First shopping trip of the year

With a longer stretch of warmer weather, it finally feels like we may have seen the end of winter.  I have been waking the plants up, and continuing the pot re-shuffle; those in the green house get moved outside and those in the house moved into the green house.

The only thing missing was a plant related trip. On Sunday that was corrected with a trip to one the rare plant fairs. The fairs are never great for succulents, you need the cactus marts for those, but there is usually something there that I can see working in a dry bed. This time I also had the luxury of knowing the new garden will have more to it than just a dry bed. 

I was very good and only got a few plants, first up was ipheion alberto castillo. I am planning several gravel areas through the garden and want to ensure there are flowering plants to bring colour at this time of year.

The second plant from the fair was another eremurus. The one I had planted in the dry bed has done really well, so I was looking for others. The thing about plant fairs is there is often only a few of each plant available, so I was sad when someone literally picked up two pots just as I was reaching over for them.  At least there was another variety this time eremurus robustus, as soon as I saw the size of the initial growth I had to buy it.

Speaking to the stall holder they confirmed the trick is to plant them in well drained soil and ensure they are not crowded by other plants. I guess this explains why they did well in my dry bed and other people have struggled with them.

I'll have to do another post on the other two plants from the fair, as I haven't got photos yet. Moving on, getting to the fair meant driving past Wisley, which just happens to have a great nursery. Their alpine collections have been really good lately, so I thought I would just pop in for a quick look.  straight away they had some trough planters and so one of those went in the trolley, which then required a few plants to put in it.

I'm not sure about the dwarf iris, but there are plenty of places it can go if it doesn't work.  Plus a few spares to take its place.

How restrained was that for the first day of shopping.  I doubt it will continue though as this weekend is the first cactus mart of the year!

Spring clean up

While the garden is being designed all the plants are still in pots and so at this time of year it is about checking what has done well, what needs attention and what needs binning.

It is a sad reality of keeping succulents in cold climates that often more damage appears when things start to warm up. Just when you think most plants survived and you only lost a few, suddenly more start to go downhill.

I have been fairly lucky this year with only a couple of loses: the cristate aeonium, and my large aeonium nobile being the only two I actually care about. Recently one of the echeveria agavoides 'Ebony' suddenly took a turn for the worse and I have had to remove the majority of the leaves. Hopefully it will recover, it would be a shame to loose it as the bowl of different e. agavoides forms was looking good at the end of last summer. I was looking forward to them filling the bowl by the end of this year.

Everything else currently looks healthy and apart from removing a few dead leaves and some re-potting, they need very little work.  The lovely weather over the weekend gave me a chance to get things going in the greenhouse and it was even warm enough to place a few plants outside to start hardening them off.  I am determined this will be the year I avoid all scorch on my plants, the software leaved succulents are particularly prone. Each day the plants will be place outside for a bit longer, until they can cope with a full day in the sun.

The cacti are mainly proving to be tough little things, all the main plants suffered no damage at all this year, and it seems that keeping them dry is all I need to do, which is very pleasing. I did loose a couple in one of the bowls but I have enough other plants to re-plant it and they were selected more for the look than any promise of being hardy.

Next was getting started on potting on a few plants. The larger "bowl" pots are becoming more available now, I have been making the most of them to do a few groups of plants. This one contains a group of echeverias that have been sitting around for a while. Time to give them a bit more space and see what happens.

Does anyone else notice that for no apparent reason certain plants do much better than others? I guess it works the other way as well and we have certain plants that just don't grow.  Echeveria agavoides usually does well for me. I have a few different forms now and they seem to get proportionally bigger than other echeverias; probably something to do with the fact they get left alone to get on with it.  One of my e. agavoides 'Ebony' is now the biggest of all the forms and I had to move it into an even larger bowl.  It is a bit pale at the moment after the winter, but a few weeks of heat and sun will improve the darkness on the leaf margins.

It is great to get started potting up again, there isn't going to be the time to pot everything this year, but any free time is going to be spent outside getting everything back into shape after last years neglect. The greenhouse and cold frame are both giving the plants a bit of extra heat to kick start them into growth, something that is much needed in our cold spring.

This never happened when I just had pots to look after

I wonder if breaking your first spade or fork is some sort of right of passage for proper gardeners.

The aim was to clear one of the flower beds expecting it to be a relatively easy job. It appeared to be full of small bulbs and perennials, that is until the first stump appeared 5 minutes into the project. It seems the previous owner had the entire bed cleared of small trees or large shrubs and instead of digging the roots up, they just cut the trunks off at soil level. So far the total stands at 6 in the cleared stretch.  Instead of being a quick job, it has taken a couple of day and it's not finished yet.

There are three stumps still to go but those may need to wait until we have recovered from actually having to do some proper digging.  The cleared area, which gets sun from 9am - 6pm , is going to be this years temporary succulent terrace. It will free up space while we have some building work done after which I can build the permanent beds.

Right now my muscles are telling me it was a lot easier when I had a small garden!

A very strange winter

Many people will wonder why the UK has so many problems given it has mild winters and limited rain fall. In pure numbers this is true; I expect only one or two lows of -8c a year, maybe 2 - 4 days with snow on the ground, and in terms of rainfall London only gets on average around 600mm a year. Compare this to many parts of the USA and you would think London wouldn't have problems.

