Your epi slide show is nothing less than epic. Having once in this lifetime witnessed an event such as this helps one appreciate it all the more. For such an ordinary looking plant to produce such beauty in a flash of glory seems to demonstrate an other worldly phenomenon -- all bathed in delicious fragrance as well.

OMG, Thank you Roselee, Maybe I should change the title to EPI EPIC.

I feel a certain relationship to this plant. I got the cutting off my mother's plant after she died. That is why I call her Annie. I treat her with a combination of abuse, neglect and tenderness and she rewards me with this phenomena 5 or 6 times a summer. It hardly seems fair.. Annie will get her post flowering treat of fish for breakfast this morning. She is so tired out with her flowers hanging lax off their limbs like dead white bats. Last time a deer came up and ate them.

Every time I climb into a throat of an epi, I feel like I am honoring her and channeling her love of photography. I feel very close to her sitting in the dirt in the dark. She too took amazing photos a la Georgia O'keefe. They were large cibrachromes prints back in the day of developing when she had to develop her large color prints in a photo lab herself. She loved rotting leaves in swamps and iris. She would put on waste tall rubber boots , grab her gear and her tripod, and wade out into New Hampshire swamps. She absolutely hated the idea of digital photography.

Exquisite. Thank you for sharing.

Omar

Waded out into New Hampshire swamps to take pictures? Wow. Your mama sounds like a very interesting woman! Thanks for telling us a little about her exploits. Maybe when I see you again you can tell me more.

She was. She had tons of photos and negatives and burned them all and her poetry and writings before she died. I have 2 photos of hers. That is all that remains. She wanted to leave nothing behind.

Mara, your Mom evidently had a high revelation that in reality she was so much more than her poetry and photos that they didn't matter at all.

I have two varieties of epi that are different from 'Annie' that have quite a few buds. The cuttings of 'Annie' that you passed along have rooted, but they are small yet. My question is: should the epis with buds be fertilized to help them along? I sprinkled them with a few pellets of time release fertilizer a couple of months ago and they have really grown fast.

Rose,About the epi, I only sporadically fertilized mine with a watered down fish or sea weed.. Now I fertilize it in the spring and then once after each bloom cycle. The first two years I cut it back in the fall (or early spring, I forget) and it would branch out with many branches from its base. I did not know what I was doing, it just seemed right at the time. Blooms form on the one year stalk starting on the 3rd year. I think cutting it back early forced into a a mutl branched structure earlier. I would not chop it back so harshly now because that would cause the plant to miss a year of blooming, but I have trimmed old branches off. When real young, I see no problem with giving it more fertilizer. I read someplace that blooming is a survival reaction to stress so if that is so, don't make them too happy once it gets to blooming size if you believe this. I grow things pretty hard and only feed them after a bloom. I also read somewhere that the blooming is triggered by natural light dark cycles in early spring, so do not keep it in a room where you live after dark. I put my epi outside as soon as there is no frost. Other epis are more tender and I have found that the Dissocactus Akermain never grew well when I treated it like my epi. This year I kept it warmer during the winter and I am fertilizing it and it is growing much better. I am still figuring that one out.

Just beautiful, I love these photos. Ragna shared one with me and they bloomed this year just a few months after bringing them home. I am hooked now and they keep blooming. I will try to sit up with one sometime to see the whole picture.

Your mom sounds amazing.

My epi is a different variety and not as intricately formed as Mara's, plus my photos not anywhere near epic quality, but it was such a thrill to look out in the early morning light and see a couple of blooms that I'm posting them anyway :-)

The flowers are a wonderful plus, but I really grow the epis for their tropical looking almost eerie foliage. The hanging baskets are getting so big and heavy that Bob may have to call for help from son Doug in rehanging them next spring after they spend the winter greenhouse.

Very nice. They have the added benefit of being seen in the day. A big plus, but that reduces the mysterious quotient. Epiphyllum hookeri AKA Epi strictum , I think . Not googling and double checking my spelling (dangerous territory in my world). I have an abused one here for years. It does not bloom as much as the other but the deer have been munching on it.