Succulent rockery revamp

I mentioned in previous posts that the main succulent rockery needed a bit os a revamp, the post can be found here. At the time the rockery looked like this:

The agave salmiana had already been removed along with the other plants being dug out, or moved to other locations in the bed. The rock was ordered, set out and finally we had a break in the rain and it was possible to plant it up. First filling the gaps in the exisiting section.  Where the aloe striatula was we planted a catus, a trichocereus pachanoi.

What looks like the wire cage around it, was testing out things that could be used to provide a cover for winter protection. There's still a couple of gaps to be filled, but they can be filled with pots until I decide what will fit.

Where the agave salmiana was there is now a little agave asperrima. My plant is only small so here is a photo of the mother plant at Crete Lodge.

The new plants still need to fill out to make that section more balanced with the left hand side.

As you can see the aloe polyphylla is flowering nicely this year.

The other side of the railway sleeper is the new extension to the bed.  The first plants to go in were the aloe polyphyllas, just infront of the post you can see the one that has been planted.  In the pot next to it, is the tripple headed that will stay in the pot this year and be planted next year when better established.

The main plants in this section are the twin yucca rostrata. This looks so much better now it is in a gravel bed and can be seen more clearly.  A good trim helped as well.

The second larger plant was suppose to be an agave montana. Again thanks to Melissa at Crete Lodge.  She found them for sale marked as agave montana, but they are obviously not pure montana, so either a hybrid or something totally different. Sometimes you find plants which are just being sold with the wrong name, and then you find plants which are just oddities. As we have no idea what it is, we have no idea how hardy it is, or how big it will get.  It all adds to the fun.

Also in the bed you can see the agave mitis var albicans.  This is a lovely form of A. mitis, much rarer and probaly not as hardy. It has been fine for me and as the idea will be to cover this bed to some degree I though it was worth a try.  The aloe saponaria variegata has proven hardy in the existing part of the rockery.

The other larger plants to go in here are the manfredas and in the future possible mangaves.  I have planted two manfreda gutattas as an initial test.  They have been fine cold wise when kept dry.   Plus with the flowering plant offsetting I have lots of them.

There are already quite a few smaller alpines mixed in, the great thing about rockeries is the play you canget between the plants and rocks.

Lots of space to fill out, which this year will be filled with pots.

It all looks a bit small compared to the established parts, so you will have to imagine to picture it all equalled out in a few years time. I'm pleased so far and if it ever stops raining it will look great in the sun.

Shifting from winter to summer

This weekend was another sunny one, so time to start unpacking the greenhouse and uncovering the succulent rockery.  It is a little earlier than I usually do this and still a little risky, but with no work trips in the next month I can move things back if any heavy frosts are forcast.

The succueltn rockery is planted to be hardy for London winters, this means the covers are more to keep the plants in top condition.  It therefore doesn't take long to take the two long vegetable cloches off.

There doesn't seem to have been any damage and if this summer is anything like last the growth will be amazing with such an early start. Most of the plants are well known to be hardy, like the yuccas, agaves and aloe polyphylla.

I was looking at the agave parryi hk1684 and like everything it has grown so much since being planted.  This has to be my favourite form.

Then you have the odd test plant.  In the Uk gastroaloes are becoming more common. These seem to be quite hardy and even in last cold winter they were all fine in my greenhouse so last summer one was planted out as a test, gasteria armstongii x aloe aristata.  It sailed through without problems.

There are a few major changes planned for the rockery this year.  Things have grown much quicker than expected and some of the plants have got too big, or just don't work in their locations.  So hopefully will have some good updates on the changes as we get into summer.

The flower update.

I have been keeping a close eye on the aloe polyphylla flower as it develops.

It took over 6 weeks to get to that size and the growth was really slow. Then we finally got a bit of warmth and that made a big difference. 

 Over the course of a long weekend it grew, coloured up and the individual flowers started to open.

It makes going and coming back from work each day interesting as thre is noticable change.

There are a few other aloes in flower in the garden, the usual A. aristata, and a hybrid A. aristata x A. variegata. The A. striatula are a little behind ssome so there should be overlap there. Plus my variegated clump of A. saponaria. 

