Spiky obsession

It has been stresfull in the garden with the issues with the succulents, but work hasn't stopped. I'll come back to the agaves in a later post, but today it's time to focus on what else is going in the succulent rockery.

There are a few flowering plants in amoung the agaves, the aim is ultimately to have bee friendly flowers available for the entire time the bees are around.

The vertical posts work to give you different views, with the odd splash of colour peaking out form behind them. This one is pulsatilla vulgaris, it's a delicate little plant which apparently will form little cumps about 20cm across. Sady the information suggests it's a little fussy, especially about root disturbance. Hopefully the position is out of the way and in a few years there will be a nice big clump. It would be good to see a group of these flowers filling the space.

Just noticed the lizard on the rock, a present from my neice, so while not my taste, it's allowed to stay. It gets moved every time the come over, so you never know where it will pop up next.

The next one, was a bit of a test, tulips are not something you probably think in relation to succulent gardens. Probably not something I ever expected to end up in the rockery. The jury is out, and it didn't help that they flowered on the one weekend we were away.

At least they were the dwarf form they were suppose to be. Other plants are not so well behaved. The main agave bracteosa has been a bit of a pupping machine since being planted. One of todays tasks was to take off all the unwanted offsets and decide if they could be re-homed. Here is mum after the offsets had been removed.

There were three plants all with roots, the largest was re-homed to another part of the rockery. These are so reliable, that they make a good backbone to the other more risky plants.

While planting, I also added an asphodeline lutea. It has been sitting in a pot since last summer. Originally this was going in the front, but a change of plan there required a re-think. Like the tulips the jury is still out on this one. The blue leaves are lovely and the flower spikes should be good. The question is if it will be too messy for the very structured succulent rockery.

They form clumps, but if it does stay I may be tempted to keep them as individual plants and scatter them about the garden as a repeating feature. Time will tell if this one makes the grade. There is going to be a more messy/jungly part to that bed, maybe they will end up there.

It was good to spend time in the garden not worrying about the agaves and instead getting on with planting for the second summer. If you are wondering about the eremurus, they are growing away. The e. oase especially is really strong and it looks like both plants will flower this year.

It is not quite the californian version of flowers and agaves, I am working up to that. There were however lots of bees around, so hopefully as the season progresses and more flowers open they will be happy.

It is fun at the moment, every evening working on a different part of the garden. Clearing the front, filling gaps in the succulent rockery or getting started on the shade garden. The area to the side of the new kitchen was a bit of a sun trap last year and it was always the plan to try and create more shade for a slightly cooler place to sit, should the sun decide to show up. Here's the area after the alpine rockery was built last year.

The section on the left with all the rocks was the area selected for a shade section. Unusually for me, instead of planning it was more a spur of the moment deciscion to get on with it. The original plants had come back with vengence, so that section had to be cleared again. Then the left over rock was used to form a raised section. It was time to see where the tree ferns would go.

The idea was to raise it as much as possible producing a shade rockery.

It looks strange with just the tree fern trunks, which should hopefully send out their fronds once they are actually planted into place and given copious amounts of water. The rocks look wrong as well without all the planting to hide them. There is already a rough planting list, but it needs to be gone through now the space is starting to take shape. Then it is a trip to one of the specialist nurseries with an excuse to buy lots of plants!

Looking from the small seating area, the other reason for the tall plants is more obvious.

The garden is overlooked, it would be nice to have a more private section, hidden away. Not that anyone actually looks in apart from to see how the garden is going.

It is really strange to be enriching the soil, adding lots of organic material instead of gravel and sand to make it suitable for succulents. That soil just looks rich and wet and so wrong.

Then there's the plants, so soft.

There will most likely be a few different ferns in there, this one is osmunda regalis ' purpurascens'. It has lovely bronze coloured stems and new leaves.

Hopefully this section of the garden will grow much quicker than the succulent bed, it should be lush and green by the July when hopefully it will be needed for sheltered spot to relax out of the sun.

While that sections settles, it will be back to the front garden and plans are being drawn up for that one.

Today was more like summer than spring, and getting back to the garden there was only one place to spend time. For all the work in the other parts of the garden, the succulents are still the stars.

