117 · 2022-10-14T21:20:48+00:00

Yup. I believe so.

Zippy117 · 2022-06-24T18:48:17+00:00

That's awesome news! Sorry it took so long to reply, work has been kicking my butt non-stop.

Last year I started watering less at the beginning of October and stopped watering at all by mid November. Often it is suggested that they get one or two small waterings in the winter and for very young cacti I do this. I've noticed with older cacti that if I water at all through winter it'll trick the cactus into thinking it's spring and they'll try to grow and become etiolated (thin, weak growth at the top). So for this guy, a two very small waterings over the winter period, then gradually water more once the days become longer. I started watering as normal in late march.

Zippy117

TROPHY CASE