New year and a new project

I'm back from my winter hybination of not thinking about plants or computers. Today was such a lovely day, I thought it was perfect for my first post of the year.

March is my least favourite month; just when you think winter is over and your plants have made it through, the last grips of cold and wet mean things take a turn for the worse.  I am keeping a close eye on the forcasts to watch out for any real cold or long periods of wet, but until then the garden has been uncovered.

Forgive the mess on the terrace, more on that later.  The plants don't look at all bad, one agave filifera is going to need a big hair cut, and the agave nigras look a little worse for ware but that's it.  The agave nigras are starting to annoy me,  they were fine at the last house, but here just have to be cut back each year and are just starting to look good when we get to next winter.  May be time for a re-think on them.

The main group of agaves looks great with no damage.

I am especially pleased that agave parryi hk1684 is looking so good.

The aloe saponaria variegates seem untroubled by this winter.  We had two weeks of cold, but it was very dry and sunny at the same time, this obviously helped.

I may have to split them this year, keeping the best and moving the less interesting ones.

The only damage was to the echeveria agavoides red edge, and a few of the elegans in the echeveria river.

I took all the dead leaves off, and will see what happens this year.  They just don't seem to have much wet tolerance, the ones under a cloch were fine and totally undamaged. Such a shame as they are great plants when large and I was really hoping to have a row of big plants.

Anyway the big news as mentioned earlier is the new project.  Up until 3 weeks ago the view from the terrace was of this:

The garage, which apart from being ugly and too large, restricted access to a section of garden behind it, so time for the next stage in the garden plan.

Remove the old garage and the concrete pad to give an extra 3m of garden, and build a new smaller workshop behind.

It is great to have 3m more garden to play with, plus a little bit to the side of the new workshop.  Hopefully this will allow the final stages of the original garden design to fall into place.  No longer will the path end half way down the garden, or the olive have to sit in its pot waiting for a spot to be planted.

The most exciting part is the roof.

The idea is for a green roof, some hybrid between a traditional sedum matt and a more lush grass roof. Now I just need to figure out what I want and how much to allow space for growth or go for  instant impact.  Either way there will be regular updates as my plans progress.

Sadly the less interesting bits have to be sorted first, it will be a mud bath down there if the paths aren't put in. It makes sense to do the landscaping first and save the roof until all that is finished.  It will give me something to look forward to.

It's going to be a busy year.

Time for the tough choices.

You can relax, this is not another episode of "Live or Die" but instead an update on the last problem areas in the rockery.  I have been looking at this yucca purpurea since spring. It has been leaning more and more since being plants.

It now almost perfectly mirrors the yucca rostrata and  with winter around the corner it was decision time. I thought about moving it, replanting it there and cutting the main plant off.  In the end I went with the final option and top cut it.

Doesn't look as good at the moment, but they seem to grow quickly for me,  so in a year or so the two pups will be nice and big.  The main trunk will be dried for a few days then potted up.

We have had such mild winters since these have been planted they haven't really been tested.  The top should root quickly and then can be planted somewhere to go wild. Has anyone seen a really big clump of these?

Anyway the real benefit of cutting the main stem is that I can now use a simple cloche to cover that corner this winter.

It hasn't been covered before, but the aloe polyphylla is just too nice now and I should be able to rig the cloche into an L shape so it covers the aloe, the yuccas and the agave parryi.  I'll probably set it up as a test and then take it down until we have cold or snow forecast, hopefully not for a long time yet.

Time for an agave update

It has been a while since there has been a post on the agaves planted in the main rockery, especially after all the damage back in Spring 2015. It is obvious some have grown but not so in others.

Starting with the agave filiferas, the normal form I would guess has grown, it looks much bigger now, so the March 2014:

And August 2016

Probably only a little bigger, but a lot fuller.

The form with no white markings: March 2015

August 2016

Not sure I can tell the difference in that one at all.  It definitely seems to be slower than the standard form and not sure that the lack of white markings on the leaves really add anything.

The largest agave montana: June 2014

August 2016

The middle sized one has been moved to the front garden, so onto the smallest agave montana: March 2014

August 2016:

These have grown a lot, a shame the angle is different. Not really a surprise as they love being in the ground. They seem to be one of the agaves that stops growing for me when it gets warm (yes even in the UK).

Next up probably my favourite form of parryi, agave parryi HK1684. March 2014

 Then August 2016

Another one that has really grown, although not so obvious from the photo.  I'm not a big fan of the narrow leaf forms, and this one not only has wide leaves, but the spines are a really good colour.  It is now a proper artichoke shape.

The agave ovatifolia has been one of the quickest growers. There is no doubt that this is one of the best agaves for the UK, even from a small size it seems to have a lot of cold and wet tolerance. March 2014.

It had to be moved at the start of this summer, which has set it back a bit, but still impressive growth.

