Watering by tropical storm

One of the things that makes the UK so strange climate wise is the influence of the jet stream. One of the aspects of this is that tropical storms move from across the Atlantic often end up here. This weekend it was the turn of hurricane Bertha. By the time it reached the UK it was no longer classified as a hurricane but still managed 50mph winds and lots of rain.  This was the first real rain we have had in weeks, so was welcome especially as the keen eyed among you will have noticed that the turf is down on the lawn, changing it from this:

To this:

I know lawns are not to every-ones liking, but for the time being this fills the space and gives the dog something to play on. Then in the future as the garden develops and the garage is pulled down it can slowly be reviewed with the final design.

The planting up has continued with some more sensible plants than the variegated aloe saponaria from the last post (found here). In the end the agave parrasana minor did go in and will just be covered with rain cover over winter.

The echeveria roseas have been removed as they really didn't work, more on that in another post. In their place goes agave ovatifolia.

It is going to be interesting how his one does. There are very few planted out in he UK, mainly because larger plants have not been available.  It should be fine, but the interesting bit is going to be how much damage it suffers or if like a. montana and a. bracteosa it sails though. 

Next up were a couple of echeverias, firstly e. black prince.  This was planted out in the last garden, so is proven to be fine.  The other is a really nice little hybrid sent to me by a lovely echeveria collector who has the most amazing collection.  Echeveria FO48 x echeveria elegans

Not the best photo, it is a small freely clump forming plant with a good white colour.  Apparently it is also proved to be hardy else where.  As it clumps easily, there are spares and this group could go in as a test. It would be amazing if the reports are true and another echeveria can be added to the hardy list.

The first cacti have also been added, there are a couple of planters full that have been left unprotected for the last few years, these seemed obvious contenders for spaces.  This oroya peruviana will stay nice and compact so shouldn't cause problems at the front of the rockery.

Having planted all this up, and done a fair amount of repotting for those staying in pots, everything was left to be watered. It seems appropriate that these plants originating from the other side of the Atlantic, got watered by the remains of a tropical storm.

The cacti are back

Many of my cacti flower early and this year has been particularly good. Last years star shows signs of being even better this year.  I must try and dig out a name for it.

I seem to remember that last year the colour got stronger as they opened. It is also good as the flowers last for almost a week, instead of a day or so.

The next one is a first for me, oroya peruviana, delicate waxy flowers on this one. 

Then the mass of flowers which are the rebutias, this one is rebutia x aylostera

The only problem with rebutias is that while they always flower well, sadly the flowers don't last long, only a day or so, so there is a short period when they look this good.

It is good to be out in the green house again.

A little retail therapy

It was time for my annual trip to Norfolk to visit Keith and Melissa and their wonderful garden and to do a bit of plant shopping.  This is always one of the highlights of the year, a lovely garden to look around and visiting a few cactus and independent nurseries. This year more than ever I needed some plant therapy to get to my mind off not being able to get in the garden.

I'll come back to Melissa's garden in another post. Over the weekend we visited the largest cactus mart of the year, Hyde Hall (one of the RHS gardens) and a couple of local nurseries. First up was the cactus mart and most people agreed that the setting was far from ideal. Everyone tends to tun up ready for opening, the hall wasn't large and so it was a bit of a scrum as everyone tried to get the choice pants.

It was much more enjoyable once the rush had died down and there was space to take you time and enjoy each stand.  Many of the sellers had brought multiples of plants, so kept re-filling the empty spaces, and it was worth returning to each stand to see what had been placed out since your last look.

I was quite restrained and didn't buy everything I liked the look of.  Most of plants were small so it was easy to transport them home. Having said "no more white echeverias", I did cave and bought two.  I can never resist when I see them, despite knowing that they are a pain to keep in top condition and need to be inside to keep their colour.

Ask if you want photos of individual plants.

Next up was a trip to Hyde Hall.  It was the wrong day to visit this garden; it is very open and on a windy day was a little blustery.  Most of the garden was not my style, there were a few areas I liked.

In one section a group of flower spikes caught my eye. On close inspection I found they were eremurus robustus, having seen the size of the leaves on mine, I had wondered if the flowers would be a dramatic. They do not disappoint.

The real area of interest was the gravel garden

I haven't visited many RHS gardens, but they seem to have good nurseries.  For some reason their alpine sections have always been well stocked with some choice plants.

It is always good to find a large number of named sempervivum varieties and added a few to my collection, so I will have to revive sempervivum sundays.

That was it for the Saturday, then on Sunday it was time for the local nurseries.  Having visited the local chain, it was off to Urban Jungle . This is one of my favourite nurseries and it gets better every year.  They started, as the name suggests, with a the majority of plants being aimed at exotic garden styles.  With the bad winters they have evolved and now the exotics are mixed in with choice plants from other styles of gardening.

One of the highlights of visiting is seeing the plants in beds, it is a great way to show how good plants are, or how they may be used in the garden, they also have two great green walls.  This is the original one and it continues to do well. The new indoor one is planted with broms

The main greenhouse is lovely to walk around,

You can stop and look at the koi

And if you want to relax you can get a drink and collapse in one of the seating areas.

Liz who runs it, seems good a picking up on trends in both plants and was of gardening. It was great to see a good selection of pines, both dwarf and larger forms.  I will never understand the resistance to these plants, I guess it's fall out from the laylandii hedges that were so popular in the UK until their true size became obvious.  I think they are perfect in gravel beds planted among succulents and the new garden gives me an ideal opportunity to include some.

