Gee I wonder why people are buying less and less houseplants? Could it be poor soil and inaccurate labeling mixed with shoddy care instructions? Fix those things and make a big ad campaign about it, and grow your plant business the right way. But lo, I preach to the choir.

ez

They've started labeling at least their Sansevierias on the UPC tag.

I'm not sure if the soil thing can be remedied due to the shipment/stocking time of the plants? I have found a rather good mix in some of my Hoya plants I've bought as well as a Chlorophytum.

I don't know if I've ever bought a cactus/succulent from them though (other than Hoya, but that's just playing with classifications).

Justin - Welcome to the forums and thanks for contributing!

One thing I've always wondered about the Desert Gems is what the colouring is made of. In many stores it looks like spray paint of sorts, but I assume Costa Farms would have used something a lot more 'friendly' for the cacti.

It's fun to hear you have a plant hunter. Sometimes I feel like that as I visit all the local stores looking for interesting and unique plants. =)

For soil - this is my most common issue with the cacti and succulents I purchase. Usually it's a type that would be far too difficult for indoor growers to manage, especially novice ones. For that 1/3 of the time I pull a new plant out of it's pot and see a decent mix, it makes me happy.

As for care instructions, I often run into excited but slightly frustrated/sad people at the stores. They're there to buy new succulents or cacti because they killed their last ones! They want to start a collection but are hesitant because they don't know how to keep all of them alive and doing well.

Breathnez/Laticauda/Ewwmayo: We are working on improving our tagging (though it's coming along a lot more slowly than we'd like). It's a bit of a delicate balance here at Costa Farms with our processes, as well as requirements from the numerous retailers we sell to. CF is testing some new ways to tag that should -- if they work out -- help get more variety names and specific care instructions on our houseplants. Unfortunately, because CF grows millions of plants, there are always going to be mistakes and issues of plants inadvertently getting the wrong tag. It's the exception rather than the rule, but it still happens from time to time.

Ewwmayo: Do you find that OUR potting mix is not helpful for your cacti and succulents? Our growers have worked hard on the custom mixes we make and use for our varieties. If you're finding that our mix is not satisfying, please let me know and I can share that with our cacti/succulent growers. Perhaps more tweaks need to be made on our side? We're also walking the balance between a mix that can successfully grow in here in Miami and a mix that tests well for home gardeners, as well.

---Justin

There is no such thing as a ugly houseplant! Except those that are neglected and allowed to dry up and die. Think of all the joy they bring when they grow, bloom, etc.

I believe most of the succulents carried by the bbs here (at least) don't come from Costa Farms.

Justin, I can understand working within a delicate balance. Hope y'all set a trend away from 'the dark side' haha.

ez

Justin- Thank you for stopping by. It helps remove the the impersonal aspect of plant painters and offers a view of the other side. I certainly can understand the economics of your situation and it is good to know you're still growing for the purist out there. Do you stick fake flowers on your plants as well?

tj

Justin

I believe this isn't your first visit here - IIRC, you posted before?

I think the soil your plants come in if perfect for the growers with huge GH and all the systems: right light, right temps, right amount and frequency of watering (for the peat they are grown in) - the sprinklers on timers; and the fertilization - probably all controlled by computers?

But once they leave your GH, it is up to sellers and we all know how that goes...usually very little light, willy-nilly watering (one amount fits all), temps whatever they are...Many purchase succulents with either muck or hardball for the soil.

If the succulents came in less water-retentive soil, I think they would fare better.

Majority of us don't have GH and automatic watering systems. So first think is to get the plant out of the pot and re-pot it into well draining mix.

But it would definitely be too expensive to re-pot plants prior to shipping...btw, is there any kind of follow-up by any grower as how plants are treated by the sellers? - at the end, the grower does get some blame by the public, not only the seller.

Rina

Re: the flowers.

They have to appeal to everyone, you know. Even people who like glued on flowers, lol.

I personally don't like the glued on flowers but as long as they do not harm the plant I can understand showing that they can flower. You'd be surprised how many people think that cacti don't flower.

