Time to even things up.

This haworthia attenuata variegata was one of last plants I got from my friend Paul before he died. His pot was rammed full of plants, all variegated to some degree. It was quite a sight. I was desperate for a bit to start my own pot, but he was understandably reluctant to spoil the look of his pot. We spent a while carefully turning it to see if any of the smaller offsets would come off and one did. Not the best, and only half variegated, but a start.

A few years later and my pot is full of plants, only most are not variegated. I forgot to take a picture of the pot before splitting them, but here is the mother now:

Being lopsided the type of pup depends on where it comes of the parent plant. In this case over half the pot was not variegated.

Then there were those that were exact copies of mum.

I toyed with the idea of replanting any with variegation, then noticed the plant I have been waiting for: a fully variegated pup.

Time to start again with this plant.  Thankfully it is one of the faster haworthia, so the pot should fill up in a couple of years.   Hopefully this time every plant will be variegated, giving me the pot I have wanted since first seeing Pauls.

The succulent flower part 2.

Both in and out of the greenhouse the succulents are flowering away. 

The crassula budhas temple is fully open now

Close-up you can see all the individual little flowers

The echeverias are in good form as well, although not all their flowers are that good to look at.  Some of the better ones are e. ramillette, which has larger flowers and lots of them.

E. setosa blue, which has a stronger colour to the flowers.

As if the echeveria flowers weren't leggy enough soe of the haworthias are even worse. This one is taking it to the extreme and sending out flower stalks in each direction.

The flowers themselves are very pretty but tiny.

Outside isn;t much different.  The river of echeveria elegans is now a river of flowers.

The e. agavoides types all have weak flowers, the plants may be great which is good as you don't grow the for the flowers.

In the background is one of my own hybrids echeveria 'Adonis Blue' ( which is e. pulidonis x e. rosea)  It tends to flower quite well.

The final plant in this set is my favourite sedeveria letizia

The flower stalks are a bit longer this time which is a shame, but it still has the white flowers.

There are still a few yet to flower so I am sure there will be a part 3.

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.

A day in the green house

I had a great time in the green house over the weekend starting the job of re-potting. I did a lot last year, so not everything needs doing, but there are still quite a few plants that need more space or that I want to combine into planters. Starting with a couple of the agaves. This one is a compact form of agave parrasana. It has the word "minor" in the name but I'm not sure if that is official or just to say it stays smaller.

One of the variegated filiferas, the two offsets appeared last year and have done really well. This was potted into a larger bowl with the hope of creating a more natural looking landscape clump. 

The problem is what to add to make it stand out. I had a look through my small rocks and can not find a nice one. Where do you find get really good rocks from, maybe a bit of volcanic pumice or something a little different.


The main focus for the day were the haworthias I bought on my last tip and those that have been sitting around since last year. I have quite a few now and thought I would try a haworthia bowl. Originally this was going to be purely the dwarf haworthias, but  thought it needed a bit of height.

I don't like the gravel, like the agave it needs something to make the plants really stand out. The two forms of H. parksiana (if they are really different), are cute little things and I can't wait to see how they develop.

Does anyone else notice that the plants they buy tend to cluster around certain looks. As the potting continued I noticed a certain trend in the type of plant. This is aloe harworthioides, I love the almost furry look to it.

Then aloe haworthioides x descoingsii, slightly more spiny this time

I think I am going to have to change the gravel in this one, the plant has vanished. It is even worse from above.

There are two or three other plants with a very similar look. Thankfully the the next one was at least slightly different, haworthia acuminata "white ghost".

 

I am not a massive fan of this form of haworthia, I know people go mad for them and there are a lot of different varieties.  The variegation on this one was too nice to pass up, so it managed to sneak in.

It was lovely to be out pottering around the green house again.  The plants are starting to be moved into their summer locations, even if those going outside are only somewhere temporary. A few more days should see all the potting up done for this year, then I just need to find some nicer top dressing and some good stones to set the plants off.

Most exciting offset of the week

Another week, another surprise, this time haworthia limifolia variegata. Without doubt one of my favourite plants, and also one of my slowest plants.  So it is a doubly nice surprise to look at the pot and find not one but two offsets!

The fun part of variegated offsets is wondering what they will end up like.  This is especially true  where the the variegation on the parent is not even.  The basic rule should be that that variegation will match the spot the offset comes from. All fine until the offsets are on runners, and to add to that the plant spirals makes it impossible to work out on this one. 

