Can you honestly say it's not cute???

Found this little (well, big) thing sliming along one of my path slabs.

I thought it was cute.

So I took some pics.

Then... rolled it over a leaf and tossed it in the chicken enclosure. I am not sure which one was the lucky one!

Arisaema ringens - End of season

Remember the weird yet beautiful bloom from March?
The plant withstood my balcony conditions until last week when almost all of a sudden the two leaves startewd yellowing and flopping over.
I knew it was time!
I lifted it up, and I saw most of the roots were mushy. I guess I continued watering it long after I should have stopped.
The rhizome itself is much bigger than I remember (at potting time) and I can see 2-3 little offshoots developing, so hopefully next spring I will see more than just two leaves.
I cleaned all the dead roots, leaving only the still-ok ones and moved it to another much smaller pot, without watering.
Won't need water till next spring I THINK!
Would love to try different ones... A. griffithii var pradhanii being probably my favorite but I still yet have to buy seeds/rhizomes.

Podranea ricasoliana - blooming when all is gone!

In a pot, although I am temped to root cuttings and try them in the garden, and see if enything comes back in spring.
An experiment a bit late for this year... but there's always next year.

I overwintered it in a dark and cold room just a bit above freezing, it suffered a lot, cut off all dead parts in spring and just waited.

For a long time nothing happened but then I moved it to a bigger pot.
Not sure whether this helped, or it was just the "right time" coming -  now at the end of September (quite cool nights and even days when it's cloudy)

BUT it's all dressed up in gorgeous pink striped blooms.

I love it!

Well, compared to other pics I see online, and considering it's a VINE, mine's actually of "decent" size but I'd rather have it as it is, then to spend an hour cutting long branches in late fall, when I need to bring it inside.

 Once again... I LOVE IT!

You stink!

This is one of the stinky ones!

Typhonium divaricatum aka roxburghii (I prefer the first name).

I got some corms while visiting a friend's friend's "farm" in Taiwan. I saw some cool plants and as always, I nicked some small corms. And well, they ended up in some pots over here, in Romania.

Care is very easy. In winter they can be kept totally dry in their own pots (as it goes dormant) and in spring you start watering. In summer it blooms and stinks. To me, it's a mix of "poopoo" and moth balls. REALLY!

Blooming Aloe

It's not always easy to convince succulents to bloom over here. They must benefit from the right conditions, be of the right age.
But here is one of my succulents, an ALOE (anyone who can tell me WHICH ONE, please DO) that, due to its small size, really surprised me with a tall and slender stem and nice (not-too-small) green->yellow->pink flowers.
It's not producing any pups yet, so I am thinking it's throwing all energy in these lovely flowers.

(I brought it inside, together with some other succulents, as it's been raining on/off for the past 2-3 days).

Here it is, on a sunny day, when I first saw what it's up to.

 Temporarily sitting between a pot of Ledebouria socialis and my only survivor Aloe polyphylla.

The really tall stem makes it hard to catch the whole plant in a nice pic.

WHAT would these be???

While closely inspecting the garden (which I do once in a while) I came across these.
Quite a few.
And in the same area - in the daylily patch.
I found some a few weeks ago, then again some a few days ago, but like I said, not far apart from each other.
When they burst open, there's a nice purple color inside.
I have no idea what they are. Some "fun guy" (fungi) ?

Berlandiera lyrata... or "the chocolate daisy"

Indeed, there is a chocolate fragrance.
My plants don't look too good, being crammed between other taller plants and it looks like they need sun.
But they do bloom, spread their chocolate-y perfume around and even bless me with seeds.
What's good about this plant is that it doesn't have any pests, is not bothered by the heat and drought, and it blooms now, when there's quite little left to bloom in the garden.

Here are the 3 stages, flower, after-flower, seed.