Chris - I absolutely adore bromeliads and have quite a few. What ones are you growing? I am on the lookout for some dyckias and hechtias - I just this year bought H. glomerata which I would take a guess as being the one in your first picture.

That Opuntia basilaris pic reminded me of my old grandmother, for some reason.

MORE!!

Interesting thought, that a sudden change in growing conditions might instigate flowering prematurely in some of the agavaceae. It didn't happen with my A. p. xalapensis, which had been growing relatively happily for about 4 years before it started to do it's thing, but I have had another agave flow...

Tina - well, mine did take that long but, as it is the only Agave polyacantha var xalapensis I have had flower, I couldn't say that it would take that long each time.... ;^) But it did EVERYTHING that Vic's plant is doing now. Growth rate slowed, new leaves started becoming distorted, pups grew from...

... but it is preparing to flower. Mine did this exact same thing. Congratulations! Expect flowers in 2008!

I've grown agavoides outside for several years - I am about 20 miles east of you. Maybe a touch drier. But if they are in perfectly drained soil they should be fine. Some wet years they have complained a bit, and one clone went cristate, but generally they seem ok. They do vary, it seems, from varie...

this time an unknown monster yucca that doesn't conform to any described species that I've read about. As big as carnerosana but with a pendulous inflorescence.

Since we are gettng the slides out!....The rare and beautiful Yucca queretaroensis, shown here is a previously unknown location near to Zimapan.

It is truely inspirational stuff - really at the cutting edge of succulent planting in this copuntry. The planting there has been done by a guy named Neil Milligan, who lives in/runs a nursery called Tressider Farm not too far from the site. He is in the Plantfinder, I believe, and has most of the p...

Yes, open to the elements. With a rain shelter you can probably quadruple the number of plants that I am successful with here, but the topography, or even the scale, doesn't easily lend itself to such here. This is where the low rainfall certainly helps.