I am going to leave polination to the bees, they love the aloe flowers and have got used to landing on them.  Strangely we don't seem to have any honey bees, it is worrying.  We do however have lots of bumble bees.  They have been very persistent working out how to get into the aloe and echeveria flowers. It's funny to watch them fighting their way in.

They actually have quite a few flowers to choose from at the momet, the succulent rockeries are putting on quite a show. Some are subtle, other not so much.

The purple is still not going down well with either the OH or the bees.  This is its third year in flower and still the bees don't go near it.  The very occasional one will land on a flower and then mover straight on.  The litte white dianthus on the other hand they spend ages on each flower and then move onto the next. 

The echeveria elegans river of flowers was better than ever.  In the evening the sun shines through them. I've been trying to get a photo, this is as good as I've managed so far. It still doesn't do it justice.

It seems the bees have got so used to succulent flowers they are confused when faced with anything else.  It seems Lilly flowers are just bad taste.

So are the Star of Bethlehem flowers. I love them, they really glow, but the bees don't seem to agree.

The plants are expensive in the UK, but I realised the bulbs are a fraction of the price.  So come autumn I will be planting a lot of these throughout the garden. They are currently part of the new bed, which is coming along.  There have been a few succulent purchases as the style developes. Hopefully we'll have a post on the new plants soon.

New year and a new project

I'm back from my winter hybination of not thinking about plants or computers. Today was such a lovely day, I thought it was perfect for my first post of the year.

March is my least favourite month; just when you think winter is over and your plants have made it through, the last grips of cold and wet mean things take a turn for the worse.  I am keeping a close eye on the forcasts to watch out for any real cold or long periods of wet, but until then the garden has been uncovered.

Forgive the mess on the terrace, more on that later.  The plants don't look at all bad, one agave filifera is going to need a big hair cut, and the agave nigras look a little worse for ware but that's it.  The agave nigras are starting to annoy me,  they were fine at the last house, but here just have to be cut back each year and are just starting to look good when we get to next winter.  May be time for a re-think on them.

The main group of agaves looks great with no damage.

I am especially pleased that agave parryi hk1684 is looking so good.

The aloe saponaria variegates seem untroubled by this winter.  We had two weeks of cold, but it was very dry and sunny at the same time, this obviously helped.

I may have to split them this year, keeping the best and moving the less interesting ones.

The only damage was to the echeveria agavoides red edge, and a few of the elegans in the echeveria river.

I took all the dead leaves off, and will see what happens this year.  They just don't seem to have much wet tolerance, the ones under a cloch were fine and totally undamaged. Such a shame as they are great plants when large and I was really hoping to have a row of big plants.

Anyway the big news as mentioned earlier is the new project.  Up until 3 weeks ago the view from the terrace was of this:

The garage, which apart from being ugly and too large, restricted access to a section of garden behind it, so time for the next stage in the garden plan.

Remove the old garage and the concrete pad to give an extra 3m of garden, and build a new smaller workshop behind.

It is great to have 3m more garden to play with, plus a little bit to the side of the new workshop.  Hopefully this will allow the final stages of the original garden design to fall into place.  No longer will the path end half way down the garden, or the olive have to sit in its pot waiting for a spot to be planted.

The most exciting part is the roof.

The idea is for a green roof, some hybrid between a traditional sedum matt and a more lush grass roof. Now I just need to figure out what I want and how much to allow space for growth or go for  instant impact.  Either way there will be regular updates as my plans progress.

Sadly the less interesting bits have to be sorted first, it will be a mud bath down there if the paths aren't put in. It makes sense to do the landscaping first and save the roof until all that is finished.  It will give me something to look forward to.

It's going to be a busy year.

Why wont you sprial ............

Aloe polyphylla is one of the ore cold tolerant aloes and also one of nicest.  They are really sort after in the UK mainly as pot specimen, although they look amazing as part of a rockery.  So when no surpise it was given a prime spot when planting up the succulent rockery.