The cycad rockery is getting warmed up for summer. This one should flush this year if it follows the bi-annual pattern it has in the past. It is being fed and watered in the hope of replicating the amount of water it would expect at this time of year. We are having a very dry spring this year, which is great for the other succulents, not so good for the cycads and alpines.

It is strange to think it was this time last year that the work on the garden was about to start. Lots of dirt, rubble and plants in pots.

Most of the plants have loved having their feet in the ground, plants that I struggled with before like the lampranthus roseus. It was tiny when planted, the photo below shows it last summer.

And now:

That is after a prune as well, it was getting a bit out of control, so it was hacked back. Other plants are looking less pristine as well, androsace sempervivoides always starts off as such a neat little plant,

Then it flowers and starts to spread out and I can never keep it looking this plush.

Hopefully this time the offsets will bulk up properly and it will get back to being lovely lush plants again. Given how many new plants there are, it would be an amazing group if it does.

The plants are starting to come out of their winter homes as well, the echeveria agavoides bowl was first. It has been outside for a few weeks now.

It is such a shame the flowers on agavoides are not stronger, but there is no complaining about the colour on these different forms.

There is so much to do when the sun comes out. Lets hope this is a sign of things to come this summer.

It is one of the more variable echervias, with the usual normal, variegates and cristates all being avaiable. Perhaps what sets it apart more is the number of different forms of e. agavoides and it is easy to becoe obsessed with them all. I posted about my collection of different forms back in August, here.

The red edged forms are mainly planted in the ground, but one is on a mixed bowl of some of the best forms.

Looking at them you would not guess the two red forms where e. agavoides. 'Sirus' is on the left and 'Romeo' on the right. The best thing about them is that they hold their colour and look this good all year.

The most sort after of the lot is e. agavoides ebony. Most of mine are now in one bowl which is filling out nicely now.

I am torn about the second largest of these, to me it looks more like red edge than ebony. Given how in demand it is you often see them sold as ebony when they are not. I had doubts when purchasing it, but the seller was really respected and so assumed it would grow into the colour. Sadly it looks wrong and may have to be removed from the pot when the next set of offsets turn up.

It could have been a genuine mistake. Most of mine came from seed and while most come true, some do not. Which leeds onto the pale green one. There is no doubt it is a mutated form of ebony, something has just changed to stop the dark pigment from being around the edge. Instead it is developing spots.

It is much slower growing than the normal form, it actually came for the same seed group as the largest in the bowl. There will be updates as it develops.

They will all be fed this year, assuming it is not too wet, so the bowls will look very different by the end of the summer. Hopefully, apart from faster growth there will be offsets as well. I look forward to both bowls overflowing with plants.

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.

This is one of my favourite aloes, it has such good colour and texture to the leaves. One of Kelly Griffin's hybrids and he was going for bumpy with this one. Originally I thought it was one of the small clump forming group. It has kept growing and has to be re-potted every year.

Thinking what to do this year, the decision was made to split it up see what happens. It offsets quite freely, so if the single plants don't work out, it wont be long before it clumps again.

Turned out to be quite a few plants, all with good roots.

The largest three were potted up to keep.

At least one of these will be spoilt this year, a big feature plant would look good out on display. Another may be added to the vertical pot wall to colour up.

The other plants potted up and will go into my supply for trades and friends. May use a couple to expiriment with over feeding vs not.

With so many plants to play with it seems an ideal oppertunity to be the first person to have one planted outside in the UK. I always get jealous of the US blogs that show plants collectors here go made for, buying them for their gardens.

I wonder how it will cope in a UK succulent bed. Mind you this may be taking my aim to have every plant as something special a litte too far.

This is a great time of year for the alpines; lots of flowers and the sempervivums are waking up. Over the last few years I have been adding named forms to my collection and have been keeping track of how they perform. Some

Some like S.'Titania' look great right now and make you think they have grown loads. (Photo below taken yesterday)

Until you look back at the summer photos and see that they have actually lost lots of leaves and actually look their best later in the summer. (Photo below taken last August)

Often you buy the at this time of year and they look spectacular, like S. 'Rosie' (photo taken yesterday)

So lush and a great colour, sadly it doesn't last and being alpines they may not like summer sun and lack of water. (Next photo taken last August)

Then you have the ones those that look good in summer, like S. 'Virgil' (next photo taken last august)

You think they look good all year only to see their spring colour, which really blows you away (next photo taken yesterday).

