Lots of flowers? Must be spring!

"Hey, come and have a look at this," said Pammy, ever the eagle-eyed spotter of all things newsworthy in our garden. We had to get down on our hands and knees, and be up very close, but there it was — the complex, gorgeous mini bloom of our potted succulent. I think it's a graptoveria, but as a succulent amateur I am at all times willing to be corrected on these things. Doesn't matter really, it's the wonderful mini other-worldliness of tiny blooms that had us both captivated.

It's a bit orchidy, this succulent flower, with its red-wine flecks on pearlescent petals.


Even I could spot the next of our spring awakenings — a huge spray of not-quite-yet-open yellow dendrobium orchids.


This spring show has been a few years in the making, as this plant has never flowered before. Over the last few years I have tried my hardest to be nice to it, but without any success. It has always lived with all the other orchids, which manage to flower their heads off like clockwork. But the dendrobium? Nah, sorry. Once all the flowers open fully, I will no doubt do another posting.


This next pink one, a climbing pelargonium, is one of the success stories of my "recovery ward". I bought three plants, put them in a hanging basket in a sunny spot, where they then proceeded to do very little, then started to die off. While I can accept that the fault is all mine, what bugs me is that I didn't have a clue what I was doing wrong.

So I rescued the final, barely surviving plant, repotted it into a smaller, normal pot and it has been keeping my orchids company in a more sheltered spot for the last year or so. And now it's looking happy again. Should I attempt to move it back to the hanging basket? Well, that is why I bought it ... but I am beginning to see that as the "hanging basket of doom" and I can't quite work up the bravery to try it yet.




Next in the spring slideshow is good old, never-fail, grow-them-every-year poppies. Pam loves them. Pam cuts them for vases in our house. And this year we have yellow, white and orange poppies. Lovely.



It's nice to be appreciated. The deal is, if I am nice to my lemon tree and scatter lots of chicken poo under the tree and water it well, the lemon tree produces lots of flowers, and a few months later, lots of fruit. So far it's all going according to plan. 


Even though evergreen Sydney springs aren't quite as spectacular as they are in colder climates, they're still a delightful time to be a gardener. As well as the flowers I have posted here, yellow clivias and vivid orange scadoxus aren't far off blooming, and the native orchid flower buds are all jostling for a good spot ... but I'll call a temporary halt at this stage. Lots to look forward to!

Meet the B Team

Some people ask "when is it a good time to repot succulents?' and, if today is anything to go by, the answer might be "when you feel guilty".

Folks, it's time to meet the much neglected, but freshly repotted, B-team of my succulent collection. As you can see from the glamorous photo below, the first time our gas meter has made it into this blog, this gaggle of potted succulents looks like they are well kept and much cared for. Nothing could be further from the truth!

When I planted out my backyard succulent patch, transferring
my potted collection to their new home in the ground, there were
many potted leftovers. Some went to good homes as gifts, a few
were left out in the street with a "Free Plants" sign nearby (and
they all went in an hour or so). But a selection of them stayed
on for duty as the "B Team". Their job was to provide backup
plants in case any plants in the ground failed. Well, that didn't
happen, and so the B Team has hung around down the side of
the house, where the garbage bins and gas meter reside. And
so I mostly forgot about them, except to wince slightly every
week when putting out the garbage. "Must repot those succulents,
or get rid of them, or something else" I have said to myself
many times, and so today, Good Friday, I felt guilty.

These haworthias were in a miserable clump of slumped potting
mix that rose no higher than halfway up its pot, and they didn't
seem to mind at all. But I did, so today I broke up the whole clump
and have turned this into three pots of these guys, which look
like they were designed by Gaudi, the Barcelona Cathedral guy.

This graptoveria (?) was thriving on neglect, sprawling out of
its pot and monstering its neighbours. I snipped off the wanderers
and there's still plenty of colour and action going on here.

Same deal with this... graptopetalum (??), loving the side
passageway, a diet of natural rainfall and no other assistance.

Finally, this utter weirdo has also grown.
Half an hour of Googling seems to indicate that
this might be Euphorbia tirucalli, a stick-like
thing without leaves. A neighbour who was
moving house gave it to me, but neither Pam
nor I particularly liked it. I just kept on
growing it for curiosity's sake – to see what it
actually "did". Answer... not much, although
it too has grown well in the alleyway of shame.

To compound all my crimes, it being Good Friday none of the gardening centres were open, so all I had for potting mix was ordinary potting mix, a bag two-thirds full. Still left over from the succulent garden revamp were two full bags of washed, coarse sand, so I mixed some of that into the potting mix (50:50) to create enough mix for all the repotting. I'm working on the theory that as the backyard in-ground succulent garden, which is about 50% coarse sand now, is belting along nicely, then that sand is the magic ingredient which makes my succulents grow. Plus crossing your fingers, that helps too.