They like more water than many aloes, so tend to like being in the ground. Mine romped away and there is no complaining about the growth rate.  But let's face it, we grow this plant for the spiral, which gives it such a structural look.  Not mine.

The brown tips show I have not been watering it enough, we are in the UK surely it shouldn't need watering.  Anyway, no spiral, not even the start of one.  I am sure I have seen much smaller ones than this with a good spiral.

When I try to focus and see any signs, I can someties convince myself that it is starting to spiral to the left and maybe this is what is slowing it down.  Most seem to spiral to the right.  In truth, I am kidding myself, it just doesn't want to play ball.

It is being fed and watered to keep it in better condition, and it better show some appreciation or it is going.  Ok, maybe not going, it is still the nicest aloe for the warmer parts of the UK. But it will at very least get a strong talking to.

Reasons to be cheerful

One, two, three..

1........ The first of the eremurus are showing.

I tend to loose interst in plants (and the internet) over winter.  It seems to be a way to avoid getting depressed by the cold and short days. Then as the days get longer and hotter, suddenly the garden and plants start to look interesting again.  Time is spent in the green house, the garden, and waking plants up with their first water of the year.  At this time the Eremurus wake up, poking above ground after staying hidden over winter. E. oase is the first up this year.

In the last garden E. stenophyllus was planted in the dry bed and came back reliably every year.  Both e. stenophyllus and e. oase were planted in the new succulent rockery last summer, hoping that they would cope without problems.  The first winter with any garden is always worrying, so it is great to see E. oase showing.  It is the plant that tells me to get back out in the garden again, if I wan't interested in the garden before, seeing them appear gets me outside again.. Does anyone else have a plant that signals the start of spring?

2.........  Plants looking good.

So far (as it could still turn) it's been an incredibly mild winter, which is a big relief with the plants being in for their first year.  The whole bed looks good.

Many plants like this agave filifera don't have a single mark.

The echeverias have their winter colour, especially the e. elegans

Even some of the trial plants like this sedum mediterranean mystery look like winter never happened.

It is a massive relief to have got through the first winter without loosing any of the big plants or any of the plants I was worried about. 

3...... Determination to survive.

I wouldn't be pushing my plants is everything survived and there wasn't some damage.  Remember my variegated aloe saponaria, shown here at the end of the summer.

This was always going to be a test, even the normal form is very marginal here. It doesn't look quite so good now.

But these plants don't give up without a fight and look closely and there is hope. The main plant may be toast, but the two pups look like they are going to be fine. This seems to be true with most of the damaged plants.  The first view is of the damage, this is my echeveria deresina x agavoides hybrid.

After the damaged section were removed the tip seemed fine and there were undamaged pups growing already.

This could all change if we have a cold end to winter. Unlike the rest of the world the Uk does not move from winter to spring to summer in a nice predictable way. It was lovely today and the forcast for the next few days are suppose to be good as well. Then next week it could snow and we could go back to freezing night until April. 

For now I am happily singing, "reasons to be chearful, one, two, three".

Watering by tropical storm

One of the things that makes the UK so strange climate wise is the influence of the jet stream. One of the aspects of this is that tropical storms move from across the Atlantic often end up here. This weekend it was the turn of hurricane Bertha. By the time it reached the UK it was no longer classified as a hurricane but still managed 50mph winds and lots of rain.  This was the first real rain we have had in weeks, so was welcome especially as the keen eyed among you will have noticed that the turf is down on the lawn, changing it from this:

To this:

I know lawns are not to every-ones liking, but for the time being this fills the space and gives the dog something to play on. Then in the future as the garden develops and the garage is pulled down it can slowly be reviewed with the final design.

The planting up has continued with some more sensible plants than the variegated aloe saponaria from the last post (found here). In the end the agave parrasana minor did go in and will just be covered with rain cover over winter.

The echeveria roseas have been removed as they really didn't work, more on that in another post. In their place goes agave ovatifolia.

It is going to be interesting how his one does. There are very few planted out in he UK, mainly because larger plants have not been available.  It should be fine, but the interesting bit is going to be how much damage it suffers or if like a. montana and a. bracteosa it sails though. 

