The very thought of driving to LA makes me shudder as though an earthquake hit! Your photos are great. Will the Kalanchoe uniflora grow on palms or pines? That's the extent of our trees. Well, we do have crepe myrtle and jacaranda...

Most of our trees bear fruit or nuts.

Are these things like mistletoe? Will they eventually kill the tree? Just curious.

desertdance, I don't know if K. uniflora will grow on pines...but it should be able to grow on the other trees you mentioned.

Unlike mistletoe...K. uniflora is an epiphyte. Its roots don't go inside the tree and steal nutrients...they just attach to the surface of the tree. So you don't have to worry about epiphytes harming your tree.

Unlike many orchids and most Tillandsias...you can't simply attach K. uniflora directly on top of the bark. You need some medium between the bark and the Kalanchoe. The regular moss you find at nurseries works pretty well. Just soak it, compress it and use fishing line to secure it to your tree. Then use fishing line to secure the Kalanchoe on top of the moss. The Kalanchoe will spread to wherever there's moss.

When the Kalanchoe is mounted to a tree like this...you really don't have to worry about overwatering it. You just have to worry about underwatering. In other words...you don't have to worry about rot...you just have to worry about dehydration. Dehydration is far easier to cure than rot.

Depending on the amount of exposure and heat...during summer I water them anywhere from every night to twice a week. Watering at night during summer minimizes evaporation so it maximizes their water uptake. During winter I water them a couple of times a month first thing in the morning.

You can use this same technique for pretty much any succulent you see thriving in green walls...Sedums, Crassulas, Graptopetalums, Senecios, Echeverias, Rhipsalis and so on. So if you're going to water one spot on your tree...you can get more bang for your buck by adding a few different plants to that same spot. Plus, adding a few different plants will increase your chances that one of them will thrive in those conditions. So "bundling", in this case, helps hedge your bets.

To learn more check out this general overview of growing plants epiphytically.

epiphyte 78,

I am looking for this plant, K. uniflora in the color you pictured. Online I could not find a source. Logee's has it,but it is light orange in color rather than the one you posted. Can you please inform me of an online source? thank you so much.

radhavall, I purchased mine from Accents. Unfortunately, it looks like they are all sold out.

I'm guessing though that flower color is a function of exposure. More sun equals darker color.

But I'd be happy to trade you some cuttings!

Thank you for your reply.
Can you please let me know if this is the same dark color you have on your tree?
Thank you so much.. If this is not the one then I would certainly like to trade with you. Thanks again..

Here is a link that might be useful: Kalanchoe uniflora, winter bells..

That's not Kalanchoe uniflora. Unfortunately I don't know what it is. I have it as well. It kinda looks like a cross between K. uniflora and K. blossfeldiana.

Feel free to e-mail me a list of plants that you'd be willing to trade for K. uniflora. Of course I love epiphytes and plants that can be grown epiphytically!

No pics from the show?
Last Decembers freeze took out- slowly over the summer-my Dendrobiums. Shrivel sank in and kept going. My dwarf Cattlyea did fine- go figure.
I have a Platycerium 'lemonie' . They have a nice unusual color to the fronds..depending on the light it can be blue or very silvery.or just light green.
How do you mount that on a palm? I mean- right to the trunk without using fishline? I don't want to worry about the line damaging the palm.

Is the Platy mounted on something?

Nope. It came in spring in a 3" plastic pot. I put it pot and all in a small wire basket. Its grown a bit. I think attached to a King palm would look better.

Oh ok, I have had a couple of those. They seem to like quite a bit of water at that stage. I would mount it to a piece of cedar with mono or polyester thread. Mine that are freshly mounted get daily mist with 50% shade cloth with a southern exposure in L.A. and are really happy. Then once they got bigger I would screw the cedar to the side of the palm. Unless you're in Florida then I'd just screw the cedar to the palm straight away. Once it attached itself to the palm, I might remove the screw for the sake of some future tree guy with a chainsaw though.

Stan, nope, no show pics. Can I blame poor lighting? My favorite entry was a massive Aglaomorpha coronans mounted on a large lava rock. Last fall I finally had the opportunity to buy a small Aglaomorpha heraclea. Mounted it and kept it inside most of the winter. Took it out this spring and it's just putting out its third new frond. I'd really like to try and cross it with coronans. Ideally the cross would be large and temperature tolerant. But it's not like I know how tolerant heraclea is.

That's too bad that you lost your Dendrobiums. Were they potted or mounted?

That's neat that you'd like to attach your Platy to your palm! But it's a bit late in the year though. Most Platys are going to start their winter rest. If you attach it to your palm now...then it might not have enough time to firmly secure itself to the palm. Over winter the Platy will loosen...so by the time spring rolls around...you'd have to remount it.

The general epiphyte mounting rule is that you want to very firmly secure them at the very beginning of their growing season.

I haven't had any problem with fishing line girdling trees. Maybe I only buy the cheap stuff but the only reason I remove it is for aesthetic reasons. Generally, after a year of being exposed to the elements, it starts quitting. Wire, on the other hand, doesn't quit. Plus, with fishing line...the Platy's old shields and moss will quit way before the palm does.

You can use the winter to figure out what you'll plant inside your Platy "basket". This is a very important decision. It requires much careful deliberation. You have to list the pros and cons of all the possible candidates. Always ask yourself..."What's the opportunity cost?"

My vote is for some excellent epiphytic Ericaceae (3E). Like Agapetes. Especially a 3E that I don't already have. Then we could trade.

Remember I uploaded some Platy "basket" photos to the "Orchid On Every Tree" thread? Oops, I missed a couple questions. Maybe the e-mail notification isn't functioning properly. Maybe I'm not functioning properly.