Mine aren't growing now, and I've always thought the B goes completely dormant and the O almost completely dormant, neither wanting much water (maybe 1x a month) and no fertilizer. I'd guess trying to make them grow now would hasten their demise, but I don't have your growing conditions - mine sit out of any direct sun we get (very little now) completely leafless and won't wake up until March / April, and taken outside in May for the wonderful summer growing conditions we have for a few months.

Operculicarya is deciduous yet if kept warm enough they could hold on to some and seldomly hold on to all of it's leaves
Not sure how long it needs to be dormant or a rest period
As you mentioned (narcnh) O. decaryi is budding now is it safe to assume it had gone dormant ? Not found is how long it should be in a dormant stage. Have had and seen them break as early as second week in Feb.

Bursera fagaroides: WOW very early as mentioned broke it's dormant stage before X-mass ? Would also agree you may have a problem for this one. Although not as bad as some, how about one that never even went dormant this year.

Watering both of them this time of year. Yielding to say better to under water than over water and suggest no feeding for a while.

Thinking your added 600W. light with S window exposure was a bit much for both of them ( assuming you always had them there while inside.) Wouldn't suggest you change it suddenly now or for any effort to force dormacy, could also be more harmful than help.

Hope you follow up, untill then.
Good luck

Hi -

Mine are the same as Jeff's...dry, leafless, dormant. I suspect that your watering might have something to do with the leafing out. I would still be very careful, and stay on the dry side. Mine are under 1000w metal halides and are out cold. From my experience, drought has a lot to do with keeping them dormant, which they probably should be at this point. Like Jeff, I give them a drink 1 X month, until they show signs of waking...usually in March. Then, out for the summer...

Tom

See...all zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

A couple of O's

{{gwi:465957}}

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And a B (obscured by a P. cotyledonis...sorry...)

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Tom

Tom,
Your fat plants are awesome. I hope to order a few this summer, and can only hope they look as good as yours.

Great looking plants Tom!

Such impressive plant Tom! I really like that Adenium? with the pink flower.

Mark

Thanks, all!

Yes, that arabicum has bee funny this winter. Usually goes dormant and totally defoliates -- this winter, it's teasing me with a flower or two...

Tom

Thanks, everyone, for the advice and help. I should probably have provided a little more background, but thought I was already being too wordy.

First, both plants are young, nothing like TomâÂÂs amazing plants. Tom, on another thread I would like to pick your brain on how best to prune them, so that in 50 years or so they can have a chance to look like yours.

The O. decaryi was purchased this past summer and on arrival in late July promptly dropped all its leaves. So, despite being outside for a few months with sun and rain before coming indoors, it was dormant. With five or so months of dormancy (I was actually starting to get worried about it), it might just have been ready to come back to life. Maybe it will adjust its cycle after next season?

The B. fagaroides is a little older, purchased the year before, and was active all summer. Since it is a temperate plant, I figured it could take, and might even benefit from. some cold (not New England winter, but chilly) weather. So, it was left out later than all my other plants (not by much, since they all stayed out until mid-Oct), into late October - no frost, but temps down into the mid-30s. Even with that and after bringing it inside it never really went dormant, keeping one leaf. Although that one was half yellow and looked very Charlie Brownish on the end of a long branch, so I'm counting that as dormancy.

To summarize, O. decaryi was dormant for several months, just not in the winter, and B. fagaroides never went completely dormant, although it was exposed to some pretty chilly temps and did pretty much stop growing from September until December. After coming inside I watered both lightly every week, because they are in a version of the very gravelly and well-draining potting mixture I found on this forum (NAPA Floor Dry/calcined diatomaceous earth, perlite, aquarium gravel, sifted orchid mixâ¦.), and plants very quickly go bone try in that mix (which I found out the hard way).

IâÂÂll keep folks posted on how they do. Again, thanks!

I have found that when some plants (and I'm speaking of succulents exclusively, but they range from Sansevierias to Operculycarias) move to a very different environment, they take a while to adjust. In my own case, I had easily 20 plants that did nothing the first year they and I were in Kamloops, BC (from succulent paradise San Diego, CA), to the point that I feared they were dead.....but they remained in good health, if you discount the no-leaves/no-growth thing. The next year they're growing, and ever since then, they love the growing season outside (all 5-months of it!). As I said, I wouldn't be watering them more than 1x a month until March, but that's for those particular plants (in fact, I water the leafless Burseras maybe 2x in the winter).

Your mix sounds OK, but I'd add some organic mix to it when they go outside. Presumably you get summer rains, and these plants are voracious growers when the sun/temps/rain trinity converge to let the plant be all it can be. Personally, I add some steer manure to the mix of all my pachycaul plants - not much, but they seem to love it.

And there's other caudacious news to report. Like the preceding three or four years, the two Cyphostemma 'Fat Bast#$%' looks like they're leafing out already - I usually have to pinch flower buds off of it in March and April, and this is before it goes outside.

Jeff -

Can't believe your cypho is leafing out already...mine is a sorry stump right now. Can you talk a little about the pinching back you do with yours, and why?

Thanks

Tom

Tom,

It's like clockwork - the increased light we don't see in January (but it's there), and you can set your watch on 'FB' budding up leaves. Why I pinch back - the flowers that will open (insignificant things anyway) won't get pollinated at this time of year, and the energy which goes into flowering I can redirect (I think) into the plant growing somewhere not, not into flowers. 'FB' are notorious for flowering often, so as I said I likely will have pinched off two growths of flowers by the time they go out in May. They'll then likely flower at least twice more, with my older 'FB' often having two or more flower growths at the same time. It's all about redirecting flower energy into leaf/plant/caudex energy, or so I hope. I cannot direct you to anything scientific, but I can tell you that many growers I've met often do the same thing, especially if they're not wanting to pollinate with the plant in question.

JTLYK, all my other Cyphos are leafless.