Finally you have the ones that look good all year and just keep growing. S.'Lion King' was slow to get going but has settled in now.

No matter which group they fit in, at this time of year they are all sending out runners with new plants on. Some snake out long distances, S. 'Lively Bug' sends out some of the longest. These are just getting started and will be two to three times as long in the end.

Others cluster their offsets forming tighter and tighter clumps. S. 'Green Dragon', is one of my favourite clumps right now.

And sometimes it is just good to look at them. This is S. 'Ohio Burgundy'

I have mentioned my search for hand made plant pots before, here and here. With nothing turning up in garden centres and shows, the search moved to the internet in the hope of finally finding something to use in this springs potting up.

It seems there are lots of hand made pots, but very few made for succulents in the UK. The first round of searching finally led to The Cats' Pyjamas, on Folksy. They had one little pot which looked like a good starting place.

So it turned up, very well packed, time to decide on what to put in it. Being small there were limited options, the plant needs to be slow growing and able to cope in very shallow pot. A few options

Agave albopilosa

May work, but will grow and need to be re-potted, so that one is out.

Something softer perhaps, echeveria galaxy hybrid.

To big already and will only continue to grow.

Something that will clump and then when it fills the pot do something interesting, abromeitiella chlorantha.

On the right track, maybe the pot is a little too clean for that one. This plant needs something more rugged.

That's when aloe haworthioides x descoingsii took the top spot. It is small and fairly slow growing. Clump forming and it will be interesting to see what it does when the pot is full. Wont need re-potting. It is softer than the abromeitiella with a very similar look. Plus the colour is great.

This is one of my favourite aloes, so it seems fit it ended up with the first posh pot.

I say first as having started the search it seems rude not to continue it. There are a couple more things in the pipeline so watch this space. Needless to say I now need a special pot for lots of my plants, it seems plant pot shopping is almost as addictive as plant buying.

It is that time of year and the succulents are starting to put on a show. This year is is a real variety of acts.

There's the mass flowers: Delosperma garnet

The mini flowers: mammillaria snowcap

The dramatic flowers

Worth a close-up

Finally the wierd flower: crassula 'Buddha's temple'

A first for me, and just strange.

I wonder what will be next act in the show.

Back in August aloe purple flush was my favourite plant of the week. (Post can be found here). I mentioned at the time that the only problem with the plant was that it doesn't produce many offsets. During the 6 or more years since purchase, it has only produced one.

I have been avoiding splitting it, one of those times when you know it is going to be fine, but worry anyway. A couple of professional gardeners / friends came over on Saturday (Note to self, think about the state of the garden before spontaneously inviting people like this over). The succulent fan among them loved this plant as well and agreed that potting up may produce more offsets. Yesterday evening it was time to re-pot it and to see if it could be split. The pot turned out to pretty much pure root, so it took longer than expected to tease out the roots. Once that was done it was quite easy to pry them apart.

As part of the new aim to keep into of the watering and feeding this one should do well. Sadly it will be mixed blessings as if looked after better it will loose that amazing colour.

Now they have more space, hopefully there will be a few more offsets.

Last weekend it was the first plant fair of the year, this one at Savil Gardens. I try and go every year, meeting up with friends who normally laugh at my complaints that the only plants to buy are sempervivums. This year with the new sections in the garden there was actually an opportunity to buy different plants. Sadly I forgot my camera, so only have photos of the plants once safely back in the garden.

Typically what was the first stall there, a succulent one! They have never been there before and had a great selection. I really wasn't looking for any more non-hardy plants but couldn't resist these three miniature haworthias.

The main part of the fair was more traiditonal plants, usually specialist forms which make the trip worth while. One of the best purchases was mahonia soft caress.

A friend had recomended it for a corner in the shade garden. It is under my OHs studio window, so there were strict instruction that any plants were not to obscure the light. This should get up to sill height, or maybe just wave the tips of its delicate leaves in view without worry of it getting bigger. This was on my list of plants to look for, I almost missed it, thankfully the same friend pointed them out before we left.

