Echeveria 'Compton Carousel'

This is one of the most sort after echeverias in the UK, and understandably so. It looks great when in top condition, the problem is keeping it that way.

Sadly it is a right pain to keep in the UK; being prone to rot and also winter growth.  More often than not you end up with a dead plant or one that looks like this:

Thankfully with a bit of luck it will offset for you.

They are not visible in this photo, but there are another 3 pups around the base of the trunk. I am guessing at some point I will top cut it, letting the pups form a clump.  A cluster of these in a nice pot will look good, especially if they are not allowed to get leggy.

If you feel the need to experiment, the leaves also seem to take, but most likely the plants will revert to normal and not be variegated.  Time will tell.

I am hoping this means I have at least solved the rot problem, but if not then I should have a backup.

My favourite propagation trick

Stopping echeverias from growing over winter is not easy if you keep them inside; it is too warm and they just wont go to sleep.  The results in leggy growth, which can totally spoil the look of rosette style plants. Take this little clump, they were lovely compact plants at the end of last summer, and are now all leggy.

Top cutting allows you to re-root the top. It is a simple way to keep plants in check, but it is also an opportunity to produce multiple new plants.  Echeverias especially will produce new plants off the stem if the base is left in the pot.  My favourite trick is to use the legginess to produce a really clean top cut and leave the maximum amount of plant in the pot.  I simply strip the middle section of leaves giving me a nice clean area to cut, which I do just above the leaves in the lower section.

The top sections now have a nice bit of stem, and the base has lots of leaves to encourage offsets.

If you are really keen you can even keep the leave you stripped off the middle, if the echeveria will produce new plants that way. My OH pointed out that we don't really need more plants, but who can resist propagating when they get the chance?

Beautiful but deadly

Today I took some time off to go and visit a friends greenhouse. He has a range of plants, but his big thing are the dyckias and he has built up quite a collection.  This is the main bench

The plants are amazing

 

 

Out of all the spiky plants dyckias have some of the most lethal spines, I wouldn't like to have to pull out individual pots from that lot.  But when you look at individual plants they are beautiful.

There were one or two dyckias scattered around on the other benches as well. Every now and then there are agaves and aloes mixed in. 

It's good to see the aloes in full flower and with lots of new plants forming on the old flower spikes as well.  Anyone growing the new aloe miniatures that are so popular, remember do not cut off your flower stalks!

That is a greenhouse I could cope with and the plants aren't bad either.

The road to recovery.

A few weeks back I posted about my poor aloe zebrina that needed to be top cut after damage (the post can be found here). I finished with this picture of the top cut, which I rested on some gravel to dry off.

The top cut has been resting in the gravel since then and looking today it has started to root nicely.

Normally I would expect the roots to form around the edge, but these are coming in a very neat circle through the middle.  The next stage is to get it settled into soil.   I want to encourage the roots to grow down, so I gently rested the base on the soil and then filled a little more.

Finally I added a layer of gravel around this to keep it stable.  The idea at this stage is to encourage as many roots as possible and not worry about the plant depth. Once it is established and showing signs of proper growth it will be re-potted much deeper to give a much more stable plant. As always, it will be put somewhere out of the sun and warm to protect it during the next few weeks.

This one is well on the way to recovery and hopefully will back on form again by the end of the summer.

The next generation

I thought it was time for an update on my echeveria adonis blue hybrid.  Last summer the original plant flowered it self to death.  I did a post on it at the time (here), and showed this photo with the first offsets ready to be cut off.

Those three were cut off and when it became obvious the main plant was going to die (or look terrible) I top cut it to force more offsets. 

These all made it through winter without any problems and this second generation of plants are now ready to take over. The bowl contains the stem and offsets form the original plant, with the smaller pots being the offsets I have already removed, 16 plants in total.

I wanted to do something with these plants and had this bowl planted up with various echeverias, including one e. adonis blue.  The plants hadn't filled as hoped and I had planned to re-plant it anyway, so this seemed a good opportunity.