Justin, if you're still reading this it would be nice if there was at least directions on your website for each plant, then even if a buyer gets a mixed up tag they can match what they have to a picture on the site for correct instruction. And it would be easier than changing millions of Plant labels.

Really, you can't "tell" someone how to keep a plant alive, there is a certain amount of observance necessary on the caretaker's part that some people can't get outside of themselves long enough to perceive it. I think mostly people who like painted and glued plants.

True but I think people that are drawn to painted and and glued plants just don't know any better. Which is why some education would be so valuable.

Have yet to see a painted Sanseviera

Also, I've learned that typically speaking those who are ignorant choose to be so. There's no amount of "education" that will change it.

breathnez: I hope we see more of an uptick with folks who are new to houseplants picking up natural varieties, too. We put together a collection we call Plants of Steel, which represent those that we find hold up the best for the longest amount of time in tough conditions. That collection seems like it should be a no-brainer, but folks who are "plant blind" don't even notice them at the stores.

Tsugajunkie: We do glue flowers on to cacti when it's requested by a retail customer. It's not something we do on our own. BTW: I moved from Iowa to Florida to work at CF and your handle really makes me miss being able to grow hemlocks!

Rina: Yes, I have popped in before for conversations about CF or our Exotic Angel brand. I like to weigh in and remind people that, while we're a wholesale grower, we're still a company of plant lovers. There are a lot of things we do that make people mad, unfortunately, and I try to share our reasoning. I'm not necessarily trying to change anyone's opinions, but rather let them know there is thought --- a lot of discussion here --- about the decisions we make.

As far as our cacti mix goes, I wish we had everything computer controlled so we had perfect conditions! We don't grow in greenhouses --- here in Miami, we grow our cacti and succulents outside, so we're far from perfect conditions. We've given up peat entirely and instead mix coir with a very healthy amount of sand and other materials for drainage.

As far as working with our retailers on care after the plants are delivered, we do. Unfortunately, care varies tremendously from store to store. We usually give the store personnel care instructions for the plants while they're at the store, but we don't have the ability to enforce it. So one store might follow our suggestions; another store down the road might water everyday; while another store might get too busy to water adequately. However, in many areas, we have "service teams" we hire that go in and help the store staff with things like watering and getting the right plants on the right tables for sale.

Nicholas C.: If you visit our website, you should find care instructions for almost every variety we sell. I'm still working on getting a few uploaded to the website, but by and large, we do. I'm always open to suggestions on how I can make the CF website better --- so feel free to message me if you don't think we're doing a good enough job on www.costafarms.com.

Nomen-nudum: We have also experimented with painting the tips of Sansevieria leaves. We've tested them in a few stores.

---Justin
Costa Farms

Nomen

i saw painted glow in the dark Sans at Cnadian Tire not long ago.....ugh!

Justin try something 'out of the box'. Something like the ideas of Japan where they restructure DNA helping plants of all kinds to mutate becoming very natural looking with natural vibrant coloring. (A result of the DNA restructuring) . They turn out a very wide range of variegated succulents from Lithops to holiday cacti. The DNA restructured plants are often sought slightly rare to be found somewhat pricey but they are of everyone's desire.

There may be a smaller profit for Costa though as Costa would have to mass produce the sought for plants while under cutting Japan prices by a larger margin.

Thanks for all the comets guys there might accutally be to many I can't keep up justin I which wally world could say the same as you and do you know if the pieces of them falling off is good or bad I want to vista costa farms now!

Justin, do you mean that he should use the "contact me" page on the Costa Farms website?

just for clarity purposes :)

Hi! You can send an email to me via costafarms.com/contact-us/contact or via direct message to my profile here on the forum. :-)

Thank you Justin.

the reason I asked is because the default profile setting is to not allow private messages. You would need to go into advanced settings and scroll to the bottom and choose your option for messaging.

actually I grow cacti and I fond a red cacti so colorful cacti are not deyd or panted

While there are some that will be of red color naturally, ones in this discussion are painted.

Could you post photos of your colorful cacti please?