A second much larger plant has been added elsewhere in the rockery as well.

There are a few other other agaves in there as well, I don't seem to have multiple photos for these.

Agave bracteosa

Agave parasana

 

Agave xNigra

Finally the scary one, no photos needed to tell if this has grown, but as I have them here is teh agave salmiana var ferox in 2015:

and then in August 2016

What is more worrying is the new pup, This was not there last year, so that is one years growth and it is already over 30cm across and almost as big as the the agave gentryi which has been in the ground since  2014.

Having been to a garden a few days ago with one of these, I have seen what they can become.  More on that once I have checked the owner is happy for me to write a post on his garden.

I think come spring next year the pup will be dug up and moved to take over somewhere else!

Sorting out more of the trouble areas

It's amazing that in mid July only now is there a break in the rain.  For once the weekend was dry and getting warmer, so out in the garden and time to take on a couple of the projects.

First up the trio of agave montanas.

A very wet tolerant agave they have thrived in the main rockery and are starting to grow into each other.  Not sure what the thought process was here, maybe just that there were three plants that needed to be planted.  In a couple of years, these will be a tangle of spikes. So the decision was made to remove the middle one and allow space for the others to grow.

It will take a bit of getting used to, and the euphorbia is now going to have to go, but it will fill out which is the idea. The central plant has gone in the front garden where it has lots of space.

One down and so far relatively unscathed.

Next up the problem of the rapidly growing agave ovatifolia and the aloe polyphylla.

The aloe has grown so much is is starting to push the rock over. The agave is being overgrown by the ice plant and is growing into the aloe.  It is also such a good blue, it needs to go somewhere more visible.

It came out surprisingly easily, one of the advantages of pure gravel.  There were a few discussions about the best new home; lots of trial positioning and thinking what else may have to be moved in the future.  In the end we opted for the bend in rockery, just below the smallest agave montana.

There is plenty of space for it to grow and the echeverias can be moved at any point should it be needed.  The aloe polyphilla now has lots of space and the rock has been moved back as well.

Now we just need the warm weather to continue so we can get out and enjoy it.

A bit of colour

Just to keep posts going, the main rockery is starting to look more colourful.

Maybe lucky I didn't paint that wall purple, would have clashed!

Update on the Sedeveria letizia

I have posted about this little plants a few times before, mainly here.  At this time of year is has not only turned a good red colour but is starting to flower. For the last couple of years there has been one planted in the main rockery as a bit of a test.

It is looking really good.  A few rotted leaves, but all the heads are good.  The flowers are a little behind the main potted pant which has been in the greenhouse. Given our cold spring that is no surprise.  The colour is though, I thought this was purely down to lack of water, but obviously it is general stress.

As for the main plant.

I gave it a little too much water and the red has faded as it's now happy. Time will tell if it survives being cut up for another year.  It does however need to be re-potted. I had hoped to find a really nice hand made pot by now, but will re-pot it into one of the normal pots for the time being.

The purple background is a bit of a test. Remember in a previous post, mention of painting the patio wall. This is one of the colours being considered. Bright, but really sets the plants off. Sadly the OH is not so keen. She is however out during the day this Saturday.

How can you hate cherry blossom?

Next doors cherry tree has been mentioned several time since we moved. My family do not understand why it is such a problem; it only blocks the sun for the first hour or two of the day and then it flowers. Surely that is a good thing.

Well I give you exhibit 1:

Not convinced yet?

Exhibit 2:

Exhibit 3:

Do you get the picture? Not my lovely tidy, spotless rockery.

It is much worse than previous year, normally I manage to wait until the blossom is all down and then go around and clean up. This year I was a bit worried about the amount of rain and problems with the fungus returning.

So what do you do?  Get the vacuum cleaner out of course. I am not sure who was more surprised my OH or the little girl next door who asked why I was vacuuming the plants.

It's not perfect but at least the worst is out of the centre of the main plants.

Thankfully it's now almost over, a couple more days and all the blossom will be off the tree and I can do a final clean up. At that point I remove as much as possible off the gravel and hope the rest degrades quickly.

Next year I will have to net the area for a couple of weeks.

I am not looking forward to cleaning this one up!

In the mean time I am hoping the people here will be more understanding of why I dislike (insert much stronger words) this tree.

No space is wasted.

One of the things I love about plants in the rockeries is the way they grow to fill any available space.  Given space they just offset until they are overflowing.

The echeveria elegans stream turned into a raging torrent.

Echeverias seem to do that, not knowing when the space is full, bursting out of the available space.

The alpines are more subtle, a stealth attack.

Once they have a foot hold, tumbling over to continue their take over.

Others sneaking along in a slow advance, sending out the next line of troops to get another foot hold.

The agaves just occupy the space.

Whatever the tactics, these cramped spaces have produced some of my favourite plants in the rockery.