I used 9 of the rooted plants as a start.  As all these are established to some degree, the planter will be placed in a sunny position and once I'm 100% sure there will be no more frosts they will be fed to ensure the plants get a good amount of growth this summer. Hopefully if we actually have a summer, the plants should almost fill the planter and be producing offsets of their own in 6 months time. As you can see there is a good range of colours from blue to green depending on where the plants were over wintered.

Along with the rooted plants, there were a few still attached to the old stem.  Having top cut the original plant, these new plants formed at leaf nodes on the stem.   

In some varieties offsets start to form roots, as is the case here. This makes transplanting them easy, but you have to be careful to ensure you cut them off as close to the stem as possible.  If done carefully your offsets should have some roots which will help with the speed they establish.

Normally it is sensible to let cuttings dry off for a day or so.  If cuttings have some roots, I tend not to bother and just pot them straight away.  Having removed all the dead leaves, plant them with soil up to just below the first leaf, then top up with gravel.  The important thing at this stage is to resist from watering. Leave the plants for a week or so and then break in the watering slowly.  During this time, place the pots out of the sun, so that the plants don't get stressed.

If everything goes according to plan, in a couple of months the plants will have a good set of roots and will be ready for potting on.  These were done at the end of last summer and now have a full set of roots.  You can see that the lower leaves have died off leaving a bit of a trunk.  I don't like this and so use the potting on to plant them a bit deeper.  This will result in plants with the rosettes on the soil and new roots will form from the buried stems. 

All potted up these well rooted plants can be watered a little bit straight away.  I still place them out of the sun for a few days just in case, but they should get straight into growth. 

So my original plant has given my 16 babies to play which is a pretty good parting present. If each of these gives me even half as many I should have one or two spares next year. Now all I need is more space to store all these new plants!

Not what I was expecting

One of my main rituals in spring and again in autumn is looking through the pots at what has offset.  Every now and then something will surprise you and looking around over the weekend I found these. Not the offsets I was expecting:

That is definitely not a cactus!

Neither is that one.  There are two possible explanations; either they were sat next to a plant that set seed, or I re-used the soil from a pot I was using for seeds. Either way it is unlikely I will ever figure out what the plants are.  I am guessing they are echeverias (given those are the only succulents I grow that produce seedlings like that) and that is about as far as I will get.

Whatever the explanation, it's not bad considering these pots have been in my coldest mini green house all winter.  To have germinated in the cold and be growing without any signs of damage should produce nice hardy plants.

The first seed run of the year

There is very little to do in my garden over winter.  The pots are all moved into their winter positions, and plants in the ground go dormant. Generally it is just about clearing up leaves and having the fleece at the ready for mention of snow. On days like yesterday which was lovely and sunny the shed gets warm enough to spend hours in (22 degrees C yesterday). This gives me the opportunity to check on the pots; do they need any water, what is flowering, and most importantly are any of the seed pods ripe. The only real gardening I do at this time of year is powering up the propagator and starting my seeds off.

I have mentioned a before that growing plants from seeds is the way I torture myself (my last attempts can be found here).  I can't resist doing it, but I am not very good and it drives me mad.  I guess that is the thing about obsessions, some parts you have control over and others control you! Growing seeds at this time of year is all about timing; you want to start them off so that when spring starts they are small plants ready to be put somewhere to get the most of a full summers growth. Start them off too early and they can get leggy under lights, start them off too late and you waste some of summer.

Aloe midnight child x donnie seeds

It is not always possible to judge correctly, especially if you have never grown from seed before and some varieties may not confirm to the average growth rates. For me the easiest to judge are the aloes and echeverias.  I have grown many of these from seeds and know that with 2 months most varieties will be ready for more light. This year I have my aloe hybrid seeds I was producing at the end of summer.  I have seed pods on both plants; the aloe midnight child  and aloe donnie so I can see what variation I get between them.  These were the first into the propagator.  I also had some manfreda maculata seeds that I am trying again (for the third time) and some agave potatorum.  These should all be small plants come spring ready to go into the shed where they get a lot more light.

Now it is just a matter of sitting back and waiting to see what grows! Will this be the time I manage to keep more than 5 plants alive in each group!

Sometimes experiments just don't work.

