Adding To My Stapelia Collection And Starting A Pepper Collection

About ten years ago, a good friend gave me a large pot full of Stapelia gigantea, then last year at the Spring Swap I received a cutting from Orbeopsis malanantha, thus starting my obsession with Stapeliads.  At this year's Swap I received two cutting of Stapelia variegata, then a couple of weeks ago I bought another Stapelia, that wasn't marked as to species and I'll have to wait for it to bloom in order to identify it. Desiring to add even more Stapeliads, I visited several local nurseries, to no avail.  I then took to the Internet where I found Miles2Go, located south of me in Cortaro, AZ.  On Saturday night, I e-mailed an ordered for six species of Stapelia and male and female basketball plants, Euphorbia obesa to go with the one I bought at last year's Desert Botanical Garden Spring Sale.  I received an e-mail on Sunday confirming receipt of my order and noting it would be shipped on Monday, then when I got home this afternoon, the package was waiting for me; now that's what I call fast service.  I eagerly opened the box and found that the plants were shipped bare-rooted, which isn't a problem for the basketball plants, as they already have a spot waiting for them in the wheelbarrow succulent garden, but I needed to buy pots for the rest of them.  A trip to the 99 Cents Only Store took care of that problem and all of the plants will get potted in the morning.  Here are the two Euphorbia obesa, followed by Stapelia asterias, Stapelia cedrimontana, Stapelia erectiflora, Stapelia flavopurpurea, Stapelia rufa and Stapelia schinzii.

Even though they all look somewhat similar, their flowers are each distinctive and I can't wait for them to bloom.  A section of my Stapelia gigantea died at the base, so I took thirteen cuttings from it and potted them. In about a month they should be well rooted, at which time I'm going to see if I can sell them to some of the local nurseries.

I visited one of those nurseries at lunch today and wound up buying four pepper plants, some of which already have fruit on them.

Dulce Italiano, a sweet pepper.

Fushimi, a Japanese sweet pepper.

Shishito, a Japanese sweet pepper.

Padron, a mild Spanish pepper.

From what I've read, if harvested when no more than 2" long, 95% of the Padron peppers will be mildly hot and the other 5% will be hot, but if you let them get 2" - 3", they'll all be hot.  Can't wait to find out if that's true, which would present interesting possibilities.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of all the new succulents potted up, as well as updated pictures of the older ones already in my collection.