Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – April 2013

I’m usually not organized enough to participate in Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day with May Dreams Gardens but this month I have a bunch of blooms and I’m ready!

Most of my true annual volunteers are still looking pretty good.

All the plants in the foreground of the above shot are volunteers. Oh how I love free plants!

Zaluzianskya capensis bloomed all winter but the warmer it gets the more abundantly it blooms and the more fragrant it is. I’ve seen others criticize it for not being very exciting but I think the shrubby little plants are quite attractive and when the blooms open in the afternoon it is gorgeous.

Linaria reticulata ‘Flamenco’ is still blooming like crazy. A few at the front (where they receive less water) are starting to peter out.  I’m wondering if I will get any new seedlings and bloom for the season or if I am going to have to fill this big area of the garden with a few summer bloomers.

Urinia anthemoides were a huge success this year and many are still in full bloom.

Geranium maderense has survived the wind storms and has been putting on a show for the past month.

Clianthus puniceus from New Zealand deserves better placement in the garden than I gave it.  It has long stems that get weighted down by the large flowers so they end up hanging down pretty close to the ground.  Closer to the front of a raised bed or large container is my suggestion for anyone growing this neat plant.

Sutherlandia frutescens from South Africa is a similar pea flowered plant but a little more delicate. This one bloomed in just one year from seed despite some rough handling. First it got swamped by some Lotus growing nearby, then it got tromped on and snapped in half by construction workers, I dug it up just in time before they could do more damage and it surprised me with new growth and new blooms in the gallon pot it calls home now.

Echium gentianoides ‘Tajinaste’ is basically a smaller and more airy and delicate Echium candicans.

Most of my succulents are living in containers in the backyard. Awaiting some future garden. My Aloe dorotheae surprised me with a beautiful organe and green inflorescence.

I’m very glad I kept two Craspedia globosa in my mediterranean garden.

Hymenolepis parviflora has become a nice little shrub. It bounced back quickly after an attack by caterpillars last month.

I have tons of ladybugs which is a good thing because I also have tons of aphids.

A few Coreopsis gigantea flowers remain.

I snapped this photo of a Dudleya pulverulenta inflorescence just in time. A few days later my neighbors large dog escaped confinement and went on a rampage through my garden.  She snapped stems and small plants left and right. My future garden will have a fence to keep out neighbors dogs as well as marauding deer.

Euphorbia mauritanica in bloom looks pretty sticky and a bit sinister up close.

I am sure that there are some people who would consider Chrysanthemum paludosum a potentially noxious weed. A six pack of plants last year became thousands this year. But they are very easy to edit out and much more charming and longer blooming than perennial Chrysanthemum hosmariense that I also grow. They have become one of my “must have” plants.

I’ve posted about Thymus juniperifolius a few times.  In full bloom you can’t even see the foliage that gives it its Latin name.

Convolvulus sabatius is a tough and reliable plant for California gardens.

I had no luck with Penstemons last year. I planted many and they all withered and died. I’m trying again this year with various P. heterophyllus cultivars.  This is ‘Margarita BOP’.

Lavandula stoechas ‘Boysenberry Ruffles’ is pretty spectacular despite the fufu name.

Up close the bicolor blooms are pretty intense.

I like the overall form of this Lavandula stoechas ‘Blue Star’ (even though it is a bit floppy).

But up close the flowers are a bit stunted compared to other L. stoechas cultivars. The jury is still out on this one for me.

I’ll have to check my notes but it seems like this Mentzelia lindleyi has been blooming for about two months. Very rewarding since it is a California native and it was also a free volunteer. This winds have battered it a bit but it is still going strong.

I posted this little vignette last week but this week the Euphorbia ‘Blue Haze’ is in full bloom.

The first blooms of Berlandiera lyrata are opening up. It is well worth getting down on the ground to get a whiff of the amazing hot cocoa smell of these flowers.

Last year I was quite disappointed with Eccremocarpus scaber ‘Cherry Red’. It just sort of sat there looking sad all summer.  Since everything in California seems to grow like crazy I forgot that some perennials need a year or two to get established.  Now it is doing just what I wanted it to do. Covering the ugly chain link fence.  And the hummingbirds go crazy for it.

I think that is enough for now! Do go check out the links at May Dreams Gardens to see what is blooming in other garden bloggers parts of the world.

Risk and Reward of Seed Grown Plants

As I have said many times before, and I’m sure will say again many times in the future, I love growing plants from seed.  The reward is obvious.  The satisfaction you receive from growing a plant to blooming size from a tiny seed can’t be beat. It is extremely gratifying when that first flower opens on a plant you have nurtured.