I like my experiments; hybrids, bonsai and pushing plants to the limits of their cold tolerance. It is usually the poor echeverias that seem to take the brunt of me playing the mad scientist as they are very quick growing for succulents. Most of the time I have a good reason for the experiment, but every now and then I will just try something to see what happens.

One such trial was using echeveria flower stems. On many varieties new plants form on the flower stems once the flowers themselves have died.  I showed this picture of echeveria carnicolor flower stems before.

Normally you just gently twist the new plants off and lay them on soil and they will root and give you lots of new plants.  As I have plenty of plants I thought it would be fun to plant one of the stems vertically to see what happens. A couple of months later and the flower stem now has flower stems of its own.

The flowers a quite pretty, but overall I have to admit that the plant is fairly ugly.  It seems that some experiments are better on paper than in reality.

If only it was that easy.

I mentioned in my last post that echeverias are great plants to experiment and practice on. This is especially true when it comes to propagation methods.  You can try top cutting, coring, root damage and leaves, and while not every method will work with every variety it is fun finding out what will.  Once you know the quickest and easiest method this can be used whenever you want duplicates or more plants.

E. pulvinata is a pretty little variety which has hairy leaves and in time will form a small bush.  The 'ruby' form has red edges to the leaves and is my favourite.  It is an easy plant to grow although can get leggy over time.  It also propagates easily using almost any method you want. This particular plant was damaged and in recovering threw out a few variegated leaves.  Variegation in echeverias is very rare and so whenever this happens you always find yourself hoping it will continue.

Sadly, as is usually the case, the plant reverted to normal once it was fully recovered.  It does have those few variegated leaves though, and as it will produce new plants from leaves it had to be worth a go. When taking leaves, it is always best to use younger leaves, once past their best they are more likely to die before producing the required new plant. The variegated leaves were still young and so ideal for this purpose.  In theory the new plant should be a copy of this leaf and so variegated.

Given the ease with which echeverias propagate variegated plants should be more common.  The reason they are not is that while new plants are produced without problems, the majority of the time they revert to normal. Even leaves off fully variegated and stable plants usually produce plain new plants. So there is little chance that I will get my dream variegates plant form the leaves.  It doesn't stop you trying though.

The last cross of the year

Echeverias are great succulents. They grow quickly and can go from seed to flowering within 2 years.  They can be propagated using different methods and recover quickly.  Finally different varieties flower at different times of year, so there are always some in flower. All of these make the ideal plant to hone you skills.

The first hybrids I tried were echeverias and now every year I can't help but try one or two. The selection of parents depends on what I have on the go; in quiet years I may try a few different combinations, in busier times it may just be one choice pair. This year I had planned to do my crosses at the start of the summer, but got distracted and hadn't done any until the last few weeks.  The main cross I have hopes for are two of my favourites. The first parent is one of the very white varieties e. 'john catlin'.  I get a lot of requests for this plant as it doesn't offset and is difficult to propagate.

The other parent is one of the rarer varieties e. walpoleana. This is a small clump forming plant, which has longer leaves and larger dark pink flowers.

I will be happy with any resulting cross, but a blonde (white) version of e. walpoleana would be particularly good.

Attempting an aloe hybrid

While we're on the subject of seeds, nothing shows the depth of my obsession more; I just can't help myself.  Every year I try a few seeds I have purchased and also try to create a few hybrids of my own.  Normally the hybrids are echeveria as they grow so quickly. This year I thought I would also try an aloe or two.

I wanted to try something I could not find else where; maybe more cold tolerance, or a darker colour.  This time I thought I would go with colour.  I've had this group of aloe midnight child for a while, it is a cute little plant with very dark, at times almost black leaves. The colour is amazing, but the leaves lack a little bite; they are slim and smooth with limited teeth.

This year I managed to pick up this little aloe donnie. The plant has a much nicer shape and good texture to the leaves, a trade mark of KG hybrids.  Both would enhance the aloe midnight child. 

In the US KG plants are protected by plant patents so can not be used for commercial propagation unless under license. The patent is not binding in the UK although the importers have to have a licence and my plant came from a licensed supplier. As this experiment is purely for my personal collection there wouldn't be a problem even is I was in the US.

