Toothy grins

I love watching plants go through the build-up to flowering. Some send up stalks plump with promising fat buds that advertise their coming delights to patrolling bees and other insects. Others are much more modest about their sex life, just popping out without fanfare, 'doing it' briefly, then resuming operations as if they're glad that awkward business is over for another year.

However, in the case of the star turn in our garden this afternoon, the little succulent Faucaria, it has being "going to" flower for a few weeks now, and today it's saying to every bee in the backyard "look at me, look at me". I can understand its desperation to be loved, too. It does have a rather unfortunate smile, a 'toothy' grin of multiple fangs that makes it look like it's a relative of carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly trap. It does look alarming. In fact it's nothing of the sort. It's just another weirdo in a succulent universe full of weirdos, and our weirdo is in love with life, trying to make babies once again.

And so here it is in flower, yellow daisies basking in the sunshine.

Two weeks ago, see what I mean about its little image problem?
Those things looking like lurid tongues protruding between its teeth
are the flower buds. Slowly but surely the faucaria developed a
whole ullulation of flower bud tongues, ready to burst into full
noise when the moment came.

Each flower is filled with pollen, ready for the bees to visit.

The botanical name of 'faucaria', rather unsurprisingly, means 'animal mouth'. This is a native of Cape Province and the Karoo Desert in South Africa (hi you guys!). I don't know the species name of mine, it doesn't quite match the photos I have checked out online. Maybe it's some subspecies of Faucaria felina, that's my best guess.

As for how to grow it, all I've done is plant it in free-draining soil in a spot that gets lots of sunshine. I let it survive on our natural rainfall, and I don't feed it (although I did apply a seaweed liquid a few times, to encourage the roots to grow). I do pull out weeds that try to muscle in on its territory, but that's about it. Since I planted it out from its pot into the ground, it has spread a bit further, but it is a slow-grower. That's fine by me, I hope it bursts into bloom same time, next year.

Succulent season

Though succulents are usually thought of as tough, water-hardy plants which are built to survive hot, dry summers, the other side of their nature is that they don't really like summer all that much. Like most garden plants (and people), they much prefer autumn and spring. Right now they're growing and flowering, and looking lovely.

Faucarias, with their python-like jaws of spiny teeth, look quite savage at other times of year, but now, in autumn, they're home to dainty, yellow daisies.

Sempervivums are simply growing well now. I repotted these last spring and am hoping that by next spring they'll have filled the bowl with maroon-tipped, pale green rosettes.

It's the same story with the graptoverias. Repotted last spring, growing well now, hopefully looking a grey-blue picture of abundance by next spring.

Sometimes, when I look at my haworthia, I think of these as being like some kind of crowded futuristic city designed by Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi. They're showing more complex colours now and are growing so fast they'll start climbing up and over each other. I'd like to see that!

Gasteria bicolor has never looked particularly bicoloured to me, at least until this year. Hopefully this is how it's meant to look. It's producing babies now, so I presume all is well, but as my knowledge of succulents is pretty limited, I often look at some of them and wonder 'is that normal, are you OK?'.

And so low are my expectations for this lithops, the living stone plant, that all I want for it is survival. When I repotted it into its nice little blue pot, I discovered that it was planted straight into gravel. OK. And then after a very wet month one of the two original lithops people shrivelled and died (that's when my low expectations really kicked in). Since then, this rather cute little survivor-person hasn't grown, hasn't died, hasn't done anything, and I'm delighted!

Several other succulents in my little potted conclave known as Succulent City are sending up flower spikes now, and there's never a dull flower in Succulent City. While these plants do store water to survive summer, the fact is they just go into survival mode over the hot months, then shout 'hooray' when autumn comes and then go into growing and flowering and baby-making mode during the cooler, wetter months. Around here, autumn is the real succulent season.

Succulent offerings

Rainy day at last in parched old Sydney, and so there's not a lot more for gardeners to do other than watch the gentle rain fall and greedily wish for a bit more rain (please, pretty please, Huey, open up those heavens). Even my succulents are enjoying the rain, and so I thought a quick (for me) five-photo lap of my succulent patch is a nice way to end this quiet afternoon, much of which has been spent in the kitchen, my favourite place of refuge on rainy days.

Without a doubt the star of the potted succulent collection is this person, Crassula 'Campfire'. Yes, I've featured it recently on my blog, and that's because every time I go out into my garden I can't help but popping over to visit it and say hello. And as I often have my camera with me, it's like a much photographed favourite child. Can't take too many snaps! The red tips are the seasonal colour. By mid summer it's just a pleasant lime green.

This is the new kid on the block. I suspect it's also a Crassula but I'm still trying to find out what it is. I bought it at our local Marrickville Street Fair recently, for $3, and it's still in its boring little black plastic pot, but I'll repot it in the next day or so. I prefer terracotta pots for succulents. As terracotta is a natural substance it 'breathes', just like a cotton shirt does, and so it's less sweaty inside than plastic pots, which are just like icky sticky nylon shirts. And I don't think succulents want their roots drenched in humidity. Well, that's my theory at least! I'm a terracotta pot boy at all times, even if the pots do dry out more rapidly.

This chap is thriving at the moment. It's a Faucaria, and I suspect its species name is tuberculosum, but I can't quite find any photos that are exactly like mine. However, the pix I've Googled of tuberculosum come closest, so I'm sticking with that for the meantime. Interestingly, I long ago christened this plant Jaws, and it turns out that the name Faucaria is a latinised version of the word for jaws, and the common name for this plant is Tiger Jaws. So Jaws it is. At first glance it looks like a carnivorous plant, but it's not. It's as ferocious as a kitten.

Finally, here's a little story of different foliage colours in the same plant. Both the plant pictured above and the one below are Senecio jacobensii. In fact one plant has been grown from cuttings taken from the other. But that was a few years ago and now I'm not sure which is the parent and which is the child. The one above has pale pinky-purple tips and light green leaves...

And the other one has much darker pinky-purple tips and seems a bit healthier all-round. The one I'll call 'pale guy' gets more sun, while 'darker guy' gets a bit less sun. Both are in same pots, same potting mix. Maybe the difference in the sunshine explains it all, but I have a sneaking suspicion pale guy isn't well. I'm keeping an eye on this pair...

Once the rain lifts enough for me to get outside I'll repot the new guy and maybe treat all of Succulent City to a light feed. Spring is a time when they put on a bit of growth and store up energy for surviving the summer. Their other growth spurt seems to be autumn, after summer is over. And that's one thing I think I've learned about succulents.

While they're famous for their hardiness in hot, dry weather, they don't seem to do their growing then. They're just in survival mode in summer, living off their stored-up reserves of moisture and energy. Many of them come from climate zones with dry summers and wet winters, and so they use winter and spring to get back in shape, then they survive summer's heat without trying anything fancy, then bounce back with a bit of growth in autumn, once the rains arrive. Or at least that's how I understand it.

So, if I feed them lightly now, with a specialised succulent liquid food which is low in nitrogen, that's about all the care and attention they'll need from me until next autumn, when I'll feed them again. Our fairly plentiful natural summer rainfall here is more than enough for their needs, and in fact sometimes it's too much and a few don't make it through the humidity of our summers. But right now they're enjoying themselves, and I'm enjoying watching them do so.