Then there are the trends in planting, Kokedama seems to increasingly popular.  Liz has them scattered throughout the nursery

Anyone in the UK interested finding out more about Kokedama, UJ are are holding a demonstration on the 1st of June, details can be found here. There is also an edible jungle, but at this time of year it is just being planted and so not worth photographing.

Obviously the true test of a good nursery is if you leave with any purchases,  which I always do.  This time was slightly different as with a whole garden to fill, it was not the usual spikie plants I was after.

The cinodendron hookerianum (chinese lantern tree) was a suggestion for the shade garden.  I have been looking for plants to espalier and someone suggested it may be something different to try.  I also picked up a couple of different arisaemas, again it was great to see several varieties available.

Here is everything, sorry for the elongated line up, my neighbours little girl loves to come over and help when I am in the garden and she decided the plants had to be lined up to display them.

All said, a very successful weekend of shopping, with something for my obsession and a few things ready for when I can get planting in the garden.

Finally some time in the garden.

With building the extension our lives have been on hold since the start of the year. Everyone told us how hard it would be, but actually up until the start of April it was fine.  Then Spring started properly, the plants woke up, and all I could think about was getting outside to explore. The weather has been amazing this week, and not having a garden to potter in has been really strange.  I hadn't realised how much I use the garden to de-stress and generally mull things over.

So today with no builders around I decided it was time I took back at part of the garden.  Some plants needed to be moved out of the green house, so it seemed like an ideal excuse.  The builders are still occupying the majority of the garden, so it was just about squeezing a bit of space to store some plants.

There were a few offcuts from the patio which allowed the area in-front of the garage to be extended.  This is out of the way and wont interfere with designing and building the garden.

It is a fraction of the pots that need to be out, but is a start.  It also gave me a chance to really look at how they coped with the winter.  The main problem seems to be lack of water, with most of these being in the greenhouse, they got hot and very dried out. I am particularly pleased with how the bowl of echeveria agavoides forms is doing (right hand side of the image.) They have held their colour so well, and should really fill that bowl by the end of this summer.

The echeverias in general have enjoyed the warm start to the year.  The greenhouse is a mass of flowers.

Many of these are in the nursery section, young plants that are now established and will be planted up this year depending on if they have made it to my like list. 

Not to be out-done the cacti are getting into flower as well. This one looks good but every year I remember how disappointing the flowers are. I may need to have a think what to do with it for the future, as currently it isn't standing out in terms of earning a place in the greenhouse.

Compared to this one, which not only looks good, but has more distinctive flowers.  I think it will be planted into a nice pot when I have bit more time and space. It has formed such a lovely clump and so far has no blemishes or marks.

Both of these could learn something on flowers from the next one.  Still looking good after over a week in flower.  

Fingers crossed we have passed the worst on the build and are can not get more of the garden back with each day.  It would be amazing to have the whole thing back for in two weeks, although it would mean I then actually have to do some serious work on designing, building and planting the actual garden.

Selecting paint colours the plant lovers way

It has got to the time in our build when we have to select the colour for the outside of the house.  This is never easy and the temptation is to simply select the same colour as everyone else.  Those that do opt for something different most likely paint samples around the place to help them select.

The builder asked that we limit these to the wall to the patio, as the other render is still drying.  This wall will also not be visible once finished as I am planing to build a succulent bank up against it to make the most of the space.  Sadly he chucked away all the rubble from the build which would have been perfect to build the bank up instead of me having to buy tonnes of materials myself.

Once the paint had dried it was time to test it against the slabs to be used on the patio and paths

At this stage the succulent fan kicked in. There are obviously going to be lots of pots around and I will no doubt use the wall as a back-drop for photographing my plants so I thought it would be sensible to test that as well.

It is no surprise that the colur changes every time you place something else next to it. It is lovely in London at the moment, we are having a very early and sunny spring, so the succulents have got into early growth.  Especially given we had almost no winter at all.  The cacti are starting to flower, this is the first to put out a full flower though.

It is a much stronger colour than last year, which could be something to do with the sun and heat I believe. The echeverias are all starting as well, which is actually a bit of a shame.  Because the builders are still in the garden I couldn't take everything out of their winter storage areas, so they are scattered around under tables, benches and anywhere else I thought they would be protected from the builders.  They need to be brought out into full view so they can be enjoyed. Plus it is getting into that time I need to harden them off before the sun gets too strong. 

Hopefully only 3 weeks or so until I get the garden back.

Wordless Wednesday

Something for the bees

The succulents are putting on quite a show at the moment. In previous years I have focused on the echeverias, but the cacti are the stand out plants at the moment.  It's not that the echeverias are under-performing, the reverse in fact, but the flowers are not really much to shout about.

The cacti on the other hand tend to go a bit over the top on their flowers. The most dramatic so far is the echinocereus melanocentrus I posted last week

While it is the stand out flower it is not the most over the top, this chamaelobivia 'milky whey' is over compensating.

Sadly not all plants have such showy flowers, mammillaria are great plants but you don't grow them for the flowers. This is mammillaria carmenae jewel

Can you spot the flowers?

They still don't stand out, with the white spines. They do come in other colours, mallillaria bombycina.

Thankfully for every dull flower there are more over the tops ones. In terms of flower for your buck, you can do a lot worse than the rubutias. They are a promiscuous lot so you find a lot of hybrids, mine all seem to be x aylostera.  rubutia x aylostera 'Krainzina'

The other buds have opened since I took that photo and there is now a ring of flowers around the plant. When the plants grow and effect is a mass of flowers, this one is rubutia x aylostera 'bo jangles'

My OH is just pleased to have something that doesn't look like a daisy flowering at the moment.