Hi hookilau! I saved this a few weeks ago from the Highland Culture Guide, hope this is helpful.

oh my!!!!

you're a lifesaver, THANK YOU!!!!!

Yes, THANK YOU!

That list has some primary and secondary.......issues, we'll call them.

While much of it is indeed correct, there are the aforementioned issues that prove once again that there are exceptions - both major and minor are here, IMHO. This is not to disdain the person's work who put it together, but perhaps their experience was limited to what they've read and heard, perhaps instead of actually growing these plants and observing how they respond to weather, the seasons, and so on.

The general rule is that while many plants do indeed go dormant, and the entry to dormancy is evident, many do not - these plants I'll call opportunistic growers (OG). These particular original gangsters will, if given heat (but not too much) and light and water, grow at any time of the year. I'd include almost all of the non-cold-hardy Crassulaceae, both Old World and New World, in this grouping. Naturally there are exceptions to this. From the top of my head, I'm thinking of outliers like Sedum multiceps, almost all (but not all!) Aeoniums, Tylecodons, and I'm sure a lot of others. Naturally these OGs need cool and less light to flower, but they'll grow about any time.

It's interesting, to cite one specific example, that pachypodiums are winter-dormant. Most are, but two notable exceptions are not (P. namaquanum and P. brevicaule (to a lesser extent). In fact, P. n. is in leaf most of the winter, and comes from a winter-rainfall area, and also, to top all that, is possibly the Pachy that's in leaf the most in a year's growing. Another is the fact that Sarcocaulon (Monsonia) are in leaf year around IF YOU DON'T let them go dormant by ceasing watering.

In short, if I had to pick sides, the winter-dormant category is amazingly much more correct than the summer-dormant category (many more listings of plants that actually grow quite well in the summer versus those, such as Pachycormus, which are demonstrably summer-dormant).

You're both very welcome, glad I could help (or make it more confusing? Haha!)

Cactusmcharris thank you so much for the clarification, that's great info. It's very hard to learn all of the exceptions so it's really good to have experienced growers to help supply that info.