Looking through old phots

We have bee looking for a photo to use on something, so looking through some of the old photos. So a quick set of eye candy for you.

 I have cut down the number of cacti in pots, but there was no doubt the flowers were spectacular

The other succulents don't let them have it all their own way and have a different type of beautful flower

The planter issues continue

The new bed is proving problematic, if it's not problems finding the plants, it's the central raised planter.  The idea was to build a poured concrete circular planter for the olive. It seemed simple, the plans put into action, but became obvious very quickly that it wasn't going to work.

Next up 60m of rope.

We had already made a circular raised bed out of several layers of bamboo barrier so it was more about the looks than strength.  The top was going to be the most important bit, and to ensure it was level we started from there.

Once the top row was all glued and set it was a much simpler case of wrapping the rope around and ensuring it was firmly up against the row above.

All done, and is fine, but I'm not sure. It needs to weather in, and for the plating around it before we can say for sure if it is going to work.

What do you think?

In the mean time, the plants are starting to go in. There have been a few purchases, an agave Blue Brian and a yucca rostata from Urban Jungle.  They turned up perfectly packed with no damage which is always a good start.  The agave is lovely, and I'm torn if it should be planted or not.  I'll do a post once I decide. Having got a fair few of my hardy agaves from them there is no doubt that Urban Jungle are one of the best the places to go in the UK for hardy agaves, and they have just added a larger selection of Cacti as well. Plus they have a great cafe, which I understand on colder days has not just blankets but hot water bottles.

One of the plants going in the planter is trailing / creeping rosemary, one of my local nurseries, the Palm Centre, had some in stock so I went down to get a couple.  Bad idea. visiting any tropical nursery means a look around their succulents.  In their yucca rostrata section was a double header, in the smaller / affordable size!  I looked at the price expecting it to be more expensive, but no. The same price as the single headed plants.

So now I'm the proud owner of a double headed yucca rostrata. It could be two separate plants, washing off all the soil would give the answer, but then I may be tempted to split them. So better to just keep it as a double.

At this rate I'm going to have to be supervised when I visit nurseries!