Last summer and this winter have highlighted exactly what sets the UK apart; our weather does not stick to seasonal patterns as would be expected.  Most of the world have a colder "winter" a warmer "summer" and period of change between.  It is with great envy that I read blogs from the USA in which it is "declared that summer is here" and that is it, the next few months are filled with posts about sun, and heat.  While we do not get extreme cold, or extreme wet, we get more constant cold and wet than other places.  We don't get massive thunderstorms, but days or weeks of light rain. The hottest month of the year can almost be any month between March - September.  Last year was an extreme example, we had a drought from January - May and then floods for the rest of the summer. I understand it is the joy of being a small island.

For me, the lack of an extended period of heat over summer not only reduces growth but also means the plants are less able to cope with winter cold. It can also make this time of year more than a little depressing with week after week of cold and damp (not proper rain). In some respects we have had a very mild winter in London, no real cold and only one period of snow which did not stay around for long.  But then it has also not warmed up as it should do and March has been one of the coldest on record.  So it is a real treat to have had two whole days with no rain and even periods of sun.  Today was the first day of the year it has been warm enough to spend any real time in the garden and so I made the most of it.

Having dug up the dry bed I was concerned that the plants would suffer in pots.  Along with the agaves and yuccas a few of the other plants were removed, including this eremurus stenophyllus. So I was please to find not only new shoots, but more than previous years. It does not seem to mind being in the pot.

So with some sun, and new shoots I could almost believe that we may finally be moving out of winter. Now if only we could move quickly into a nice warm summer.

It had to happen in the end

It was May last year that I posted my last entry on the cristate aeonium (here), not sure if anyone remembers how big it had got for that very narrow stem. That stem has always looked a bit fragile.

As usual it wasn't given great winter protection and I forgot the golden rule of keeping plants on their edge of their hardiness. That is know how they react to frosts. Some wilt then firm up, some show no initial damage and then rot, other turn to mush overnight.  With aeoniums the stem wilts. If the wilt was not been too bad, the plant recovers when it warms up.

You can guess where this is going.

Checking the plants after the last cold period I was greeted by this:

You can see how the stems have rotted where they wilted due to the frosts. I had to cut the main head off to get this photo.  Out came the scissors and exploring; some stems were firm others were rotted all the way up to the leaves.  I probably caught it just in time and had to apply a liberal dose of anti mould treatment to try and stem the rot.  The majority of the plant had to be binned, but a couple of the heads were hopefully saved.

I should be able to re-root this and start from a wider base. Who knows what this one will turn out to look like. Maybe next year I'll remember to give it proper protection. I am beginning to see how much extra warmth my old shed provided to these very marginal plants. 

A desert in the UK?

I know it surprised me to, especially given the wettest summer on record last year with what seemed to be half the country under water. But it is true, the UK does have one official desert. Given my taste in plants it was always going to be somewhere I had to visit and got the opportunity this weekend. The drive down was WET and so there was no chance to explore on the first day. The second day however was drier and so we took a long walk along the beach to Rye, where we had a lovely lunch and walk around.  I loved this sign it was very well done.

On the walk back the tide had gone out, when it does there is some walk to get to the sea!

The place we were staying had planted a little dry bed, I think they need a bit of help:

The poor agaves did not look good:

There was only one that showed any real signs it may survive:

I am guessing they made a very simple mistake of planting directly into soil and not giving any rain shelter over this very wet winter. They could have spent a bit more on landscaping!

Anyway on the last day it we visited the desert. It is just along the coast from Rye at Dungeness and has another claim to fame with its 3 power stations.  Apparently it got the desert status due to its lack of water: despite having sea on one side and man made lakes on the other.  The last part to the drive is strangely beautiful, you have lakes surrounded an arid landscape, on the horizon lots of electricity pylons and the power stations. Then you get to the coastal road

This is the desert and it is covered in skeletons of old boats and buildings

The buildings were almost all painted black and shared the same design.  Each garden seemed to have its own boat in various stages of dis-repair. Sadly the weather had returned and it was bitterly cold, windy and snowing, so the idea of getting out of the car to wonder off to explore was ruled out by my OH who didn't seem as enamoured of the place as me. Mind you I am not sure I blame her, there are certain things that I believe: you must have a snowball fight whenever snow settles, an uncle/aunts sole job is to buy presents parents would not approve of, and deserts should be hot!

We did get out to look at the light houses though, the old one is up by one of the power stations. It seems a long way form the sea, but at least they would never run out of power. 

The new one sits in the middle of the desert, which is another strange concept.

It really is a fascinating place and one I would like to re-visit on a much warmer day!

Doesn't time fly

Agave "Snow Glow"

Where did it all go, it seemed like only yesterday I thought I would take a week off and now it is March!  I wish I could say that I have have been so busy with the garden that I haven't had time to post, but I simply lost interest in the garden and the internet.  Reduced interest in plants over the winter is fairly normal, but this is the first time for total dis-interest and to not even want to turn on a computer either.

Agave "Sun Glow"

With signs of spring over the last few weeks, hibernation is finally ending; the computer is back on and plants are being moved into new parts of the house to wake them up.  I'll have to catch up on how the plants have done, a trip to the UK's only desert and a few other things over the next week.

In the mean time here are a couple of plants and one set that I have been watching grow: the agave "blue glow" group, the normal form, the white leaf variegate "snow glow" and the yellow leaf variegate "sun glow".  I have to say for me, like the weather at the moment is is all snow. You can see the difference in growth for my two plant, given that they were the same size when they arrived.

Right lots of catching up to do. Hopefully that is it for my hibernation this winter.