Some plants thrive when neglected, left somewhere and almost forgotten. I mentioned in one of my recent comments that I killed one of those and had to dispose the body few days ago. This one is doing just great! And most of the time I don't even see it.
Adromischus cooperi
It is a succulent native to South Africa. A rather small one that doesn't grow fast. Th one here is a probably more than 5 years old. It generally doesn't need much water and I know that too much will definitely kill it.
Some time ago I was cleaning the balcony and put some of the smaller pots on top of the bigger ones just to get some room. Some went back to their places, this one I left there. I had some pelargoniums growing there in that time so this Adromischus was getting quite a bit of shade under the green leaves. A splash of water here and there while watering and it was growing better than ever!
 |  |
The very fatty, spotty leaves are the best thing about it. Flowers not so much, though nice to see from time to time. The leaves will shrivel when the plant is underwatered which can also be a sign it is time to water ;) and the few weeks of dry pot was a bit too much. It will plump back though, so no worries.
I can't remember if this is two plants there, or one that decided to grow an of shoot. I will not try to peak inside in case I break some leaves. They do detach very easily.
Now it is growing among large Oxalis leaves and gets just a bit of dappled light. I read that they do handle direct sun and the spots on their leaves will show more. It is true, but I noticed they look nicer when they stay in more shaded spots. At least in my conditions.
They can grow a lot bigger than this. But I often manage to kill my ones and then have to start over with just one or two salvaged leaves.
The flowers are very small - less than 1 cm in length and probably 5mm across. The long stem and the flowers are covered in the very fine powder which I do like.
On the third image you can see the one of the flower stems is more green - this is because I sprayed it the day before with a solution of Neem oil, soap and water. It is dry now, but the oily layer made the lovely white powder disappear.
 |  |
And this is why I had to spray it.
Funny that only one flower stem was covered in the annoying aphids. The other one is perfectly clean.
I am not sure if the spray helped. Today they were still alive, but I didn't want to wait though and after I took the photos I cut the stem off. It is almost done blooming anyway and the flowers don't look so nice because of the bugs sucking on them.
And here is another one. This is nothing less than a mealybug. Ughh...
Zoooom
Can you see the little head and legs?
Glorious beast! :)
Shot with Nikon D5500 + Sigma 105mm lens
All photos and text are my own.