Except when it isn’t. One of the risks that come from seed grown plants is that sexual reproduction has a certain degree of variability.

Obviously this is the case in humans. Maybe you got your mother’s cute button nose or your father’s blue eyes. Maybe you and your siblings look so alike you are mistaken for twins or maybe some of you look like one parent and some the other. Or maybe you are a blend of both parents or don’t look like any of your other relatives at all.

And when you are a plant maybe you end up with stupid white flowers instead of pretty lavender or mauve flowers.

Meet Abutilon X suntense, a cross between two Chilean Abutilons. Abutilon vitifolium with flowers that come in whites, mauves, or even bluish lavenders and Abutilon ochsenii which usually has flowers in a deeper lavender color.  Particularly neat because most of the species of Abutilon you see have flowers in bright yellows, oranges, and reds.

Of course I was hoping for a flower in a pretty lavender shade like the first Abutilon vitifolium I saw up at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden ten years ago.

Just look at it! Not only was the color spectacular but plant itself was about 15 feet tall and smothered in blooms.

But I get a dumb white flower.  The plant is still cute so I am not going to shovel prune it. It does go to show you that in some cases it pays to grow on a good sized batch of seedlings  and keep them in containers until they bloom and then pick the colors you like best.  Of course you can also buy a named cultivar.  They have already been selected for their color or some other interesting characteristic that differentiates them from their parent plants and then are asexually propagated. Clones of the parent plant so you are certain to get what you paid for.

But what is the fun of that?  Even though I took a gamble and lost there is also that chance that your seed grown plant will turn out to be exactly what you hoped for. Or maybe something even better!

Two Years!

WordPress just sent me a little note that my blog has just had its two-year anniversary!  Kind of crazy how fast time goes by. Here is a little retrospective.

I had just moved out of my apartment in Santa Monica where I had gardened on a small balcony with a view of the Pacific ocean.

Santa Monica had some really nice gardens but I got bored there and foolishly moved to West Hollywood.

I ended up hating West Hollywood and my balcony there sucked for gardening so I blogged quite a bit about my mesemb seedlings.

I also reminisced about my Clematis collection in my old garden…

And various trips to England…

Where I saw the queen…

and visited Clivedon and many other historic gardens.

I started designing gardens for my friends at Gardens by Gabriel.

And took road trips to Annie’s Annuals where I had to get creative to fit as many plants as I could into my VW Golf!

I went on a trip to Hawaii…

and fell in love with Leucospermum reflexum.

I moved to the Central Coast of California…

and was inspired by the South African Garden at Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria.

I thought about the things I enjoyed about southern California like the California Poppy Preserve…

and Coreopsis gigantea growing in Malibu.

But I was happy to be living in the Central Coast where I designed some new gardens…

Including my own!

Which has come a long way in a year!

Despite some recent drama!

And in case you were wondering Geranium maderense did just fine during the wind storm last night.

So thanks for coming along on my horticultural journey the past two years. Hopefully the next two years will be full of even more beautiful gardens.

I’m Back!

I had a really lovely time visiting family in NYC (and an overnight trip to Toronto) for Persian New Year.  But as any serious gardener knows leaving your garden for over a week is a bit nerve-wracking. Who knows what you are going to find when you come home? I’ve gone on trips shorter than 11 days and come home to disaster.  And while I was gone I kept checking the weather and it didn’t rain in Los Osos at all. We have had such a dry winter.

Happily everything was fine!

(do please click on the images to get a larger view!)

Two new thymes along the path got a bit wilty but nothing serious.  The rest looks great. Even the newly planted mediterranean garden looks fine (gotta love California natives). Yesterday I gave everything a good soak and there is a good chance we will get some rain tomorrow.

The view from my kitchen window is even more enjoyable now that my Geranium maderense is in full bloom!

More to come in the near future but I just wanted to check in.

Spring Blooms (Lots of them!)

Tomorrow morning I am heading to NYC to spend Persian New Year with my family (Happy Nowruz everyone!). So I thought I would do a quick post on what has been blooming in my garden.  Despite the loss of most of the mediterranean garden there is still quite a bit going on. Tons of volunteer seedlings have been blooming (spring weather really started in Los Osos about a month ago), and some of the perennials I planted last year are starting to really hit their stride.

This will be a picture heavy thread so feel free to scroll through and stop if you see anything that interests you.

Zaluzianskya capensis has been blooming all winter.  All my little seed grown plants have become little shrublets (I mistakingly thought they were true annuals).  They open in the afternoon and you may remember last year I made fun of the fragrance as being too strong. Well I’ve grown to love them. You can just be walking by and suddenly get hit by the sweet scent.  They have been reseeding quite a bit as well.