Next up were a couple of echeverias, firstly e. black prince.  This was planted out in the last garden, so is proven to be fine.  The other is a really nice little hybrid sent to me by a lovely echeveria collector who has the most amazing collection.  Echeveria FO48 x echeveria elegans

Not the best photo, it is a small freely clump forming plant with a good white colour.  Apparently it is also proved to be hardy else where.  As it clumps easily, there are spares and this group could go in as a test. It would be amazing if the reports are true and another echeveria can be added to the hardy list.

The first cacti have also been added, there are a couple of planters full that have been left unprotected for the last few years, these seemed obvious contenders for spaces.  This oroya peruviana will stay nice and compact so shouldn't cause problems at the front of the rockery.

Having planted all this up, and done a fair amount of repotting for those staying in pots, everything was left to be watered. It seems appropriate that these plants originating from the other side of the Atlantic, got watered by the remains of a tropical storm.

Should I go big , or go risky?

The front section of the main succulent rockery is finished and stepping back it was good to see what gaps are left for bigger plants.  There are 3 or 4 nice spaces along the front ready for one of the agaves or other feature pants.

Looking at the available agaves raised the two issues I have been avoiding: do I risk the marginal, or favourite plants and how much space to allow for the future.

This agave parrasana fits perfectly next to the a. parryi group. 

There is a much smaller one planted elsewhere, but I am not sure I want to risk this one.  They have scrapped through in my old dry bed, but with damage and never really thrived. I suspect this is due to the small size of previous plants, but the only way to find out for sure is to plant this larger one. Do I risk it?

Another space is perfect for this agave franzonsinii

The colour is great and the plant has room to grow to around 1m.  Seems fine until you check on the stats and find that they can grow to 3m. Even 2m would swamp that location.

Maybe the agave mitis albicans would be a good substitute.

Much better size wise, but I've never seen one of these tested for hardiness. The normal form is fine for me, but white versions of plants never seem to do as well.  Besides such a nice plant and hard to get hold of, is it worth the risk?

Agave weberi latifolia then.

Apparently around 2m this one, which is on the large size. Plus it is the wide leaf version which is such a good plant. This one manages to fit into both categories.

From the wide leaf to the narrow, agave utahensis

The size is good, and it can take cold if kept bone dry.  I wonder if a cloche would be dry enough given it would be grown in almost pure gravel. It is so slow though, any damage really would take for ever to grow out. Probably not worth the risk.

Agave 'Cream Spike' would look great planted, especially as it is getting to a decent size now.  I think the plant has now been moved from agave parryi to agave applanata. They have been talking about it for ages.

No one in the Uk plants these out. It has been fine in the cold frame and even just left under rain covers in a pot, but again there is something final about planting it.  Does anyone know how these would cope?

I do have two agave gentryi waiting to go somewhere. This is the larger of the two.

No problem with hardiness if protected from the worst of any snow.  Again they can get really big, but I am guessing here would probably settle at around 2m. The other one is much smaller currently and is the 'Jaws' form with nice big gums and teeth.  I think I'll keep that one in a pot as a feature.

Apart from the immediate problem of finding plants to fill the gaps, it is going to make for a very interesting garden in 10 - 15 years time.  On top of large plants here, there are the 4 agave montanas, 2 agave salmianas, and a few variegated agave americanas. That is a lot of agave for a small garden, but when do we ever really think about the ultimate size our plants could get to.

While I decide, some of the remaining pots have been used to fill the gaps.

 

Moving the pots has freed up the old storage area for the next stage.

This is the area earmarked for more lush planting. Up until now the plants have been spred out and all succulents. The cycad on the left of this photo marks the start of the shift, the idea is to start mixing in other plants and for the everything to be packed together. I am guessing that most of the large agaves from this post will end up in here fighting it out with other plants in my version of a jungle.

But back to the immediate issue, do I risk my prized plants that wont outgrow the spaces, or plant the big ones and either move them later or worry about the overcrowding when it becomes an issue?