Sidetracked Charley

Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...

Euphorbia take over First it was the dying geranium which took over my small pullman kitchen in my studio apartment my final year of college. It won me over by living and even thriving on my neglect. What can you expect from a senior in college? And then Aunt Zelma turned me on to African Violets. Small things which bloom all the time and come in infinite color and variety. But easy to move in boxes in the back of the camper shell on the pickup. She had shown me how to propagate new ones from a single leaf and so I became a leaf thief. In North Carolina I had over 75 African Violets. In the summers they lived on plastic shelves on my wonderful south facing veranda and I watered them with a garden hose. Something my neighbors never grew tired of telling me would kill them or at the very least spot their leaves. Never did either. Came time to move I only took ten or so. One for Aunt Zelma and the rest I gave away to those friends and neighbors which promised to raise them righ...