I may have over done the propagating

So the last post showed the set of echeveria comptons carousel. Those are not the only plants I've been propagating.  In fact there is one shelf in the greenhouse that looked amazing

It was probably a bit of an ebayers dream, on the right we have the e. compton carousel, on the left agave filifera marginata. Probably not as commercial are the middle rows of mangaves.  These are the manfreda virginica x agave obscura produced by a friend and the one that flowered last year. Given that Paul died shortly after producing them and didn't give out many, that is probably 30 - 40% of all the ones in existance. The seedlings are coming along and are just hidden behind the larger agave filifera marginatas.  There are definitely at least two distinct types forming, so once they have grown a bit more I'll have to update the post on them. Then in the back are the manfreda gutatta bulbils.

The agave filiferas came from my large bowl. It had been left alone for two years and had got a bit out of control.
 

The main problem was the weeds growing up between the plants. It was getting too painful pulling them out, so time for a quick repot.

I have kept three interesting ones, the largest, a good medium sized and a very pale one. They should look great as a set once the smallest one has filled out a bit. I decide to keep them separate as the large one has turned in to such a feature plant it deserves to be displayed a bit more prominently.

The sad thing is, on the other side of the greenhouse there are another two shelves full of gasteraloes, aloe vipers and more mangaves.  I think it is fair to say i have a porpagation problem. This was not all for nothing, I have realised I don't like selling plants on Ebay as it is a hastle, so instead prefer to sell / trade on mass. So during my trip to Norfolk I unloaded most of these. So now I have lots os space again.

Anual trip to Crete Lodge exotic garden

So yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Crete lodge exotic garden again.  Melissa and Keith have continued their tireless work in the garden and it was looking better than ever.  Sadly the memory card in my camera seems to have got scrambled, so I lost a lot of the photos, but some had been downloaded first.

The sunken garden is a good place to start as there is always something in flower.

Look at the size of that agave ovtifolia. Sadly it is starting to suggest it may flower, the same for the agave weberi and with the horrida in the first photo already flowering that would be three flowers in that section of the garden alone!

Ther are so many sections to the garden and that is before you even get to the cactus house and other greenhouses.  The biggest section is the main succulent bank and the new sections the other side of the path.  Looking down from the sunken garden you get the first glimpse over the green roof.

Melissa is particularly proud of the new pot.

The bank has some of the largest agave montanas scattered across it.

A bit further down and you come one of the newer parts of the garden.

I love the combination of the succulents with the traditional UK gravel garden plants.

Every angle gives you a different set of plants

The bank carries on around to a section full of yuccas and palms, these photos didn't make it, so back up to the terrace, via a lovely little olive bed. Keith does all the main structural brick work and then Melissa does the decorative fronts.  The whole garden is covered in these lovely little sections meaning no planting opportunities are missed.

The terrace has some feature agaves as well.  The larger one maybe about to flower but this time I had lost count of the number.

Annoying all the other photos were lost.  So I'll juts have to go back another time and re-take them. Those on facebook can go to their page, found here. It is always an inspiration to visit and obviously I always leave with a plant or two, even if I'm not allowed to liberate everthing I would like.

I'll leave you with one last photo looking down the main succulent section, it is hard to believe this is the UK.

Starting again

The pot that gets the most comments, especially on here, is the large bowl of echeveria comptons carousel. It probably stood out as these are suppose to be difficult, so a bowl full is quite rare.

The mild winter meant they got a bit tatty, so I decided to start again and cut the whole thing up.  The plants are at a good stage now, so I thought I would show how to go about dead heading these in the hope that others find it useful. Having cut the heads off, they get cleaned up, all dead leaves removed and checked for any issues. Then place them on a wire shelf to dry. I tend to leave these for a couple of weeks, this not only gives them time to callus over but also for roots to start.

At this point they are ready to be planted up. No water for the first few days and then grandually over the next couple of weeks you can water a little bit more each time.  This seems to be a good rule for them in general (after re-potting, after purchasing) - start slowly with the watering.

Don't worry if you lose a few leaves, especially if you get a sudden hot spell at this stage. You will probably find a few leaves mark, but they will grow out and within a couple of months you won't notice. After a couple of weeks if you try to gently move the rosette it should hold firm showing the roots have taken and the plant is good to go.

Not sure what I am going to do with 10 pots full of these. Over the next couple of years they will each form clumps and I would guess two repots will be all that's required to get one back into the large bowl again. I guess I have some good trading material for this summer.

Some things are meant to be

A couple of year ago I experimented with hypertufa, making a couple of test pots.  They were nothing special at the time, but slowly moss started to grow on them and they have turned into much more natural pots.  I have been looking for something to go in them and was surprised to find a little agave filifera at the local garden center.  They are just made for each other.

The agave has a certain compacta look to it, which would be great.  Sadly it is probably just a young plant, so will need some sort of intervention to keep it small. Either way for the next couple of years it is going to be put somewhere to be admired.

Echeveria laui flower

I have said it before, there are few echeverias that have the drama of echeveria laui in flower.

It's echeveria season

The garden and pots are are full of flower spikes at the moment. The best are in the echeveria elegans river, which looks amazing at this time of year.

In the evening they are backlit which adds to the drama.  The bumble bees love them

The concrete egg is full of echeveria cuspidata var zaragoza, which is one of my favourites. Sadly it isn't hardy for my garden so has to be moved inside over winter.

The flowers are are a nicer colour than the very pale elegans.

While out enjoying the evening sun, I thought I might as well plant up the aloe aristatas. I have been trying to get some to survive for the last few years and they seem fine in the main rockery. They have got to a decent size now and have properly started to spred

I have been growing on a pot to plant at the fron of the cycad rockery. The hope is they will contrast well with the echeverias.

Exciting mangave update

So last year was a good mangave and manfreda year, with flowers on two manfredas, more on that in another post, and the mangave flowering.  So a quick recap: the mangave was produce by a friend and is hybrid between manfreda virginica and agave obscura

The pollen was provided by friends over at Crete Lodge exotic garden. They seem to have agaves in flower every year now, this time there were two agaves flowering at the same time. An agave mitis and one labelled as agave horrida, although they suspect it is not.

Photo courtesy of Melissa at Crete Lodge

Isn't that wall amazing, such a shame that the agave left such a big gap.

So the last time I posted progress on the flower spike there were seed pods. It seemed to take forever but finally these opened and amazingly there were seeds. These where sown and placed in a heated prop.  To be honest I was not that confident anything would germinate.

I was wrong, one month later and there were around 40 seedlings.

The problem was that in my eagerness, winter was the wrong time to sow them. They needed to be kept alive until spring and I'm terrible with seedlings: too much water, too little water. So I'm really surprised that 4 months later 19 are still alive. I'll take 50% surviving any day.

I know not very interesting to look at yet. It is only in the last few weeks they have really started to grow, most are now sending out their 2nd proper leaf. How good would it be to have a few new mangaves of my own making. I really hope that some of the horrida (or not) parentage comes through. I do like my toothie plants.

The funny thing is, with the two different pollen donars I would guess I am now the largest mangave producer in the UK.