But it's more fun—and more photogenic—to store it naked, resting in its own martini glass.© 2020 LouisLovesGardening, Ltd. All rights reserved.Here's how to grow this heat-loving tropical oddity:Short stems topped with a few leaves emerge from the top of the rounded swollen trunk—a caudex—while a few thick roots emerge from its pointed bottom. Nonetheless, be sure to let the plant dry out between waterings.Fertilize once a month when the plant is in active growth. Euphorbia obesa care is minimal, making it the perfect houseplant for someone who travels a lot.
If you overwintered your baseball as as bare caudex, repot it in late Winter or early Spring—as before, in a shallow pot filled with well-draining soil—and set the pot in all available sun and warmth.
Baseball plant is succulent plant that belongs to the spurge family. At any time of year, weather that is cool and wet can be fatal.
The leaf is palmate: The lobes and the spaces between them are both so wide that the leaf would be circular if unlobed.its flowers: Four-petaled and coral-red, the flowers are accented by a cluster of yellow anthers. Thanks to the nearly spherical caudex, the plant is sculptural enough to be placed like a piece of art: alone atop a small stone plinth, or grouped with similar oddities at one end of a long flat bench against a simple wall.
Soil that's very well-draining, especially if the plant is growing where the climate isn't hot year-round, and where the plant sheds its leaves to wait out the cool weather in dormancy.
Only then should you respond with a light watering. A smaller volume of soil ensures that the roots absorb soil moisture before it has time to rot them.
Baseball plant grows in the subtropical climate, on the hillsides and stony areas, surrounded by dwarf bushes.
if the soil is absolutely dry, you can store the plant still in its pot.
Pink and blue would be anathema; white or grey irrelevant; burgundy a pleasure.Indoors or out, associate it with other heat-loving species that also sing the praises of red, orange, burgundy, and yellow.
Louis tries to capture the exact words to describe the fleeting but deep pleasures to be found in these Summer-into-Autumn incredibles.Allergic to bees?
Unless you're gardening in the subtropics or tropics, then, you'll normally set the plant in full sun for the maximum growth and vigor.Bring the plant into shelter weeks before any danger of frost; even the cooler nights of late September will feel like Winter to this heat-lover.
That's only possible if the plant experiences dormancy that's truly dry.
It is endemic (it cannot be found anywhere else) for the Cape province in South Africa.
When the plant is ready, it will produce new leaves. The near-black leafy rosettes of Outside of hot-and-dry tropics, baseball plant can survive year-round only as a container plant that's brought into dry warmth for the Winter.
With its coral-red flowers that are accented with the yolk-yellow anthers, baseball plant belongs only in the red- and yellow-friendly areas of your garden as well as your house.
You can still have an exciting garden, full of flowers and color and wildlife.How many other plants could you display in a martini glass?
Melissa Petruzzello is Assistant Editor of Plant and Environmental Science and covers a range of content from plants, algae, and fungi, to renewable energy and environmental engineering. the baseball plant can be helped by keeping the plants in the same sort of area. Do not water. Even so, let the plant dry out before watering again.After all danger of frost or even cool nights has passed, baseball plant can be set outdoors for the Summer.
As befitting any species named baseball plant, this one is nearly spherical as well as palm-sized—but because it's used for water storage, much heavier than its namesake.
Tall stalks of bright red flowers appear as long as the weather stays hot and dry.The coolness of Fall hustles baseball plant back into dormancy.
Learn more about stinging nettle, hogweed, the aptly named “pain bush”, and other plants you should think twice about touching.