Look plants!

Sadly the rockery stone didn't turn up today as planned.  Apparently the person who took the order didn't bother to write down that they were to be delivered today, although strangely they did manage to take all the payment details and take that from my account. 

So to cheer myself up and so the day wasn't a total waste, I started to put plants out on the rockery.  I find it easier when building a rockery like this, to set the plants out before the gravel and stone gets added. That way I can place the stone around the pots, and plant it up as I go. It is much easier than having to try to dig holes in gravel.

I'm sorry about the photo, the light was all wrong, but it was so exciting to be placing plants.

The cycad has to go in the middle and that will change the feel a lot, but it isn't quite right yet.  I may move the variegated yucca to where the agave bracteosa is at the back, then move the aloe striatula to where the yucca was, and then agave bracteosa to where the aloe was. No doubt there will be a few games of musical chairs until it is actually planted.  There are some echeverias ear marked for there as well, it will depend a bit on space. Currently I am thinking to keep this as a very neat bed, and not a more lush look, but a stream of blue echeverias running through it could look good.

The big advantage to these types of rockeries is that large bits of concrete and stone should work as a heat sink and provide a bit of extra winter protection.  I know by the time the cold arrives the heat will have gone, but even so plants against big rocks still do better.

I also decided the vertical posts were too harsh without plants, so until the bamboo and tree ferns arrive, they make ideal vertical panters.

It is great to have plants out in the garden and not just in pot storage areas.

Road trip: part 2

The first day of the trip was all about the large cactus nurseries. Day 2 was far more relaxed, a quick tip down to the local nursery and then time to look around my friends garden and greenhouses. The local nursery is Urban Jungle, a great little nursery with an good range of unusual plants.  I have posted a few pictures before, this is the vertical planting wall that one of the staff put together. It seems to have got through the winter without any problems.

 

The largest greenhouse has a large planted area, with a Koi pond.  There is a little coffee area to sit and take in the plants.

  

You have to feel for nursery owners, in March it was so hot and all the talk of draughts meant people were not buying plants as they wouldn't be able to water them. Then it rains all of April so gardens are the last place people want to be.  All the time they are having to juggle young plants and new deliveries.  The nursery was chock full of lovely plants with some new rarer forms all putting on growth ready for it to warm up enough to go out into the sales area.

  

 

We did our bit and bought a few little treasures and thankfully more people were turning up as we were leaving.

So shopping finished it was back to the house for the rest of the afternoon.  It was too wet to properly look around the garden, (I promise I will do a post on their garden at some point), so we stuck to the inside areas.  Mind you with a conservatory like this you almost don't need to  go outside.

One of the best plants at the moment is the flowering agave gypsophyla. I don't think it matters how often you see agave flowers, they are always a great sight.

It is a lovely plant, such a shame it will die afterwards, but fingers crossed this pup will survive to continue the line.

 

It is by no means the only agave to admire, everywhere you look there are lovely plants:

 

I took particular interest in this agave victoria reginae hybrid, it's a stunning plant, now I just need to track one down.

 
I love agave mitis albicans, it really is a much better form than the normal.  This one has a good set of pups forming, it is going to make an spectacular clump, either that or a good set of plants for swaps.

One of the things I look forward to on my visits is seeing all the succulent bowls. They always look amazing, so well designed proportioned. I can never get mine to look as good.

There is a joke that the house is turning into a succulent rescue centre.  This is one of the plants they have rescued, not bad for a freebie.

There was also the biggest echeveria I have ever seen.  It's huge and thankfully offsets freely so I was able to add one to the plants leaving with me.  You would need quite a garden to have a clump of these!

Then it was out to the greenhouses.  The smallest is a lean-to against a purpose built wall.  It is probably the emptiest, which gives you an idea of how many plants there are.You have to tread very carefully as you walk through them.

 

At this point I became far to busy admiring the plants to remember to take photos, but did manage to take one of this variegated aloe polyphyla.

As I was walking past their alpine propagation area (they are stocking up for a new area in the garden) I noticed this lovely little mound.  I don't know what it is about a simple mound of green that is so pleasing on the eye. Sadly this gypsophyla aretioides is another one to be added to the wants list, at least I know I can find this on easily when I decide to get it.

I could post so many more photos of plants in her collection that I am envious of, but she watches me closely enough as it is without drawing attention to the plants I would like to liberate!

Living picture update

Well so much for the drought! Since they officially declared it we have had nothing but rain.  As it is too wet to get outside I thought I would do a few updates. First up, last summers attempt at a living picture (the original post can be found here). It was as much a test to see how I would make the frame and what to plant in as anything else. The photo on the right shows what it was like at shortly after planting.