I happen to have a pink Desert Gem and I love it. It looks great with my other succulents and houseplants! Here is a picture of my little baby.

Charming planter for it, mschirduan!

---Justin, Costa Farms

Justin your always setting up some form of controversial disagreements in the area of what is normal including painted disasters and complements that encourage pots that have no drainage . Dis-encuraging as it sounds do you have any plans for a painted jades in the future ? Day glow purple maybe ?

Hi nomen_nudum:

It's not my intention to set up controversy or agreements. I thought I was just being nice. Nor was it my intention to encourage anyone to plant in a container without drainage (mschirduan could have used a ceramic bit to drill a drainage hole in her teacup, after all).

Costa Farms has no plans for painting jade plants or other succulents in the future. We only colorize the spines of our Desert Gems cacti, and we do so in a way that doesn't affect the growth of the plant. I understand that you and many others find it a distasteful practice, and I also understand there are consumers who enjoy the fact that we add color to the spines. While we can't everyone happy, we are trying to offer different solutions so everyone can find something they like.

My apologies to you if I came across as trying to incite controversy.

---Justin

Quoted : My apologies to you if I came across as trying to incite controversy.

An apology is an indication that one is willing to learn from there errors and improve upon them. I don't see you and your company doing very much in the area of improving the natural occurrences on plants that the majority already enjoys a lot more than the painted offerings you and your company continue to provide.

justin, thanks for your neutral and helpful comments in this thread. We all know we can't make everyone happy and to even try would be asinine. I personally don't take a shine to died/unnatural anything but I totally get why y'all do it and didn't really think of it in the way you described till I popped into this thread.

Just a suggestion to anyone wanting to put their thoughts/comments somewhere worthwhile....email Exon, mobile, the US Govt, Donald Trump or Hillary, US bank, General Motors or perhaps your grandmother. ;)

Just a guess, but I don't think that General Motors gives a tinker's damn about how I grow my plants.

I give Justin credit for coming here and explaining about his company. The plant business can't be easy. Seems like there are fewer mail order sources for Cacti every year.

BUT, I think we all know that most succulents bought at the BBS by a casual buyer end up in the trash sooner than later. The flaw in the logic of providing novelty gateway plants is that I think 'creative' items that end up in the trash do not encourage buyers to try again. Or maybe in just a very small percentage of buyers. Maybe that's enough?

Many buyers of these plants do come here for advice, but in most cases it is already too late to help.

Hey all,

For what it's worth, the artificially colored Desert Gems is only one product that Costa Farms grows and sells. Pretty much all the rest of our hundreds of plant varieties are natural. We have a robust research and development department that's continually testing new varieties, and we've brought a bunch of plants to market including Jungle Queen hybrid anthurium; 'Cecilia' aglaonema; 'Red Emerald', 'Pink Dalmatian', and 'White Calcite' aglaonemas, etc. There are some other cool plants on the horizon that I'm not allowed to talk about, too. (In fact, there's one that I'm practically dying to get to try out in my own house!)

I know it's really easy to be grumpy about that one product --- and I totally understand if you choose to judge Costa Farms solely based on it. But I'd also like to remind you that we do a lot --- mostly, actually --- of other things as well as Desert Gems.
:-)

---Justin
Costa Farms

Justin;

I think I do have some wax plants that I've had forever from Costa Farms. They bloom all the time so thank you for that.

Now in curious and excited about the new plant you want to grow in your own home!

Justin, I have a huge regret that I moved out of Miami before my addiction to succulents. I used to ride my bike past your farms all the time!

Hey Leslie!

Sorry to hear you're not in the area anymore --- but I hope you're able to find a good selection of our cacti and succulents at your local retailers!

tlbean2004: I'll follow up with R&D to see when it's safe to talk about! (Maybe when I do they'll finally decide to give me one to bring home and kick the tires on...)
: )

---Justin
Costa Farms

Can n e one tell me if I can plant desert gems in stones with some succulents or can succulents be put in dirt with the gems? Thanks 4 ur help

Hi Kristina,

Desert Gems grow well with succulents and other cacti. You can pot them up together to make little dish gardens or other arrangements. It's best to grow them in a potting mix made for cacti and succulents, especially if you're not experienced with growing these plants.