Then there were the random buys like this veronica gentianoides.

The blue is much more defined than in the picture, which makes up for the slightly boring leaves. That corner gets a bit more sun than the rest of the section, so should be fine there. It is definitely lighting up the space at the moment.

I'm still very much finding my way with the non spikie plants, buying them the same way I buy succulents: just because I like the look of them. No doubt there is going to be a lot of re-planting in the shade areas to make it more interesting year round.

Back onto something I am more confident about, the alpines. The usual stall was there and instead of just going for sempervivums which I have enough of at the moment, there was a great range of other interesting plants. My favourite mounding plant was there scleranthus biflorus. I have tried this a couple of times in pots and have been looking for it to go in alpines rockery.

It was also an opportunity to ask where I had been going wrong. The consensus was lack of water in the height of summer. So the area was dug out a bit and more soil added in the hope of stopping it drying out too quickly.

I also picked up a cotula hispida, although haven't decided where this one is going yet.

A total suprise find was this crassula sarcocaulis.

I've been looking for a bonsai tree style alpine for years, hoping this will fit the bill. A few pieces have already been taken to propagate and once settled in it may be trimmed to get a better shape. I should have bought a few to experiment with. Hopefully now I know the name, I'll be able to find more online.

The alpine bed is now filling up, and the shade area is well underway although still lots of space for new plants as well.

It is great at this time of the year, everything seems to be sending out new offsets or splitting. So it great that even the larger plants are at it.

One of the yuccas that seems to be getting more popular in the UK, is yucca aloifolia purpurea. The opinion on hardiness seems to vary, so far it has not done too badly and has settled into the succulent rockery.

Seems to hold its colour well, although will turn green if kept in the shade for any period of time.

Back in March I noticed an offset poking it's head above the gravel. It has grown at a good rate and been joined by a second in the last couple of weeks. The oldest now has a few leaves and is starting to develop the distinctive purple colour, the new one is just getting going.

If it carries on like this, it's gong to be a pest like the normal form. Can't be digging up the offsets all the time.

The only cordyline currently in the garden is the more unusual cordyline karo kiri. Another of the test plants. The last one didn't do well in a pot over winter, this one in the ground was fine for this mild winter.

Please forgive the photo which makes it look like the cycad is growing out the top.

Photos on the internet show it as a clustering plant and someone in the UK has one which was damaged and sent out side shoots. In fact when the original plant died, it sent out a few new shoots from the base. In the Uk you usually see them as solitary plants.

It needs to offset as with on one stem it's starting to look a little leggy, and in this garden that only ends one way: with the plant being cut up. So was please to see that there are a few offsets / new shots forming form the base.

Lots of new shoots there to give a nice bushy plant. I am going to have to make sure I water and feed it over the first part of the summer to get some good growth, then consider what to do come winter.

All these new babies in the garden, it should be a much fuller rockery by the end of the summer. If it every stops raining that is.

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.

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.

Many garden bloggers seem to track the progress of their garden if not individual plants, often posting photos of plants in previous years. It is definitely a simple way to record the growth of plants, one I use a lot.

Sedeveria letizia July 2014

Sedeveria letizia May 2015

Sadly not all plants show a lot of change between photos and so other methods of recording growth have to be used. It is sad how geeky I get over this.

So the first method is a simple ruler.

Arenaria aurea May2015

This works fine for plants that actually get bigger, but the agaves were the plants that kept frustrating me. I started thinking about marking the latest leaf, at first using nail polish on the terminal spine. For a while we had quite a few very bright terminal spines.

In the end I found the solution on one of the plant forums, in which someone placed washers over the terminal spine. So simple.

Now I simply place the washer on the newest leaf at the start of spring and at the end of summer, even if there was no obvious growth, it's possible to see how many new leaves there are.

There have been a few questions about the washers, but a lot less than about the neon nail polish. Does anyone else have strange methods to track the progress of their plants?

The two aloes that are more commonly found in UK gardens are a. aristata and a. striatula. You would think a hybrid between them would be interesting. I have only ever found one and sadly is doesn't look good.

