The Farina Play
My favorite today: Graptoveria 'Lulu'
My last post was a while ago and it was about Echeveria laui. Guess what, today my favorite is laui's hybrid Graptoveria 'Lulu'! 😍
The other parent is Graptopetalum rusbyi, which has numerous soft and slender leaves and can show a pink-orange stress color. Laui cannot show its stress color due to a thick layer of snow-white farina. 🤓 So, we have two parents and each has its strengths and weaknesses. Laui is almost hydrophobic but has gorgeous white farina. Rusbyi does not hold its soft leaves very well but has many of them and can show stress color well.
And here we have their hybrid that is not gonna rot at the sight of water, keeps its firm leaves well, and has amazing stress color under its grayish-white farina. 😲 Isn't this amazing?! 😍
The coolest thing about G. 'Lulu' is the color difference between leaves with and without the farina. 🙃 Even when the farina is intact, it is possible to see which heads are stressed and which are not. My specimen has fully stressed, half-stressed, and not stressed heads showing somewhat different colors. 😍 The fully stressed heads with brilliant red leaves hidden under the farina look pink. 🩷The half-stressed look gray 🤍 because the leaves underneath are dark burgundy. And not-stressed heads are greenish-white 💚 - you can see a couple of such babies between larger heads. Those babies were in total shade closer to the soil and I helped them to pick through. 🌱
Now, the fun part... 😆 I do love painting and I haven't done it for years. So, I started expressing my creativity with a paintbrush removing some farina from succulent leaves. 🤪 G. 'Lulu' is a good example of this expression. I removed farina from some of the older leaves to expose its brilliant red ❤ as a backdrop for grayish-white newer leaves 🤍. The plant looks unreal! 😍I love the vivid colors and the dramatic contrast. 😘 I do not think this variety can look any better than this. 🙌 It took me quite a while because the plant has numerous leaves and I tried avoiding smudging the farina from the newer leaves. ✍️
This variety makes babies easily and grows in clusters. A single-headed specimen will not last a long time without adding some babies. 😉
This specimen is in a 3.25" pot.