Aloe arborscens variegata

For the last year I thought I had two forms of this plant, a yellow and a white variegated form. The yellow form has an amazing structure. The colour really stands out.

Then the white form, is slightly smaller and the variegation not as strong (although it is stronger than it looks than the photo shows).

When apart the colour looks very different. Together it is apparent that it is simply the amount of green and they're the sample colours.

It is clear the strongly variegated plant kills the look of the lightly variegated one.  So from now on they will be kept in separate locations

Some potted things

The succulent rockeries have greatly reduced the number of plants in pots (down from over 400), but there are still one or two that can't be planted. I have been slowly building a set of nicer pots and some of these have even been left to get on with it, instead of plants being moved every year.

This little echeveria minima is stubbornly refusing to offset. Instead it just continued to grow into little towers

The problem with these really small pots, is stopping them drying out. I am tempted to start again with this one, in the hope of getting a more lush clump of plants.

Others have been more successful. The abromeitiella chlorantha is starting to fill the pot.  It dried out a bit over winter, but has come back, with only a few brown leaf tips now. 

Winter watering is obviously a problem. Getting the right balance between die-back and elongated winter growth needs to be improved.  This echeveria cuspidata var zaragoza is great, it just needs to offset a bit more to properly fill the pot.

The sedeveria letiza loves its new pot. It has got a bit leggy in places and while there are smaller heads coming through,  it is starting to show gaps.

The agave albopilosa continues to grow. A few of the terminal spines are starting to turn fluffy. It seems as happy outside as in the green house over the summer.

It is funny to think that these were new a few years ago, there have been some great photos of peoples plants, all seed grown and getting to a decent size.

One of my favourite agaves is A. FO-076 (the old agave titanota).  My compact form is really toothy now.

It has a very similar look to my supposedly variegated mediopicta form, which saldy has lost any sign of variegation.

I have tried it in sun, shade and in the greenhouse. I know that with some plants the variegation varies depending on light levels. Thankfully so far no signs of my normally variegated plant going plane green.

It stopped growing for a while, each time there is an offset, but now seems to be growing at the usual titanota rate.

Most of the variegated agaves seems to be coping fine with the sunny summer we are having.  The pot of variegated agave filifera. This is a large bowl, and they are doing their best to fill it.

The agave bracteosa monterrey frost seems more keen on offseting than growing.  In full sun (Uk sun that is) the plant is a paler green, compared to those in dappled shade.

I was looking through old photos the other day, and noticed how much the agave parasana fireball has grown.  Parasanas are one of my favourite agaves, so structural.

The other more inetesrting variegated agave is the A gypsophila cv lemon and lime.  The variegation is getting better, again I am not sure if direct sun or shade is best to bring it out.

I think that's enough for now, I'll do the aloes next time.

While we're on the subject of offsets

Time for a quick echeveria 'Compton Carousel' update. After the last post on the tricks I use, which can be found here, they have had the summer to grow and have filled the pots nicely.

In the main pot I did consider cutting off the two largest offsets, but decided on leaving them for this year. Amazingly that little pure white offset is still going strong, it must be feeding off the other plants.

In the middle size pot the offsets have filled out the middle nicely.

As the four large plants in this pot have good root systems already I cut two off to give the offsets more space.

These have been given to friends, who seemed quite pleased by their deliveries.

The pot is a bit lopsided, but they don't do as well cut off from the mother plants as most succulents, so I tend not to cut them off until I have something to do with them.

Lots of small offsets now have space to grow out and fill the space. No doubt the last two larger plants will go a some point.

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.