The California native, Mentzelia lindleyi, mostly reseeded right along the road so most of them got tromped on by the construction guys.  Luckily this big clump was in a safer spot a few feet into the bed. I’ve put up some temporary fencing with bamboo poles and twine to remind construction guys to stay on the street and not take short cuts through my garden.

A few Nemophila menziesii seedlings came up and are blooming now.  I think I pulled them too early last year so they didn’t reseed as well as some other plants.

The adorable little South African strawflower, Helipterum roseum ‘Pierrot’, reseeded like crazy.  Mostly right around where they had been planted last year.

In the evening the flowers close up and look like cute little paper bowls.

Linaria reticulata ‘Flamenco’ is not for the faint of heart. I planted 24 little plants last year and this year I have about 24,000 growing in a huge 10′ x 10′ patch.  I can not even beging to explain how happy they make me. Especially all covered in condensation and brightening up a foggy day.

This is the view from my kitchen window when I wash my dishes. Almost makes me not mind the fact that I don’t have a dish washer. Almost.

Ursinia anthemoides ‘Solar Fire’ is another South African annual that reseeded like crazy. From a distance they look a bit like California poppies but up close they are quite distinct. This clump just escaped destruction.  See the patch of bare dirt right behind them? That was solid plants before one of the water tankers backed out of my driveway and right through the garden. After that I started parking my car in the driveway so the construction guys couldn’t park in it any longer.

Not bad for a one year old garden, right?

I’m not sure the beauty of the Layia platyglossa (tidy tips) foliage in the foreground is apparent in my photos. The leaf edges have this quality that sort of reflects light and looks all silvery. They must be covered in little hairs or something but I haven’t had a chance to really examine them up close.  This huge clump is all volunteers. I collected a huge envelope of seed but ended up not needing to use any of it so I sent it out to friends and the Mediterranean Garden Societies seed share.  If I have time to collect some more this year maybe I’ll mail some out to blog readers if anyone is interested.

The flowers are just starting to open. They should go into full bloom while I am out of town. Hopefully we get a bit of rain and they are still nice when I get back. They should be fairly drought tolerant but I didn’t think them as much as I should have so they do get a bit droopy when it gets warm.

I love the way the sticky little hairs on Geranium madersense flowering stems look when they are back lit.

The flowers aren’t too shabby either.  These should reseed like mad and make a nice big colony in front of the house.

Euphorbia lambii is another big shrubby plant that reseeds like mad.  This is the first bud on mine. It should be looking really nice when I get back into town. These can get 8-10 feet tall if they are happy though they don’t seem to grow particularly fast on the coast.

Lobelia tupa is another slow grower. This is one of those great big perennials that probably takes about 3 or 4 years to reach its maximum potential.  This one fat stem should bloom nicely at some point this year but in a few years it will be 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall and covered in blooming spikes.

Abutilon X suntense should have lovely purple blooms when I get back home. I’ve seen it in a lot of English gardens but I don’t know how happy it will be here long term. I’ve heard it is not at its best in California.  If it doesn’t succeed I will probably grow Abutilon vitifolium which is one of its parets that I know will do well.

Echium pininana (not Echium pinnata, a common mistake) is starting to expand quite a bit lately. It should grow about 15 feet tall this spring. I grew about a dozen from seed last year and only kept this one.  The others went into some of our clients gardens as a fun Dr. Seussian treat for them. Native Coreopsis gigantea is looking rather nice in full bloom now. Hard to believe that was just a tiny little 4″ pot last March.

Phlomis purpurea had to be moved to the backyard garden during the construction and has not been happy.  Apparently Phlomis have different shaped leaves in winter and then drop them in favor of more drought resistant ones during the dry summer. I’ll have to see if I notice a change in their leaves this summer.  They have really been sulking and needed quite a  few deep waterings in their new home.

Some of the former inhabitants of the mediterranean garden have found a new home in my back yard garden. I had started this bed last summer but then had to go out of town suddenly for about a month and lost most of the plants new plantings here.  This worked out in my favor because these plants needed a home quickly. The chain link fence is not cute, and my landlady was thinking of removing it, but I want to keep it now so I have a more sheltered area of the yard. A lot of my neighbors have big dogs and this is where my plant nursery is. Once the bigger plants and climbers fill in it won’t be as bad.