Sadly I forgot to take my usual autumn photo so there is nothing to show what it looked like at the end of the summer.  I was  disappointed with the growth and feel it is down to me leaving it too dry and not giving the plants enough pampering to get properly settled. Almost all the plants were recently cut offsets with little or no roots and now I think this was a mistake as they had to settle down and root in less than perfect conditions. Can you believe I even managed to kill the saxifraga! All that time I spent placing each little bit of plant to try and ensure an even growth, was wasted and no there is just soil.

The agave cream spike did not like it either, but this has already stated to recover from the winter and grow so it seems to have settled now.

The rest of the plants have done OK.  I have been a bit more vigilant so far this year and the plants have started to swell from their winter state and put on good growth.  The echeveria elegans are starting to offset so they will nicely fill that corner soon.

The sedeveria lutescens have done really well and I love the red colour.  I have added a few more since this photo to fill in some of the gaps.  A couple have started to flower as well adding to the list of flowers appearing in there.

The two plants that have done best are the unknown graptopetalum and the graptosedum 'Mediterranean Mystery'. I love this last one,  it is small but seems to be a tough as old boots.  Not only has it grown and started to flower, but it has offset nicely and has the next generation of plants coming through to take over when these flowering stems get cut back.

The graptopetalum has offset and is also sending out good flower spikes. Again this one did not die back at all over winter and has held its colour well.

The sempervivums did well and filled out nicely last summer.  Two of the three varieties shrink back a little during the winter. They are filling out again and are starting to send out their offsets meaning a lot of the gaps can be filled this summer. This s. ciliosum is one of my favourites and send out really long tendrils before the ends root and the new plants grow.  Hopefully this will give me a chance to direct them to a location I want filling.

Overall then not the wild success I had hoped for, but I have learnt a few things: only plant rotted plants and feed and water frequently.  Let see what happens this summer.

When is the official start?

Temperature, length of day, clocks changing, the return of migrating birds, there are many ways of defining the start of spring. For me it starts when it's warm enough to get plants out of their winter storage areas and into the garden again.  The top comes off the cold frame, more cold sensitive plants get put out in the day to start preparing them for full sun, and the pot holders get filled again. 
Given that winter pretty much puts my gardening on hold, spring holds a special place as once again I can do more than just looking at plants in the shed.  For once my OH agrees, although for her it is because she gets her windowsills back and no longer has to worry about getting spiked as she walks around the house.

So what signifies the start of spring for you?

Funny how things work

It's funny how often coincidences happen; my OH was looking at my last post on the green wall and got out her camera and produced these two photos. The first one shows much more clearly the planting pockets.

It seems she was up at Edgeware road station and saw the green wall and took some photos for me.

Strange that we should both come across this wall independently at almost identical times.

Back again

The last few months have been filled with work trips, which normally I like but do get in the way of looking after my garden. At least at this time of year there is almost nothing I need to be doing apart from watching out for snow. My Latest trip was to Nigeria which was let's just say interesting.  Sadly yet again I was confined to seeing the hotel and airport with a long car drive between the two, so no looking around for plants.

Hopefully I have a break in travel for a bit now amd I'll be back to more regular posts. To start that off a friend sent me a link to some vertical planting on the side of a station in London.  This wall was designed to look only look nice but to see if it can help reduce pollution. 

Image from the Londonist

It seems the planst were selected specifically to capture polutants and it will be monitored for the next 18 months to see what happens. More can be found on the Londonist website. There have been a few initiatives like this in London; to look at the use of vegitation to help reduce pollution. I know this is why the university were very pleased with our courtyard garden.

I look forward to the day when there are green walls and roofs on every street.

Planting: part 2

Having got part way through the planting on Sunday, I thought it best to carry on can get it all finished. So to recap; so far the bottom third of the picture is planted up with agave parryi cream spike, graptosedum 'Mediterranean Mystery' , and a saxifage. Next in were a few sempervivum ciliosum and a small agave utahensis.

This was about the half ay mark and I was starting to worry I would not have enough plants, so it was time to raid the dry bed for some echeveria elegans.

That didn't take us as much space as I hoped so back to the sempervivums, this time s. lively bug, but again running out of plants, so time to cut up a nice little sedeveria lutescens. The name is almost right,  but I can never find it referanced anywhere, another for my list of names to be confirmed. Anyway it is a nice plant, that has pretty white flowers in spring.