The good news is that it doesn't matter, it should be good whatever the variegation ends up like.  The other good news is that as I already have a couple of these, they will at some point end up being swapped for something equally as beautiful.  That could be some time away given how slow these are and needing to ensure the plants are big enough to survive on their own. 

I'm enjoying this theme at the moment, so what is your favourite offset of late? Please feel free to join in and either comment here, or better yet blog about your own most exciting offsets.

Photo Friday

Another Haworthia today. This time the spotted form. Again very animal in nature reminds me of octopus tentacles, with the little suckers.

Lop-sided

The snow has melted but it is still to cold to go outside, so I am limited to enjoying the plants inside. Many of those that manage to sneak in over winter are variegated, of which I am very fond.  These are lovely plants and some of the most commented on in my collection, especially plants like echeveria 'compton carousel'

And haworthia limifolia variegata

Recently I have been looking at more unusual variegation. Plants like this haworthia are pure white and have no chorolphyll.  It has to stay connected to the other plant or it will die.

This second one started with normal variegation but over time has become more variegated until now each leaf is entirely yellow.  I know some collectors manage to keep yellow plants alive as they still have some chlorophyll, but I am not brave enough to risk it and have left it connected to the other plants.

This aloe saponaria hasn't quite made up its mind what it is going to do.  Currently it is very lop-sided but each leaf is getting whiter and I have a feeling it could end up totally white.

This agave filifera has taken it even further with one side not being variegated at all.

I am still not really sure about this one (although don't tell the OH or it will be out on its ear).  It is more of an experiment than anything else and even I will admit it is not the best looking plant.  With these lop-sided variegates it is the possibilities of what they may produce that is of interest. When they offset (I use the term "when" as I will be doing everything possible to ensure it does) the variegation of the offset will depend on where it comes off the plant.  So the plant above could produce all green or all yellow pups and any combination in between.

So while not as neat as the standard variegation I like the excitement of not knowing what you are going to end up with.

They're big up north

I have just returned from visiting another succulent fan (mentioned, or blamed here as a fellow addict).  It is always a pleasure to see his garden and I am always amazed at how much growth he gets from his plants in one summer, given that he is not exactly in the warmest part of the UK.

This trip was no exception and it was great to visit at the end of summer for a change as I usually visit in Spring before things get going. The beds are full of large clumps of echeverias and he has not put away all the pots yet so there are rows of aeoniums which are getting to be some size!  Aeoniums are something we both struggle with, not because they are hard to grow quite the contrary in fact, but because they almost without fail can not cope below -4 and so have to be overwintered either in a heated greenhouse or inside.  This is fine when small, but when they get to this size of these they take up a lot of space.  I have cut my selection down to 3 or 4 which are small enough to be brought in and interesting enough to warrant the space. I am hoping he doesn't cut his down too much as I want to see how big these get!

The other good/bad thing about going up to visit him is seeing the different plants in person instead of on a websites. It is very easy to avoid buying plants when you don't know they exist, but wondering around his greenhouse I always find a few new plants that I didn't know I needed until then and have to be added to my list of plants to find. Often he has offered me an offset in the past which I have turned down because the pictures on the web didn't look that special.

Then there are the offsets that I have been eagerly waiting to be big enough for him to remove. This trip two were ready and so I can a couple more off my list.  I have had my eye on this little haworthia attenuata variegate for a couple of years, but the pups have been painfully slow to develop.  So it is very exciting to finally get one to the size where it was allowed to be taken off and come home with me.  The second one, agave titonata variegate was a bit of a surprise.  I will admit that I have been coveting his main plant since he got it,  so letting me have the offset is probably as much self preservation as anything else. Both plants are now happily in their new homes and will be pampered over this winter.

Unfortunately he keeps far too close an eye on me while I am there, and so I have yet to be able to smuggle any plants out without him knowing. But there is always next time!

I'm a grandad!

I was doing my usual look around the pots today, and spotted that the label on one of my prized plants was falling out of the pot.  I went to push it back in and spotted the cause was a pup.  One the the highlights of owning succulents is when they produce offsets or pups.  I get excited whenever this happens, but this one is particularly special:

What do you mean, what's all the excitement about!  Ok she doesn't look much at the moment,  but here is the mum and hopefully the pup will grow up to look equally glamorous.

That is better.  A variegated  Haworthia Limifolia, took me ages to track one down and having owned it for a couple of years it is still one of my favourite plants.  There is obviously something in the air, as a few other plants have also been busy.  It is good to have something to brighten up these wet days.

Mother and baby both doing well.