ABC Wednesday-E For Euphorbia

My potted pink Euphorbia Milii, 8 months old now, grow from cutting stems.



Euphorbia Milii belongs to succulents family. This is one of my favorites, my previous post about euphorbia is here. The updated photos and my planting tips post here, for

ABC Wednesday

Euphorbia Milii, is a member of the family Euphorbiaceae (Spurge family), the common name is Crown-of-thorns or Christ Plant, local Chinese in Singapore also call it “Hua Wang”, the Chinese meaning is “the king of flowers”. I really don’t know why it got this name. Yeah, it is beautiful, but why is “king of the flowers” , this thorny plant? :)

 

One thing I am very sure, this Euphorbia Milii is super easy to take care, no need to water it often, grow well in container, they can take just about anything including relatively dry or overly wet conditions, seldom get insects attack, they are one of those low maintenance plants. They are not fussy of growing place, require little attention for their healthy growth, the Potted Euphorbia Milii is suitable to be displayed indoor near window side, I think this is the reason they are so welcomed by a lot of Singaporean, most of us, like me, busy in work days and nights, lack of time for gardening, plus, most of us stay at HDB house, we only have “container garden”.  :)

But still we enjoy gardening in a small space…

There is a wide variety of sizes and color of euphorbia. They have a lot of in different colors, yellow, pink, orange, white, red in varying shades, some are combination of colors. They are also available in different sizes, from cute button-like blossoms to inch-sized flowers.

I have planted a few type of Euphorbia Milii before, I like the flowers last much longer than other flowering plants. They don't easily wilt, and they blooms abundantly all year round. My first collection of euphorbia plants were from a cutting stem picked up from downstairs, someone left it out side the garbage room, I took it back and planted in pot, it grows till now, almost 1 meter height already. I don’t want it to grow too big, so I multiplied the euphorbia by cutting off the stems from the mother plant, 80% of them survive. I have green fingers. One more thing I realize, the Euphorbia Milii with red flowers are always growing faster than other color. The white and yellow color of Euphorbia Milii plants are not easy to grow, at least for me.

 

Left is my first Euphorbia Milii (red flowers), 7 years old now, right is the newly planted Euphorbia Milii

One thing I would like to share with other plants lover, the newly planted cutting should not be watered for at least a week otherwise the stem will turn soft and hollow inside. Like most members of the Spurge family, the Euphorbia Milii exude a sticky white sap from any cut surface, it is better to wait for the sap dry first before pushing it into soil.

However, It is fun of growing a Euphorbia Milii from cutting stems, and the nice little evergreen is the best gift for your plants lover friends.  So if you haven’t tried one, try this easy planting “Crown of Thorns”, just be careful of its pretty big thorns all along its stem, thus its name.

There are, however, many other nice Euphorbias, I will hunt for them, and post more about this lovely plant in future.

Some other Euphorbias with red color flowers, my contribution for

Ruby Tuesday

   

The left is my potted red color Euphorbia, 6 months old. The right Euphorbia plant with red flowers too, but the flowers are slightly bigger than mine. There are many other type of Euphorbia plants on sale in the nursery.



…the red flowers against the shinny green leaves



 

…the lovely red thorn



Lovely flowers after rain…



Happy Watery Wednesday tomorrow!