More Aizoaceae Plants

These Aizoaceae plants performed brilliantly through three seasons, Fall, Winter, Spring.  Summer not so much.



Delosperma Fire Spinner



Delosperma Fire Spinner



Delosperma basuticum or Rabiea albipunta

Find the Pauraque



Here is a little game that we played in the Rio Grand Valley of Texas called find the Pauraque.



This bird in the nightjar family hunts by night and sleeps by day.  It has a very large mouth, good for raking in large insects in flight, they have also been known eat the occasional bat (big mouth).

Not a Pauraque



A similar bird also frequents the woods behind my house in Austin, Texas.  The male
Chuck-will’s-widow makes repetitive calls late at night similar to the more familiar Eastern Whip-poor-will, all part of the same family of night birds.  Chuck-wills-widow



Expert level bird finder's only!

Aizoaceae

The Aizoaceae Family contains about 2,000 species of diminutive stone plants, carpet weeds, vygies, mesembs, and ice plants most of which come from South Africa.  Many resemble pebble stones or living carpets and have incredible flowers of many colors.



Aloinopsis spathulata



I have tried growing about a dozen different varieties, in almost all cases I have been able to have a level of success getting them to thrive spread and flower but usually only for a season or a year, four years at the most before the plant dies.  Typically they die in the summer heat (The cactus bed in full sun could easily be 125 degrees at the surface) and it seems like the plants go from sick to completely dead in about 48 hours.



I wish I knew how to keep these alive long term in Texas.  It is neat having a succulent that flowers in the winter to create a cycle of blooms that keeps interest all year round.