This photo was taken a few years ago, but they haven't changed that much. Maybe if they continue to grow they may do something.

You would think with those parents hardiness wouldn't be a problem. Sadly it's not the case and they have proved not to be hardy even in my London garden. About the only good thing about loosing them over winter is it forces them to offset and you get pups.

Obviously with the new dry bed, it had to be tried once more. Inevitably the result was the same, the stem rotted leaving this:

Not a surprise. Although the top can probably be re-rooted for a change. We only had -3c as the low, so it shows how little it has inherited in hardiness.

There are a good number of pups as well. There is change though, take a closer look at the pups.

Each is variegated to some degree. Normally I would put this down to lack of light, but that can't be the case here. It is not unheard of with succulents, they can often start off variegated just to build your hopes, then switch back to fully green.

So what are the chances even one of these will stay variegated. The normal form may not be very interesting, a variegated one may just make up for that and warrant protecting over winter.

The problem with finding something you have searched for, is rarely does it seem to end the search. So having finally found the first pot, you can see the post here, it was already starting to look like the search would continue.

In today's internet driven world, it is amazing how quickly everything becomes an international search. Those of you in the USA have a big advantage here, there seems to be an established community of suppliers catering to the succulent market. The UK is a long way off that, although we do have a a few bonsai pot suppliers, more about that in a future post.

So the second set of pots came all the way from Thailand and an Etsy shop called Coffee Morning.

Again they are not large, the biggest about 3" across the smallest only 1". It was only suppose to be two pots, but they very kindly added the smallest as a gift. They arrived really well packed so there was no need to have worried how they would cope with the long trip.

The idea was originally going to be to fill them with haworthia, but they are too nice to hide away so instead have been planted up with things that can be out on display in the summer. The smallest has a small clump of echeveria minima. The hope is to keep the tiny by constricting the roots.

They tend to form clumps quickly so it should be a good little pot by the end of the summer. I will probably trim the roots each year to encourage it to stay small.

For the medium pot it was echeveria golden towers.

It is one of the more vertical style of echeverias and can be trained by trimming the branches. It has been a while since I had one in good enough condition to flower, but I seem to remember the flowers are good as well. This plant has been neglected for a couple of years, due to the move, so it's perfect timing to start again.

Finally the large pot and for this abromeitiella chlorantha had been set aside.

This plant was an offset from a clump split a few weeks back during some re-potting. It already has new offsets forming, so should fill that pot out nicely over the next few years.

So there you have them, all planted and ready to be put somewhere they can be admired.

I like the little feet on the two larger ones, it helps ensure the pots dry out and stops the surface they sit on from getting that dirty pot mark.

This is not the only purchase, there are a few more on there way from different locations around the world. Maybe at the end of the summer I'll do an update with all the pots and have a vote on which one works best.

The sad thing is, the whole reason for starting this search was to find two larger pots for specimen plants. A few purchases later, and some nice new pots, but nothing big enough for the plants I am looking for. It seems like plant buying, often you end up with far more than you set out to look for.

I have had agave bracteosa 'monterrey frost' for a few years now.

Given how hardy the normal form is, I though I would try it outside over winter. Given it was in a pot, it was easy to move it if real cold was forcast, or if it started to look ill. This may have been a mistake.

Almost all the leaves are badly spotted. Given my experience lately and observation from forums, it seems once plants get this type of spotting it only gets worse. So instead of sitting there waiting to see what happens, I decided to remove it from the pot, remove al the soil and any leaf that had even a slight mark on.

The good thing is was that like the normal form it seems to like to offset; not only did it have the pup visible in the photo above, but 4 under the soil.

Removing the leaves was easy, but drastic

Yep not much left. I have never cut back an agave this much, it has been taken back to the very central core. At the same time, it has been re-potted with a thick layer of gravel to keep the surface dry. Hopefully with new soil and all the damaged leaves removed it will recover and stay un-spotted. I will probably spray it with a fungicide as well, just to make sure.

I'm not going to show the pup, it's too distressing to see it hacked back to the very central leaves. It will be interesting to see how it copes with the stress. Pups off the normal form are as tough as old boots, but who knows how the variegated ones will behave.