With the parents selected, I had a couple of other aloes in flower at the same time and I cut those stems off to ensure there was no random pollination. Then using a tiny paintbrush transferred pollen from the a. donnie to the a. midnight child. 

After a week there are 4 seed pods forming and it shouldn't be too long until they open and I get to see if they contain any seed. Even if there is, there is no guarantee it is viable. So it will be a waiting game for germination and finally keeping my fingers crossed that I don't kill all the seedlings. All of this in the hope that one of the resulting plants will be something different.

Growing from seeds: why do I keep trying?

I have mentioned before that one thing I have never been good at is growing plants from seed. Succulents should be easy, simply scatter the seeds onto compost, cover lightly and then place in a plastic bag in a warm place. Depending on the variety you will get seedlings appearing after as little as a week.  Leave for another week, remove from the bag and place in a propagator so you can reduce the damp over a few days.  Water carefully until they are on their 2nd or 3rd leaf and split into pots.

Simple, or so it should be.  I can get to the seedling stage without problems and then it all goes wrong. I always seem to end up with 5 or 6 that survive, no matter how many I plant. A sensible person would have stopped by now but for some reason every year I continue to torment myself with a few sets of seeds.  This year it was aloe polyphylla (I'll cover that in a different post), echeveria agavoides 'ebony' and a hybrid echeveria subrigida x peacockii.

Echeveria agavoides 'ebony' was a bit of an experiment.  I have shown this picture before of a plant at a national show, it shows the darker tips to the leave this form is named for.  I am interested to see if the seeds will come true and the plants will have the dark tips, or if they will have the usual red tips.

You wont be surprised to know that out of the 100 seeds I have 5 left.  They are still small but some are already starting to show the very dark tips (you need to look very closely to notice).  Time will tell if they will stay like this.

The second set sounded like it could produce something interesting. Echeveria subrigida is one of the best echeverias and if kept pristine is a beautiful specimen plant.  Echeveria peacockii is one of the pale blue / white varieties.  Again 5 or 6 seedlings have reached the stage when I stop worrying about them, and at least one is looking very pale.

For me it is partly the search for that unusual plant I hope for; the almost white, or dark tips, or even better variegated plant. It seems there will always be an excuse to torment myself. Who knows one day I may actually crack the seedling stage.

Another first: Dykia marnier-lapostollei

Dyckias are an unusual group of plants, most with lethal rows of teeth along the leaf margins.  I have had dyckia 'morris hobbs' for a few years now and I get more cuts from this one plant than almost all my others put together. A garden full of these really would be a dangerous place!  For me the true stars of the are the silver varieties. Unlike the agaves and echeverias, the silver colour is not due to a powder that washes off, so the plants can be handled without spoiling the look. Which is lucky given the number of grubby fingers that seem unable to resist reaching out to touch them. Probably the best (at least of the available plants) is dyckia marnier-lapostollei, a beautiful silver star. Sadly there is a large demand for the few plants available in the UK and they tend to go for stupid money. It took me a couple of years to finally get one, I was kindly given it as an un-rooted offset last year and have been nurturing it ever since.  This was it at the start of the summer:

This year it has grown at a good rate and is now showing the traits that make this plant stand out form the crowd.

I would have been happy with just the amount of growth from this year.  I kept it in the shed in full sun, and it obviously appreciated the extra warmth. We can do that in the UK as our temperatures are not too hot  and the sun is not as strong.  It is suppose to burn in stronger sun, something to watch out for. This one has done so well it has produced its first offset. These come out from between the leaves,  so can not be removed without taking the plant out of the pot.  I don't want to risk this one so I will leave it on until at least spring, something I am finally getting better at doing.

It is amazing to think that these beautiful plants are a totally natural species, it would be amazing to see them in their natural habit in Brazil.  But for now, this one in London will continue to be pampered, at least for another year.

New offsets: variegated aloe spaonaria

Todays plant is my variegated aloe saponaria, another of my favourites and first time off-setters. The mum has been getting better every year and is a beautiful lopsided plant.

The non-variegated plant is considered one of the more hardy aloes and pups nicely.  I have not been brave enough to test the variegated version, but who knows with spares I may be tempted. It would be nice if they would at least survive in an unheated greenhouse, as it is getting a bit big to bring in.  

