Plants are waking up

It's that time of year again, alternating between the joy of plants waking up and the fear of them rotting. The UK has had a very mild winter so hopefully this will reduce the amount of end of winter damage.  We just need spring to be not too wet and just for once to move smoothly from winter - spring - summer.

Anyway it's time to start waking the plants up and getting back into the garden and greenhouse.  This is about checking how the plants have done, removing any signs of rot and checking for bugs.  The greenhouse is looking good.

The manfreda / mangave bench is looking the best it ever has. I kept a closer eye on these this year having learnt that they do not like to totally dry out even over winter.  This made a big difference and even the small manfreda guttata offsets that I removed at the end of last summer, are not looking bad.  The mangave fans may spot some surprises / future posts in there.

The echeveria agavoides 'ebony' in the black bowl has formed a really good shape. It's lost some of the colour as expected, but will colour up as soon as it can be moved outside.  The large bowl is more established.

This year they seem to have held their colour much better than previous years.  Hopefully this will mean an even darker colour when they go back into their summer spot.  The bowl is now full, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens as they start to push up against each other.

It's good to be back in the greenhouse again and thinking about projects for the year. Lots in the pipeline, so hopefully we'll have a good summer.

First proper work in the greenhouse.

The plants overwintered in greenhouse are the ones that have the toughest time.  They are left to get on with it and not watered from about the end of October until March. They are watered a little bit at the start of March and then watered properly at the start of April. This is usually when I know there will be no more proper frosts. Waking them slowly like this avoid rot issues if we do have any late frosts.

It will be another few weeks before the pampered plants are brought out of the house, so those in the greenhouse are only put out in temporary spots, some will be moved outside once woken up. They are all a little de-hydrated but not looking too bad. This is the echeveria bench.

Did you spot the variegated aloe saponaria? Will have to move that.

It is also time to start re-potting. I've mentioned before the type of potting dance that goes on, trying to figure out how to give plants bigger pots without taking up any more space.  There is going to be a little cull in the collection, any plants that are no longer in favour and are unlikely to ever do well for me are going. Some of the plant need much larger pots and this is the only way for now at least.

First to be given more space was a collection of the echeveria 'compton carousel'.

I am amazed the white ones are still going, they have done much better than expected.  The others had got very leggy so were top cut and spread out.  Hopefully by the end of the summer they will fill this bowl, although this form can be fussy over re-rooting. I figure the plant is nice enough to make a real feature of it, so fingers crossed.

Another plant doing well is my little aloe suprafoliata.  It was the plant the most appreciated the greenhouse last summer.

I am trialling a new potting mix this year combining it with new feed, so it will be interesting to see how this one responds. Especially if I can actually sort the watering out for once. It is taking a lot of getting used to actually having to water the plants once a week when it is warm.

Another group I want to give more attention to are the haworthia miniatures.

The two front ones are different forms of haworthis parksiana.  I'm not sure I can tell the difference, see if you can fro the close ups.

I love the texture to the leaves.  It is a shame they are so slow and tiny, a pot full of these would look amazing.

So the fun has started. I am guessing the plants inside will be allowed another week or so before my better half puts her foot down and says it is warm enough for them to be outside.  The green house will have to be fully converted into summer mode ready for then.

The winter health check

There has not been a lot of plant talk here lately. The works on the house dominates things at the moment, plus I have been in my winter disinterested period. Over the last couple of weeks things have started to change, and the greenhouse has been calling.

Today was a rare sunny day. After months of rain and storms, it was a change to be able to go outside and look at things in the sun.  So an ideal opportunity to do a quick check up on how the plants are coping with this strange winter.

The main cold frame was a sign of things to come, the plants currently look great, I can't remember seeing them look so undamaged at this point in Feb. The biggest problem seems to be that with the lack of cold, the snails are not totally gone and there is the odd bit of snail damage.

It is always good to see the echeverias doing so well.   Normally they suffer a fair amount of damage and take the first part of summer to recover. Hopefully this year they can start from a better point.

Then it was time to try and get to the greenhouse. The builders have totally blocked the front, so I had to squeeze through the side and then try and prize the door open.  With a little re-arranging I managed to open it just enough to get inside and again was thrilled to see everything looking very healthy.

I had left a few plants in here by accident and the fact that so far they show no damage is a bit of luck.

While it has been a stormy, wet winter, we have had almost no cold at all so far. The forecasts show no let up in the storms, but also no real drop in the temperatures.  I very much doubt we will get away without any real cold; one of the things that sets the UK apart from the rest of Europe and other parts of the world is the degree to which winter can go on. Hopefully the last part of the winter will be as mild as the rest, it will make a nice change.

