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Night Blooming Beauties....3 of them (pics)

17 years ago

As I walked through our back gate this morning on my way to the bakery for some fresh bread, I glanced up and saw that the epiphyllum which grows over our exterior wall had produced three beautiful blooms - each one over half a foot wide.

As these bloom in the night, they were already beginning to close (and die) with the morning light so I ran back into the house and got my camera. I never remember exactly which epiphyllum these are, as there are so many, but it's similar to the Queen of the Night (Epiphyllum Oxypetalum), another night bloomer.

Here's an earlier pic of another flower on the same plant, again taken just as the flower was closing:

It pays to always have a camera in a pocket as one can never know what unexpected beauty is just around a corner.

SharonCb

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Comments (14)

Marigene
17 years ago
How beautiful, Sharon.
caliloo
17 years ago
Gorgeous!

Alexa
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Hi all; I inherited my mother's night-blooming cereus, which was my grandmother's before that. It's bloomed the last 2 years, but no buds yet this year. However, the horrendous winter, lingering cold and late spring here in the NE meant that it didn't come out site until mode June or later. Still checking every day. Sigh. It does have some new leaves, which appear as tiny red leaves growing off the edge of an existing leaf - which is similar to the way it buds, but so far they all look like tiny red leaves wit yellow tips. I've been lightly feeding it with a very dilute solution of a water-sol fertilizer, 10-30-20 (dilute as those numbers seemed high.) Should I bump up the fertilizer? Or leave it alone? So, two questions: 1) Looks very healthy (besides the non-budding) but It does has some old leaves which have turned yellow or weirdly pink. Wondering if its ok ago trim them off..? And - 1) Is possible that the small new red leaves, growing from the margin of a green leaf, are the beginning of a bud? TIA. I do love this gangly plant, both for reminding me of my grandma's sunporch, and for its weird beauty.
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Hi Deon, I knew we had been there and did that for Epiphyllum oxipetalum (?) before. The 'Night Blooming Cereus' tag can apply to epiphytic and columnar cacti which number many. My friend dz answers it very well in the thread in the link. Here is a link that might be useful: Bloomin' its fool nocturnal head off
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I keep mine under a tree in bright light but try to protect it from full sun then bring it in after it has gotten cold but before freezing and it will usually bloom in the house again over winter. It took it two years to bloom again since it had to get pot bound first. If you have to repot it don't go up too much larger in size so you won't have to wait so long. I water it will the other plants when its outside and give it fertilizer only occasionally but I did give it bloom booster about 2 weeks ago when I fed the brugs. Prairie, thats the problem with that Lyrica. It made me forget things and do things I didn't remember when they had me on it twice a day. Getting better after a few days of reducing it to bedtime only, lol. I was driving home from the store after work one night and ended up someplace I didn't recognize and didn't remember driving there so I told them that crap is too strong and I am slowly reducing it, lol.
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Lars
17 years ago
Ours bloomed earlier in the year - I don't think I took any pictures of them this year. Do they have a fragrance? Most night bloomers seem to have more fragrance, since they need to attract sometimes blind pollenators, I think. I have night blooming jasmine in the back yard, and it competes with the citrus blossoms for fragrance, although none of the flowers are showy.

I like all kinds of cactus flowers.

Lars
centralcacyclist
17 years ago
Aren't those gorgeous! I keep seeing this night blooming weed along the roadside but have yet to catch one open when I have a camera with me. They open to a large white trumpet shaped bloom. The vine-type plant seems to just sprawl on the ground. The leaves are a dusty gray-green. I'll try to pay more attention in the next few days and capture an open bloom. Anyone know what these are?
Marigene
17 years ago
Barnmom, I think they are what is called Moonflowers, a datura species.
Marigene
17 years ago
Here is a link that you can check out to see if this is the weed you have seen.

Here is a link that might be useful: Moonflower or Jimsonweed
centralcacyclist
17 years ago
Yep! Awful purdy for a weed!
lindac
17 years ago
And poisionous!
And there are several cultivated varieties of datura.....even more beautiful and just as poisionous!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1470646}}
craftyrn
17 years ago
Just beautiful--
jessyf
17 years ago
Sharon, we used to have a 'Night Blooming Cereus' and not only was it almost as beautiful as yours, but the scent was unbelievabley heady. I used to stand there and inhale as long as I could!

Barnmom I love that datura.

Here is a link that might be useful: Google images night blooming cereus
Lars
17 years ago
Here's {{gwi:1470647}} looked like before we trimmed it. It hasn't grown back to that size, however.

Lars
canarybird01
Original Author
17 years ago
Barnmom it does look like what you have there is Jimsonweed.

Jessy we used to have that night blooming cereus in our garden - it's also called Queen of the Night - until someone accidentally pulled it out as it's quite an ugly creeping snake-like cactus. Whoever did that didn't realize that it produces the most wonderful flowers at night. Yes and the perfume was wonderful. I want to get another one.
I used to put a chair beside an opening flower and sit and watch it open as it grew dark!

Lars - that's one beautiful pink datura you have there! We also have a peach one we keep as a small bush in our back yard...

And we have at least two white daturas in our front garden. They put out shoots so rapidly that if we didn't dig them out, we'd have them growing all over. I love the perfume too...it's quite intoxicating.

But the heaviest night perfume comes from the Dama de Noche - Cestrum Nocturnum...
{{gwi:1470654}} - another poisonous bush of the nightshade family, here seen one night in our back garden.
That and the scent of white jasmine - jasminum officinalis - not the pink-tipped Chinese jasmine, which I find too peppery - remind me of Mediterranean nights in Palma de Mallorca where jasmine and cestrum scented the air. When I moved to Tenerife I bought both those bushes for our garden so we could still experience those perfumed evenings.

SharonCb
colo_lady
17 years ago
Barnmom - something just as strange and wonderful is a Snail Vine:
recipe_cook
14 years ago
colo lady - that is an amazing image! How surreal! Actually you have all posted wonderful photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dandelion Recipe

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