Ungrateful plants

It has been such a good summer, it's easy to forget we are now into September. Today for the first time I got home and it was dark.  My father in law would say "the nights are drawing in".  As far as I'm concerned we have a while to go before proper early nights,it's still summer. 

Work on the other hand has a lot to answer for, late nights and the plants in the work garden misbehaving.  Many of the succulents in the gravel bed are spares form my own garden.  One of them being a yucca I had sitting around in a pot. It was a rescue and being so slow to recover, I though I would donate it, I didn't have space for it at the time anyway.  Popped out into the garden today to have a quick look at how everything was doing and found it was starting to flower.

That's a good thing I hear you say.

Well on the way to recovery.

You like yucca flowers, and will bring some colour at the end of the summer.

All good points I give you, but the simple fact is that I have yet to manage to get a yucca to flower in my own garden. I like to think they are well looked after and healthy.  They definitely seemed happy and put on lots of growth.  But do they flower?

Nope, nothing, not even a flicker of a flower spike. 

Take them to work, leave them to get on with it and they flower. The ungrateful things, I'm sure they do it on purpose. In the mean time, my aim to get my first yucca flower in my own garden continues.

Update: The work garden

It has been a while since the work garden was featured, so it was time for an update. 

The shade or fern bed has matured.  As the courtyard is in central London it doesn't get cold enough to kill the fronds, so the largest tree fern has built up quite a head of fronds. This has had the unexpected result of stopping rain from getting to the smaller fern and it has suffered.

The people on the first floor love the ferns and there are always comments on how nice it is to sit at the table by the glass window and look directly into the fern. One of the other plants in there that is doing well is the podophyllum kaleidoscope.

The bamboos as always have gone mad, here they were when planted two years ago:

You can see we had plenty of space for a banana as well as summer bedding. Then yesterday.

Finally my favourite part, the rockery.  This gets not protection at all over winter and has been a bit of a test ground for plants that don't quite make it for me. 

A lot of the plants have survived without any problems at all, the knophofia northiae are getting bigger by the day.

they are starting to swamp the small agave parryi and agave bracteosa

It is no surprise that these have been untouched by the winters, the agave utahensis have been more of a surprise.  These are known to be very cold tolerant if dry, but cold and wet is a big no, two of the three have shown no damage at all.

It is proving a good advert for succulents, with everything in flower and the unusual plants, I often get questions form staff about the plants and would would be transferable to their gardens.

A work courtyard update

It is the first winter for the garden at my office and we couldn't have wished for a milder one.  The central London effect means that many plants that have been killed even in my mild area are still going and the rockery especially is totally untouched. (I apologise for the quality of the photos they are from my phone).

The plant I am most surprised about is the echeveria mauna loa. The ones in my dry bed have all melted, they don't survive below -1 for me, which shows how warm the work garden is.  There are even some still in flower which has surprised me as well.

The fastest growing agave has been the agave filifera which has sent out a few pups already.

The jungle bed has made the most of the warm weather as well.  We finally cut the gingers back a couple of weeks ago, but the ensete and even more amazingly the colocasia have lost no leaves due to the cold.  Sadly while it has been warm, we have had a lot of storms and the plants that up until recently didn't have a single damaged leaves are now very tatty.

Time will tell if the we continue to get away with not digging things up.

Update on the work garden

A while back I posted about the garden in the courtyard at work.  Now it has had its first summer I thought I would post an update.  Here it is back in May and again today:

In my last post on the garden I mentioned how I was torn between design verses use.  I still feel that way, but everyone loves it; the tables are still in use even in October and the I get regular emails about the joy of being able to go out and pick veg in lunch breaks.

The tree ferns in the fernery have filled out as have most other things.  Sadly the shuttlecock ferns, that were suppose to give a bit of height in the middle of the bed, are not looking so good.  Hopefully they will get going next year.

The most dramatic changes though are in some of the other beds, here was the bamboo when it was planted.

And then today

The banana has grown into a great plant and because of the sheltered position the leaves have not been shredded like they usually are.  Next to it is a colocasia, another plant that was purely planted as summer bedding until the bamboo filled out.   As they both look so well, it seems a shame to let them die, so we have decided to dig them up and put them into large pots. Bringing them in, to sit on the inside of the glass wall.

 These brugmansias were planted as small cuttings and have totally taken over this bed.  I am going to have to decide what to do with them, as again they wont survive the winter if left where they are.  We don't have space for both, besides their growth this year shows how big they can get in just one season.  It is more likely that I will take a couple of large cuttings and over winter those.  By next spring they will be rooted and can be re-planted to once again take over the bed.  It's a great trick if you are short of space, so long as you are willing to mist every now and then and keep a keen eye out for spider mites!

I couldn't end without showing at least one photo of the rockery.  Most of the plants seem to have settled in, with the echeverias showing the most growth.  There have been a pleasing amount of comments about it, with most people un-aware that you can plant directly in gravel like this. Some of the plants are trials, having shown they are marginal in my garden, I am hoping the warmer inner city location may just be enough to get them through. This is the main agave section, I am going to have to decide if I provide any protection to plants I don't have spares of.

I am always going to look at certain beds and think they are wasted, but as long it at continues to be used like it was this year, I can just about turn a blind eye to them.  Besides who knows what opportunities next year holds.  I have my eye on all the flat roofs for some green planting!

Design or participation

I have mentioned before that we have a large courtyard at work that is slowly being turned into a garden for the staff and students.  It has been an interesting process, not least as it has made me think about what is more important the over-all design of a garden or the participation in making it and being surrounded by green. 

I have been getting more interested in the design and planting of gardens and when they announced that they were allowing the staff to design the garden I thought I would go along. Sadly at the first meeting it became obvious that there was a huge range of ideas and that it was going to be designed by committee.  I am sure anyone reading this knows the importance of having an overall picture of the garden, it even applies to a collection of pots. So the thought of there being no over-all scheme, or person in charge, filled me with dread. Sure enough now the garden is almost finished it is not pretty, some of the planting is not very interesting and I can't help feeling that we missed an opportunity.

But the strangest thing has happened, the group of staff that have given up weekends, hurt their backs, and got their hands dirty building the garden, have had a great time.  People who have not got a garden, have never grown plants have designed raised beds and are looking after them.  There are flowers, a veg patch, and plants that just don't go together. Yet no one, (apart from me) seems to care, in fact they love it. There have been compliments, you can not get a seat at the tables which are used all day and the powers that be want to green more areas.

The plants are happy as well. The tree ferns have thrived,  and the bamboo is going to be a monster. I can't wait to see how big these new culms get, they are so much chunkier than the existing ones as you can see.

I still want to ask if people are looking at the same garden as me, but I have also realised the power of getting involved and having green space around. Does it matter that the garden is not all it could be? Not one bit. Though it pains me to say that, and don't expect me to say that in relation to any other garden. But in this case people seem so pleased to have some green to sit among, and just to have the chance to garden that they don't notice the haphazard nature of the green.

Who knows with time,  I may be able to bash the flowers out of their heads and get them to appreciate the beauty of proper plants.  There are already signs a few a turning towards the more spikie side of gardening. I am pleased to say we get the most comments about the rockery.

The work ferns

Having mentioned the tree ferns I purchased for the work garden, they were delivered so I thought I would post a quick picture of the fernery. As you can see there is lots of space so we are going to have to get a few different varieties.

The new fronds on the smaller one are bursting ready to unfurl, so it shouldn't be too long before they create the canopy for the ferns bellow.  The lucky group on the first floor are going to have a great view down into the crowns as they sit and have their meetings.