Really on the home stretch now just one little space to fill.  Back out to the dry bed for a bit of inspiration and I spotted this lovely plant that I suspect is a graptopetalum or one of the crosses.  As it has been bone hardy for me I thought it had earned the last spot, so in it went.  That was it, all planted up (although no doubt I will add a few more saxifrages to help it fill out quicker)  and I am really pleased with it

One of the things I like about it, is it is surprisingly 3D,  as it sat on the table it looked like a proper mini landscape.

I will leave it flat for the rest of July to give it time to settle in and the plants to take root properly.  Then slowly move it up to vertical, probably increasing the angle a bit every few days.  It has been fun putting it together and I will enjoy watching it fill out.

So how many plants did it take, well here is the full list: 1 x agave paryyi cream spike, 1 x agave utahensis, 2 graptosedum 'Mediterranean Mystery' , 3 x sedeveria lutescens, 6 x echeveria elegans, 3 x unknown graptopetalum, 8 x sempervivum virgils, 20 x sempervivum lively bug, 26 x sempervivum ciliosum and 145 saxifrages. So by my reckoning that's 225 plants, admittedly the saxifrages are a bit of a cheat, as it was 5 plants cut up,  but as I had to plant each bit using my faithful needle nose tweezers I feel justified in counting them as individual plants!

Overall I am really happy, but sitting back, looking at it I noticed the pile of pots still full of plants. I realised I hadn't used the 15 echeverias FO-48 I had propped especially for the picture.  I guess that explains why my collection of plants in pots never gets smaller. Anyone want a not hardy echeveria offset?

At last some planting

With the frame finished it was finally time to get on with some planting.  Having tried a few different designs on paper and looked at a few more pictures from the internet It seemed that having a few clumps of the same plant interwoven with something creeping would work for what I wanted.

So first in was sempervivum virgil (which if you do not own I highly recommend for its colour, quick offsetting and not dieing back too much over winter). Then an agave parryi cream spike, as a bit of a focal point. 

 

I was very good and even managed to leave the pup in place, so we shall see what happens to that as the plants settle in.

Next in were a couple of Xgraptosedum 'Mediterranean Mystery' which have pretty little flowers in spring,  and will hopefully snake out of the picture as they grow.  Between these, and this will be consistent through the whole thing, is a little compact saxifrage.

You can't see the variation in colour quite as well in the photos, but so far I am pleased with it. I'm still not sure I have enough plants and it may end up that the sempervivums get repeated to fill up any remaining space, but it is good to actually get the planting underway. No doubt updates will take up the next few posts as I finish off the planting.

Recomend a sedum

There has been some progress on the living picture with the frame now ready to go.  I have made it in two sections, an inner box for the soil,  and an outer frame to look a bit nicer.

These were stained to match the wood that forms the actual front of the frame, and a wire mesh put across the front to hold the soil in.  This is it all ready to go.

 So the frame is done,  I have most of the plants ready,  but still looking for a few things to go in with the echeverias, sempervivums and a little agave utahensis.  I think the final design will be a reef so following up on a comment in the earlier post I thought a sedum or saxifrage may work for flow between the different plants.

I have mentioned before that a lot of my plants come about through people mentioning them or seeing them in other peoples gardens. I thought this may be a good way of finding a suitable plant for the picture. So get your thinking heads on. A bit of red would work well with the other plants,  probably smaller leaves to allow it to weave nicely between the plants (it is not a huge frame only 50 x 35cm).  It needs to spred by not in a way that will need too much pruning.

So any suggestions of a good sedum or something else you love that would fit? I can then have fun looking them up and who knows then trying to track them down.

I was wrong, I don't have enough plants!

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that I had been having a clean out and getting rid of a few plants.  Having taken all my spares and duplicates and propagated plants to work to free up some space, typically I go and choose now to start a project that requires a few plants.

I blame the internet and all you bloggers who constantly post interesting ideas and pictures of gardens or shows you visit. While I had known about vertical planting for a while, I had never thought about doing a living picture or something small, until someone posted a link to Flora's Blog. This post, showed some of their pictures, which lets face it are pretty impressive.  So the idea gets filed away for something to do when I have some free time.  As our summer seems to have returned to its British best and rainy days, I thought I would start looking at trying one of these living pictures.

It would be an ideal way to free up even more space, without actually having to get rid of any plants. Initially everything was good, I have the perfect bit of wire mesh for the front to help keep things in place, the perfect place to hang a picture of around 40 - 50cm across.  I even had an idea of the type of plants I wanted to use,  and had started to propagate them.  The sempervivums I have shown before, I thought these compact forms would be perfect for a small picture:

Then this echeverias which has the catchy name of FO-48 after the collection number would work well, plus I has a few sitting around:

Then for some colour another sempervivum virgil, which is slightly larger but still has a neat form and a very good lilac or purple colour.