I also have a couple of bags of white pebble mulch left over from the makeover, and it really helps to make the repotted succulents look snazzier, doesn't it?

And so that's the B Team's moment of glory. Repotted, photographed and blogged about. Autumn has barely begun here in Sydney, as summer is hanging around like it doesn't want to end. It has been very warm and humid for the last few weeks, with overnight temperatures still up in the 20s (°C) and days in the high 20s and low 30s. Today is cooler, good repotting weather, and hopefully there'll be a couple more months of autumn for the B Team to get growing. I'll check on their progress every garbage night!

Talking heads

There's a famous TV ad here in Australia that has become part of our folklore, and the line that everyone remembers from that ad is "oh my God, the chips!". This refers to the person who puts some potato chips on to deep-fry, then the phone rings, then the conversation distracts her.... next thing you know the kitchen is on fire. Hence "Oh my God, the chips".

This morning, I had a far less fiery, far less dangerous moment, when it occurred to me "Oh my God, the succulents!". As it turns out, it has all worked out rather well. The shed hasn't burnt down, the fire brigade was not needed, and Pam's mum is getting some more succulent cuttings coming her way. When I realised that I had completely forgotten about some leaf cuttings I had taken for her, about five weeks ago, I wondered what had become of them.

Life, babies, new succulents coming through, that's what! Talk about a ferocious will to live, this little graptoveria (well, I think it's one of those) is ready to be put in a pot.

Several weeks ago, I had uprooted numerous baby succulents as complete plants, potted them up then took them up to Pam's mum, Val's, snazzy new townhouse. Val is a great gardener, and though she has downsized the residence there's still sunshine and space, both on the front porch and sunny rear balcony, to grow herbs, succulents and flowers in pots. In addition to the rapid-start bunch of potted whole plants we took up to her, I took some leaf cuttings from assorted succulents and left them in an old metal baking tin in the shed, to dry off for a couple of weeks prior to potting on. And then I forgot all about them.

This morning, when my brain finally kicked into gear, I went out to check on them, and all of them have sprouted babies and roots and want to get down to business. All I really need to do is lay them down on some lightly moistened soil, and they'll do the rest.

I liked the look of these little sprouted heads so much I arranged them in a circle, like a bunch of talking heads in the village square solving the world's problems, or at least exchanging the latest juicy gossip.

Succulents are plants which really don't need a gardener at all. I imagine that if leaves are broken off by passing animals, then scattered on the ground, those leaves will soon enough sprout roots and up will come another succulent plant, and so the hardy little colony grows. I know I've said this before, but out in the garden, I keep on saying to myself: "Ain't Nature wonderful?"

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.

Raindrops

Beggars definitely cannot be choosers, and as a gardener who only recently begged Huey for a bit more rain I can hardly complain that he/she has left the tap running. Our average rainfall for February is 117mm; it's Feb 8 and already we have had 141mm. Hardly a deluge, but it's plenty. This morning there was a gap in the rain and it all looked so pretty that I whipped out the camera and came back with some snaps a few minutes later, because it had started raining again.

The berries on my curry leaf tree are turning black, and I really should get out there and remove them all, as these trees are gaining a reputation as a weed. Birds eat the berries, fly a few kilometres and while in some native bushland, leave a berry behind as birds naturally do. But right now it's too wet to harvest berries, and besides, they look so pretty.

The native floating fern called nardoo, which is thriving in my potted water garden, holds onto raindrops in much the same way as nasturtiums do – as if each droplet is a little pearl.

My goldfish, John, Paul and George don't care much about the rain, but I do worry a bit when the water level in the pot gets right up to rim-level (they're frisky little fellers), and so I bail out a couple of inches of water each morning.

Most people understandably think of succulents as dry-climate, waterwise plants, but these are often at their prettiest when wet. This is Agave attenuata.

And I'm not exactly sure what this person is. I suspect it's a 'graptoveria' but it could be an echeveria, maybe a graptopetalum. Frankly, I don't really have a clue, but its light blue colouring looks lovely in the wet morning light.

The potted cumquat tree is covered in white, gently fragrant flowers and green baby fruits, not to mention glossy green leaves. And raindrops.

The soil's getting the good soaking it badly needs, I've enjoyed a weekend of rest because there's nothing to do out in the garden, and all the plants are loving the deep drink. If anyone up in heaven reads blogs, please remind Huey to turn off the tap over Sydney. We've had our fill, thanks, but surely there's somewhere else which is bone dry and needs a good drink right now.