---Justin, Costa Farms Horticulturist

Thanks for being so quick

My mom just bought an orange Desert Gem cactus for me and was thrilled to show me its "orange flowers". She was convinced that it was a rare kind of cactus that grew flowers, always finding a new way to make me laugh!

I'm 16 and I really like cacti, just thought it would be a funny story to share with you guys.

Justin, so I just got two desert gems, and I have been watering them about every week. It seems that my blue desert gem has become very very fragile and one of the branches broke off and all of the other branches are the same. My yellow desert seems to be doing okay although I don’t think it will be for much longer. My plants are in quite a bit of sunlight, but I don’t know what to do to save it, and potentially save my yellow cacti also. It has also alarmed me that the blue cacti has seemingly shrunk. I don’t know what do do to save my plants, and I love them but don’t know how exactly to take care of them, and save them. Is my whole cacti going to die? Please help I love these things but I really don’t want them to die!

My name isn’t Justin and I don’t work for Costa Farms, but I will try to help you Camille:).

Your cactus is Mammillaria vetula subs. gracilis cv. Arizona Snowcap, but if you‘re ever looking for more info you can easily type in Mammillaria ‘Arizona Snowcap’ instead of the long name I gave you in green, which is a link that will give you info on your cactus. Idk if you know this, but the new spines won’t be blue or yellow, they will be white. This cactus is a slowww grower.

I personally think the first thing with any plant growing is knowing what plant you have and a little bit about the plant.

If these were mine I would unpot, gently remove as much of the old soil off the roots as you can , and repot in a better faster draining mix like a perlite and or pumice mixed with cheap cactus soil. The pots look like the right size, if they’re root bound you can go up one pot size. After repotting cactus I wait about a week or two and then water them. It’s the start of the growin season so now is a great time to do this. If you live on the Northern Hemisphere of course. During the winter this cactus should be kept totally dry. I know that may sound nuts, but it’s normal when growing cactus. Many of my cactus got their first drink of water since late October a few days ago.

Like my Mammillaria duwei

Before

After

Any pieces that have fallen off set on top of the mix and they’ll root eventually. It could take months for this process so be patient and leave them be. Any rootless pieces should be kept in bright filtered sun, especially when it starts to get hot because the rootless little pieces will fry.

Lastly, during the growing season your cactus may need to more sun than what’s being provided, so slowly acclimating it to more sun is probably in its future.

Hi Camille,

Sorry to hear you're having some problems with your Desert Gems. One of the frustrating things about these plants is that, because of the artificial coloring, it can be tough to tell when they've passed. I can't tell you how many people I helped when I was at Costa Farms who continued to care for their Desert Gems because they didn't know the plants had died.

: (

I would first take a look at the most recent piece of your blue one that had fallen off. Is it still firm? Or is it soft and squishy? If it's soft and squishy, it may have rotted out.

I had found this Mammillaria is relatively fragile --- so pieces falling off when bumped or jostled seems to be normal.

Does this help at all?

---Justin

Okay, thank you for responding! It actually isn’t squishy, although the whole plant it’s self is pretty loose in soil which I can totally fix! It seems to be doing better, and growing more pieces which is great! Thank you for helping me once again!

This is My baby, a year old in January, by puppy had bitten a small chunk out of it and my cactus hasnt improved and I’ve changed the soil twice in three months maybe four to see if it’d make a difference but nothings seemed to help. i think my baby may be dying or dead already but if not anyone have any advice?

Can you upload a pic of your cactus?

Without seeing anything it’s hard to help and give advice, but one thing I do know is repotting it 2 times in the past 3 months is not going to help it grow. It’ll slow growth down if anything,

I just transplanted my gem I use Cactus soil today's the first day and it looks like it's going to die what can I do I use Miracle-Gro Cactus soil

Can you post a pic of your cactus?