I figured it would be best to try and do a rough design first, it would be a shame to spend all the time putting it together only for it not to work.  Besides I may have mentioned before that I have a geeky side and have a few tricks for times like this. It is actually fairly simply, firstly take a picture of the plants you are interested in from above.  The in a photo package clip the image to only cover the plant and re-size it to be the same size as the plant., for example this image of s. virgil is 8cm across:

The next step is a bit more fiddly, as you have to trace around the plant to select the central plant only.  You can then cut this out and past it into a new image of only a single plant:

You just repeat this for each plant of interest and then put them all together to give your flower bed or in this case living picture:

If I was doing it properly I would give the image a brown background or a picture of some soil and change the size of some of the plants to give a more realistic look. While the method works fine, by this time I had figured out two things: firstly my design was not going to work, and secondly I was going to need some more plants! I hadn't properly sat down and thought about how many plants you actually need even for a small picture.  If I had stuck to my very first idea of only using small sempervivums of around 2 - 3 cms then I would have needed around 300 plants to fill a 40cm square!

I need more variation in the size and texture of plants to give a more natural look to the scene. One of the reasons this one doesn't work is it is too flat (and that is not just the fault of the image).  So it is back to the drawing board to figure out a different set of plants. Maybe a couple of agave utahensis would add some interest and some of small but more vertical echeverias or sedums to give a bit of variation in height.

Whatever plants I finally end up with, I am going to need to buy a few more to fill the picture.  I didn't think I would be saying that this year.

Another weekend, another road trip.

The beautiful spring continues, this time it was a trip to Norfolk for a few days to see some friends, look around some nurseries and visit a cactus mart. Norfolk has two fantastic nurseries for the exotic garden fan, Amulree and Urban Jungle. There are always things that catch my eye at both, this year at Amulree it was these stunning agave ovatifolias.

At Urban Jungle, part of the fun is walking around their different planting sections, sadly it is totally the wrong time of year for the edible jungle, but it was great to see the planting wall had survived despite the terrible winter. The ferns in the gaps are mainly starting to grow again and in a month or so should be back to its best again.  This is a clever very way of creating a wall, with full descriptions on the blog of Jamie who built it before heading off on his travels (Tumbleweed Traveller).

Then it was off to see the friends which I will cover in another post as they deserve it, if for no other reason than the very memorable line dancing disco night they took me to! The whole reason for the trip was to join the local British Cactus and Succulent Society trip to a catus mart on the Saturday. There is always a difficult choice at these shows; do you walk around to see all the stalls before deciding what to buy, or do you buy as you go so you don't risk someone else getting their hands on the best plants. Normally when shopping, as my OH will confirm, I like to look at all the options, comparing them before finally making my decision. At the shows though there are far too many other eager shoppers and you can't risk someone else getting their grubby little mitts on that prized plant. Having got most of the way around, I found someone with two trays full of aloe hybrids. You wont be surprised to know that I spent quite a while on this stand going through them all, checking I hadn't missed any and which were the best plants. 

There is another great point at any event like this, when everyone re-groups and you all have a nosy through what the others are taking home.  There are the looks of envy that someone else got the one plant you were after, discussions about plants you don't know about and sometimes quick trips back into the show to try and make a last minute purchase. This cactus caught my eye in one of the members boxes,  it almost looked stitched and I had a feeling my OH would appreciate the patterns / textures.

After a very nice lunch, it was off over the border to probably the largest cactus nursery in the UK.  Only a few days before I had been talking with some friends about why we don't have any really large succulent nurseries in the UK.  They had just come back from Germany and shown pictures of these giant green houses full of succulents of every description. So walking into Southfields, I was proved wrong when I was greeted by this:

The place is huge, rows and rows of tables stuffed full of cacti of every form.  Anyone who things succulent gardens lack colour needs to visit somewhere like this:

While shopping at a show requires one set of tactics, shopping here required another, leaving plants until you have looked around risks you never finding the plants again. It was not unusual to bump into people wondering up and down the many isles muttering to themselves about why didn't they pick that plant up when they first saw it.

After a fantastic couple of days, it was back home to pot up my purchases, here are ones from Southfields and the show.

I think my OH is slightly concerned about the appearance of cacti on top of the agaves, aloes and echeverias, but she need not worry I more than enough to keep me going without getting interested in cacti as well.