The pups on this one were not really a surprise as the shoots were there when I re-potted it earlier in the year.  The only question was going to be the level of variegation as it should reflect the side of the plant they come off.  Typically the first one to appear is off the all white side, so like the last post, this one may not be able to survive on its own.  There is hope though as the pup seems more yellow and I am hoping that as new leaves develop they will have a little more green.

Time will tell and if it doesn't develop more green, then there is plan B, as there are at least 3 more coming off different sides. At least one of them must have the level of variegation I am after.  It's good to have a back up plan!

It's pupping season: agave kissho kan

It is that time of year again, looking around the pots at the end of the summer, checking for problems and looking for signs of new offsets.  While I know summer is almost over, finding new pups is one of the highlights of the year and helps to extend that summer feeling for as long as possible.  For some plants this is a regular occurance, for others it is a first and these are extra special.  Instead of tryign to cram them all into one post, I thought I would show them one by one, giving each plant an chance to star.

Today it is agave potatorum 'kissho kan'  a plant I have raved about before.  This year both the variegated and normal plant have produced offsets for the first time. The pups on the normal form are not that interesting to look at, but the mum is quite something.  I mentioned in the last post how quickly they grow and this summer has been no exception, despite the lack of any real warmth.  

Now the variegated form is a different matter.  The rate of growth is the same, but its first pup has decided to turn up totally white. As variegation is the absence of chlorophyl the more variegated the plant the slower the growth.  Plants without any green at all can not feed themselves and so have to stay connected to the mother and even then I have heard they hardly ever survive for long. Sometimes the pup will be yellow, which means it has a chance, but a totally white one is probably not going to last long. So seeing this is mixed feelings.

It's only chnace is if I leave it, but the longer it grows the slower the mum will be.  It will also spoil the symetrical look of the pot, which is one of the good things about these plants.  On the other hand if it survived for a little while, enough time to take on the form of the adult plant, an all white plant would be something to see.

Given it is coming up to winter, thankfully there is no rush to decide.  It may all work itself out by spring and so until then I will just enjoy the plant maybe giving it the name agave potatorum 'kissho kan ghost'.

Is there such a thing as too low maintenance?

It is often mentioned how succulent gardens are low maintenance and there is no doubt that this can be true.  With my dry bed the sole work is cutting off flower stalks and picking up leaves that blow in from other gardens. That's it; no pruning,  no digging in organic material, weeding, watering or any of the other stuff you normally associate with gardening.  In fact I sometimes wonder if it has gone too far in its lack of requirements; I am obsolete, it can survive and look good if I am there or not. 

Is this a case of  "be careful what you wish for" ? After all I always wanted a garden that looked good all year but didn't need much care, allowing me to just sit back and enjoy it. I thought this was the ideal garden, no real work,  just lots of enjoying. So I got what I wanted. As many of you will know, the real joy of gardens is not just sitting in them but getting your hands dirty, getting in among the plants. So what to do in a garden that needs no care? I ensure my plants look their best, removing ANY dead leaves, make sure the gravel is all tidy, check for bugs and basically anything else that keeps me in among the plants.  Sadly that doesn't keep me busy for long so I resort to my pots which ultimately ends up in propagating more plants.

One echeveria that kept me busy for a little bit today was e. carnicolor.  I posted this picture of it earlier in the year.

The flowers have finished and I hadn't bothered removing them. They have taken on a life of their own and the plants are a mess. 

I have mentioned before that if you leave echeveria flower stalks then new plants will form and this one has taken it too the extreme.

So cleaned the plants up and re-potted them, strangely into a smaller pot as they had too much space. They looked much better afterwards and can be put out in public again.

In a month or so the young plants will have filled out to nicely to fill the pot and no doubt it will be even more of a medusa when it flowers next year. I couldn't resist tidying up a few of the flower stalks:

Most of these will be given away, but I am wondering if I can't do something with one of the stems. Maybe another one to try to bonsai, it's a good colour, has a good structure (it you don't let it run wild) so may look good as a miniature.

So while the dry bed may be no maintenance at least the pots give me something to do.