It has been a bad start to the year for the agaves and yuccas, one major decision to go, but that is for another post. Hopefully these actions will be an end to it. Having always had clean plants, it is strange to having to be removing damaged leaves. I'm looking forward to having nice spotless plants again.

We actually had an alost sunny weekend at last. The winter may have been mild, the spring dry, but so far there has not been uch heat. As soon as the sun comes out my mind and camera turn to the rockery.

I know a lot of people are not fans of lawns, but I love mine for no other reason that I can sit up on and look up into the rockery. It gives you a different set of views.

Starting to get a bit more height in the plants with the aloe striatula and the euphorbia griffithii fireglow.

You can see the eremurus oase in the background is now working up the stem.

I noticed today that the stem leans but strangely the flowers that are open form an exactly horizontal line. There are more flowers open on one side than the other, and this keeps a level row of flowers despite the lean.

Not as dramatic but the arenaria aurea gets better every day. Small but quite strongly sented, it took me a while to figure out where it was coming from.

These and all the echeverias in flower means there are probably at the flowering peak now. As the summer continues, the leaves get into growth and it is the structure that takes over. I'm going to have to get more balance in the other parts of the garden as the bees are going to be very upset when this lot of flowers is over.

Whenever a parcel turns up it is always fun, the un-wrapping and first view of the item. Normally I am not too bothered by the wrapping but this one was different. What was in the box? Two more boxes:

It then started to rain, so a quick move inside to open the final layer. Only to find another two boxes, and I'm starting to get a feeling of deja-vu. This 5th box looks different, maybe this time:

Nope, another box. Have I got caught up in a game of pass the parcel. This one is must be the final one:

No more boxes, but more protection hiding the contents.

Finally the contents are revealed. That was some packing, 6 boxes is going above and beyond to ensure they get there in one piece.

So this set of pots came from the UK, a father and son team of potters called Erin Pottery. They specialise in bonsai pots, and have a great set of pots on their website. It took me a while searching through to find ones that were a little deeper. I ended up with a few different forms to play with.

So going from the smallest to largest. One of my favourite miniature aloes, a. descoingsii var descoijngsii.

A very compact little plant and clumps up nice and quickly. It has tiny pink flowers, which are on a massively long stem. I did try to photograph the whole thing, but had to get so far away you coudn't actually see the flowers. I can highly recomend this little plant to any aloe fan.

The next pot was perfect for one of the new agaves. A. albopilosa is a very recent discovery and up until this year has only really been available through seeds.

Mine were seed grown and this one is hopefully about to develop the tufts that made the categorisation as an agave controversial. If you have not seen the photos of the adult plants, go and do a quick search they are lovely. They are just starting to appear as plants for sale if you can't be bothered with seeds. The pot will give it plety of room to grow and should at least last it a couple of years.

The next pot is about the same size, but has a wavey edge which is lower on one side. I think they are officially known as "freeform pots". It took a while to decide on what to plant it up with; a clumping plant that will flow over the edge or something more bonsai like. In the end it was one of my dudleyas, I think it is D. farinosa but the id has never been certain.

The plant is quite slow to get into growth after winter, so the jury is out as to whether this will work or not, it may be a little heavy for the pot. What do you think?

Finally the largest pot. Originally the dudleya was going to go in this one, but then thought of my crassula buddha's temple.

The flower seems to keep going, I have got used to it now and it doesn't look as wierd.

I am hopeful that some of these plants are going to turn into even better features pots over the summer. I may even be tempted to show a few of them if they develop nicely. At least the pots are up to show standards.

So still not pots for the two plants that need it. Maybe in the next set. BUt my collection of hand made pots is growing rapidly.

Some colour and some planting.

A bit of work on the shade garden

Back to the succulents

The echeveria agavoides bowls

First proper work in the greenhouse.

Cleaning up the aloe viper.

Spring Alpines: part 1.

Another slippery slope.

Time for some flowers

Finally plucked up the courage

A mixed bag

Yucca and cordyline get in on the act

The succulent flower part 2.

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

Tracking change

If only.

Are pots the new obsession

Time for some drastic action

It is almost colourful in the succulent rockery.

What's in the box?