A new addition to the greenhouse

The clean up has continued and the main echeverias are in place.

The empty spots are for the echeverias that were top cut and are currently in the shame while they root. I like all the miniature varieties which are coming into flower

I am half tempted when the final greenhouse is in place to build a small planting area for them as a permanent display.

So what's the new addition?  I have been spending so much time out there that our little mutt has decided she needs some space as well.

She is very much a people dog and hates not being around us when we are in.  She kept coming to find me, so I thought I would see what happened if I put a bed in there for her.  It didn't take long for her to settle in and she now spends more time in there than I do. 

I would say she is guarding the plants, but you can see that is not true.

Organising the greenhouse

Making the most of some warmer weather to do some general tidying and potting on after winter.  Most of the plants will be outside again over the summer, but a few will be kept in the greenhouse. I am finally getting over not having the shed and seeing the positives of having more space. It is nice to be able to pot things on inside and to have space for odd plants, and propagation.

First up were the agaves, most don't need re-potting and it was easy to select those that would be given space. They very neatly fitted onto one bench, and with minimal cleaning up are ready for the growing season.  Having them set out allowed me to go through checking for new pups and to photograph them . As always at this time of year new offsets are starting to show, or are discovered when plants are removed from their pots. I was also surprised how many hybrids/crosses I have, it wasn't a concious decision to buy hybrids, but they have been sneaking in.

Next up were the aloes. These needed more re-potting and also deciding what to include.  The bigger plants wouldn't fit on the bench and some of the small clump forming varieties had got a bit messy.  In the end it was obvious there would be space on the bench for other plants, so it became a crassulaceae area.  Given the constant re-classification and renaming of plants between the aloes, haworthias and others it makes that easier as well. 

Next up will be the echeverias which will fill a third bench without needing help. A lot more re-potting needed here as they tend to suffer the most over winter.

The remaining space will be used for the cacti, any plants that didn't fit else where and some free space.

This should be the end, but being in the UK the weather decided we had it too easy with a couple of days around 20C. So the next few days are forecast to be back in single figures and worse a few nights of -3C. While I don't worry about most of the plants, some could be damaged by those lows so have been moved back inside. Just for once it would have been nice to move form winter to spring to summer, not winter to spring and back to winter again!

At least I will be able spend time in the neater greenhouse, even if there are a few gaps.

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.

A bit of protection for the bigger plants

Having been dug up in the summer and as I actually have space, almost everything is getting protection this year.  I started to move the bigger plants into the greenhouse today as I would be very upset to loose the after three years planted outside unprotected.

First in were the yucca rostratas.  They are totally hardy for me, but have a very annoying habit of dropping all their roots if disturbed, so are having to be re-rotted.  This should in theory be easy, but it is a worrying time as if they are ever going to suffer from rot it would be now.

They are two of the stars of by old dry bed, with the larger one being a perfect blue colour (not that you can tell from this early evening photo). The other one has had more shade for a lot of the time it was planted as is greener. 

The middle sized cycad was also brought in. It flushed over the summer, and for once I would like it to stay pristine and not have to cope with snow. The smaller one will go in another cold frame and the largest will get a fleece cover. 

The large agaves will mainly be in the other cold frame as it means I don't have to move them; I don't fancy having to carry them through the very narrow greenhouse door.  A few more may make into here along with some more of the aloes, but ideally I want to keep space to potter in there over winter and not totally fill it. 

I'm not sure what all the plants that are usually left totally unprotected are going to make of this special care.  They had better not get used to it, it will be a return to the tough life again as soon as the new dry bed is designed and built.

Must find more time for the plants.

The clocks changing, trips to visit the in-laws, decorating, and being busy at work mean that I'm not spending any time in the garden at the moment. This is particularly frustrating as my other final treat of the year turned up in the form some staging for the greenhouse.

I am planning on making most of the staging for the planned final greenhouse, but thought it wouldn't hurt to have one little bit set up for this winter.  It looks sadly underused at the moment which is partly due to not having time to move the plants in.  As the greenhouse is unheated and has large gaps, it is more of a rain shelter than anything else, but that is fine for me, as these plants were pretty much the left overs or those that were planted in the dry bed until we moved.

It feels a bit strange to have all this space and not to have to cram everything in on top of each other. It almost looks like I don't have that many plants, maybe I need to buy some more after all. It definitely makes placing the cacti a lot easier!

The top has become a little echeveria nursery and assuming there are no problems this winter they should get a really good start to the year here. 

Next to go in are all the big agaves and the yuccas that I am re-rotting after being dug up.  Even with all the space something tells me that is still going a painful process.