Variegated Gasteraloe Gasteria-Aloe Hybrid

Plant sales are one of my favorite and least favorite times of year. Favorite, because I get to find all kinds of plants I've been desperately wanting, and new ones I didn't even know I wanted yet, too. Least favorite, because I always end up blowing a week's paycheck. On freaking plants.

Mount's Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach, FL happens to be practically walking distance from my house, so I always make it a point to go to the plant sales. This occasion was an orchid sale, most of which is out of my price range, but I was counting on a few oddball vendors showing up. My mission- I had $100 burning a hole in my pocket, and my per-plant limit I set for myself was $10.

Sure enough, I found this overgrown pot of variegated gasteraloe, a variegated gasteria aloe hybrid. It was unlabeled, but a very nice seller on ebay had sent me a little pup as a bonus to some variegated wandering jew and pothos I had bought, so I was able to identify it.

I'll be sure to toss some of these pups on ebay, it's alway fun to try to make back what I spent on the plant.


Cost: $8
Source: Mount's Botanical Garden plant sale

Variegated Ponytail Palm

This was a lucky find- three variegated ponytail palms, overgrown in their tipped-over pot in a mess of bushes at a nursery. The salesman must have not known their value, as we got them for $15. :) It's my understanding that the base will never be bulbous like the regular ponytail palms :( How unfortunate.

Cost: $15 for a pot of 3
Source: plant nursery

6 Kinds of Variegated Wandering Jew (Tradescantia)

Wandering jew is another one of those ultra-common plants that no one seems to like. But being a collector of all things variegated, I was super excited about these variegated ones. I love the ease at which wandering jew is propagated and how fast it grows.

I am also in the process of acquiring a variegated purple queen wandering jew, excited about that. :D Way more excited than someone should be.

Cost: $3-7 each
Source: eBay

Variegated Sea Hibiscus

I fell in love with this plant after renting a house that had a massive sea hibiscus forest on the property. They must have been 30 feet tall and the inside was pretty clear of leaves, it looked like the ultimate childhood secret hiding spot for a fort or something. The flowers start yellow and turn to burgundy before shedding, but this one hasn't bloomed yet. I found this variegated one on eBay and had it shipped from Hawaii.

Variegated Colocasia Mojito

A close-up of the amazing pattern on the colocasia mojito, it looks like it was printed or something, reminds me of a bunch of cells under a microscope. Seems to be a slow growing plant, and wilts fast on hot days without water.

Variegated Cactus

Here is some type of variegated cactus, variety unknown.

Unknown paddle cactus in the background, I have lots of extra paddles of those for sale.

Variegated Aloe Vera

This is my favorite aloe, the aloe nobilis variegata. It seems to be a very slow grower, as it hasn't grown much in size or made any new pups that the few it has. It seems to be cold hardy, didn't sustain any damage this winter despite being left in the ground. I want to eventually have some pups for sale but it grows so slow I wonder if I'll ever have any extra.

Variegated Screw Pine

One of our latest acquisitions, a lovely variegated screwpine, stolen from the neighbor's yard after they moved out. haha!

Variegated Sea Grape

Here is one of my pride and joys, my rare variegated sea grape. It is still pretty small at this point. We are thinking about cutting off the non-variegated parts, someone told us that is good to do.

Variegated Rubber Tree

My rule is, if it comes in a variegated form, I'll buy it! Here is one of our variegated rubber plants. Bought one on ebay and 2 at Target, believe it or not. The variegation is lovely, I love that tri-color camoflauge look.

Variegated St. Augustine Grass!

In our quest to obtain every variegated plant possible, when we came across this we flipped out. It's variegated grass! Our yard is currently st. augustine grass, so at some point we are going to attempt to replace the entire back yard with variegated grass. Should be interesting! I'm going to sell some on ebay also.

Variegated Ginger

This is some type of variegated ginger, purchased from the ginger guy at the plant sale at mount's botanical garden... isn't the contrast lovely? I will try to find out the name of it.

Variegated Pink Lemon

Variegated pink lemon tree purchased from home depot... it's been flowering! The new leaves are huge compared to the old ones, I think it's much happier here than in a pot at home depot.

Variegated Aloe

This is another new acquisition for me, $10 from the fall plant sale at Mount's Botanical Garden. I love aloe, and I love all things variegated, so this was a no-brainer. Can't wait until it starts having pups, I hope to grow a bunch of these and sell/trade the extra pups, looks like that will be a while though.