Today I am happy to share one of my babies. It is a very strong and resistant succulent that after several adversities blossomed, giving me some beautiful bouquets. When you observe them from afar, do justice to their colloquial name: "cotton head."
This beautiful succulent with thick, fleshy leaves came to my house several months ago. It was part of an arrangement that included many other species of succulents. At first, I thought of placing it as a centerpiece on my dining table, but succulents need to be exposed to sunlight to grow beautifully, so I decided to put it on my windowsill.
However, many birds come to the window to eat seeds, and some of them are big. Sometimes fight breaks out between the birds, and they lacerate the leaves of the plants. In this pic, you can see some of these lacerates.
I had to put up a protective netting to prevent the birds from damaging my plants even more. As the months have passed the leaves have healed, but the marks of the damage are still visible.
The weather in recent months has been cold. The average temperature is 12 ºC, and the sun's rays are very weak. Some days are gray, and this affected the growth of this succulent.
Sedum adolphii succulents need a good climate and sun rays. In good environmental conditions, its leaves can become orange. In this case, they look green in the center and the edges of the copper color. However, the distance between the leaves across the trunk indicates that the plant was looking for more light sources and grew in an elongated form instead of a more compact cluster.
I had decided that when the temperatures improved (at least to 18°C), I would transplant my succulent and place it in a better location. But this was not possible as I suddenly sprouted three clusters with several flower buds. It was a real surprise!
I took the first photos with a lot of enthusiasm because I thought that in a few days, the flowers would come out of these small bouquets. However, this did not happen so quickly!
As the days went by, each flower bud became more stylized, and each of its parts could be appreciated more clearly. Its sepals were of light violet color, and its compact corolla was clear pink.
It took almost 20 days for my succulent to finally bloom. It was a long wait. I thought I would only see the flower buds. After all, the weather conditions were not the best since we are in winter season, so I think this succulent did its best to give us these pretty white flowers.
I looked up some references on the internet to see what these flowers would look like. However, being able to appreciate them firsthand is a fascinating sensation. The blooming has been done one by one. They do it at night. At least in the daytime, I counted three flowers, and by nighttime, there was a new one open.
From the appearance of the flower buds until today, have passed 5 weeks. There are still a few more to bloom, but it is worth the wait.
If you look closely at the whole set of flowers, they look like a cotton head.
All images are property of the author
(Camera cell phone: POCO X3 Pro, Xiaomi)
