Topsy Turvy finally blooming!

I was looking forward for this one to bloom. For the very first time I got 4 flower stems growing in the same time. I was checking it every day to see how many flowers had opened and then waiting for a sunny day to bring it in and take the usual photos with black background. Only to find out today that this was not gonna happen.

Echeveria runyonii topsy turvy

During one of the balcony cleaning day I put the pot with this echeveria inside a larger pot with Chrysanthemums. There was space there and I just wanted to sweep the dry leaves. I left it there and I noticed it grows really nice among the green leaves so I decided not to move it back at all.

Today, as I went to grab the pot I couldn't move it at all! The roots came out though the holes at the bottom and started to grow in the larger pot. The only way would be to cut them all off. A shame really since she really likes it there and the extra water and richer soil seems to benefit it.
I guess I don't have to repot it to a bigger pot anymore either :p

I left it there and had to improvise with portable black sheet to get the almost the same effect.

These are beautiful, tall flowers stems. Some of the earlier flower already faded, but there is still plenty of buds to go.

The petals, stems and the tiny leaves are all covered in the dusty farina, just like the rest of the plant. With this amount of blooms I could see some of the dust flying away when I was moving the plant a bit more vigorously.

Now prepare for some flower spam :)

The petals are like little tubes.
I have another one of this type. They leaves on both look the same, but they are from different places and the flower do have different shape - the flowers on the other one seem to be opening more and getting that star shape instead of being more closed like the one here.





This is how it grows among the Chrysanthemums. It does gets quite a bit of sun - it is the most sunny spot on my balcony. But the pot and most of the plant is protected from the hottest sun (Chrysanthemums are just unbeatable!)

It has pretty, pale flipped leaves. I should remove all the dead and dry leaves though as it is a perfect place for bugs to hide and it is quite prone to get mealybugs.

As the main plant grows and the bottom of the stem gets naked the little offshoots will appear - it is the easiest and fastest way to propagate it. Just snap one off and plant in a separate pot. It will root in no time.
There is a few little pups growing around it, but I will not remove them. They can all grow together.

Another method is though a leaf cutting and find this Echeveria are super easy to multiply this way too. It happened to me that I got few new plants from each leaf. Most of them already found new homes as I don't need so many of them.

I haven't tried with seeds and I am not sure how easy it is to pollinate it. I'd say it is possible too. It would be the most time consuming method, but also would give the largest (if successful) amount of new plants.







It generally requires very little maintenance and it gets watered about once a week in the summer and almost at all in winter. It gets the rain in winter and spring, but the pot drains freely, and I had no issues with rot so far.