And speaking of the mediterranean garden this is how it looks now that it has been replanted.  I bet there isn’t a single garden designer out there that isn’t secretly delighted when misfortune gives them the opportunity to try something new. Since all my nice compost is now buried about 12 feet under ground with the new sewer lateral I was left with Los Osos sand. While I would rather work with sand than tough clay it does have some logistical issues.  It either drains too quickly or sheds water as if it was completely water-proof and it is probably pretty low in nutrients. While there are many medit plants that would be perfectly happy in poor, sandy, soil I thought it would be safest to use plants that I know for a fact are happy in Los Osos sand so I went very heavily with California natives.

Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery is about an hour east of me in Santa Margarita and their website is an absolute treasure for California gardeners. It was a huge help in deciding what I would plant in this newly imagined garden. They have detailed descriptions and pictures of many plants and even some videos talking about their experiences growing specific plants and what conditions they love or hate. I still haven’t visited their nursery in person but I will have to take a trip out there when I return in April to see their display gardens. A few great native cultivars like Salvia ‘Pozo Blue’ and Penstemon ‘Margarita BOP’ are their introductions.

The garden isn’t looking quite as nice as it was a before the sewer work but I think it will fill in quite nicely.  The outer edges remain the original medit garden and the center strip is mostly natives now. There is a manzanita, three types of California buckwheat, native Salvias, Verbena lilacina and of course lots of California poppies. I went with white and lavender ones for this part of the garden.

The Dudleya pulverulenta are starting to bloom and perk up a bit after being stomped on quite a bit.

Salvia africana-lutea, Lavandula pinnata var. buchii, and Gaillardia ‘Oranges & Lemons’ are all looking really nice despite the fact they had quite a bit of sand dumped on them.

The path garden got a bit of a refresh since I talked about it last week.  The succulents and other plants that weren’t working have been moved elsewhere, a few new plants have been tucked into empty spots, and the left side of the path has been replanted with plants similar to the right side.

And just when I thought I was safe I woke up to this monstrosity this morning. No worries. They didn’t harm the garden. They were just putting in the correct manhole cover at the end of the street. But I am glad I will be out of town and away from the construction noise for a bit.

I hope you all will forgive me for posting so many pictures but that I wanted to tide you all over until I return in April. I hope everyone has exciting things going on in their gardens this spring.

Winter Walk Off 2013!

A few weeks ago I had to get away from all the construction happening on my street so I decided to go for a walk so I could take part in this years “Winter Walk Off” inspired by Les of A Tidewater Gardener.  Last year my post was a bit crazy.  Fifty photos!  This year I am a bit more busy so I am going to keep it short. I’m trying to keep my blog posts at fewer photos anyway.  There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I don’t want busy people quickly scrolling through my posts but if you don’t have much time for blog reading DO at least scroll to the end of this post. I saved the best for last.

I walked up to the northwest part of town which is known as Baywood Park.

There is beach access there so you can enjoy views of Morro Bay and the estuary.  From left to right you can see Morro Rock, the unfortunate smoke stacks at the Morro Bay Power Plant, the Morro Bay Heights, the golf course, and Black Rock.

There are million dollar houses all along the estuary and the bay.  This one is for sale. Quite a bargain since not only do you get a house with a beautiful view but you also get  a magnificent Leucospermum cordifolium.

And a lot of Linaria. This spot is just itching for some new Protea specimens. That is Black Hill again in the background.

Orange Leucospermums are very popular in town.  I fear for this ones safety as I believe there were some lateral sewer line markings on the street right near it. If you remember my post from last month the path of destruction is pretty wide. I don’t believe most Proteaceae transplant very well. Especially when they are this size.  This is quite an artistic little house. I think leaves on the little tree in the background are fake. Made of metal or something.

They have a nice little Garrya elliptica too.

Does anyone know which Acacia this is? There are quite a few of them around town.  They start blooming in January or February and are quite pretty but I still don’t know my Acacias. There are so many of them but they get quite big so I haven’t used any in garden designs.

This is the garden I wanted you all to stick around for.  A really great design just a few minutes from my house. Nick Wilkinson from Grow Nursery had a hand in creating it.

The part that really knocked my socks off were these three HUGE Aloe polyphylla! I have seen a photo of huge specimens in their home in South Africa but never this big in California.

They are so big they are barely fit in the space allowed them!

Nick says they are about five years old and he has never had Aloe polyphylla at any other location get this big.  It must be the exact right combination of our chilly coastal climate and maybe the excellent drainage from the large raised beds.

Whatever it is these are some really happy plants! I can only hope mine are even half this glorious some day.

The entire garden is really charming and full of great specimens. This is another garden I really hope will be spared any sewer destruction.

I’m really glad that winter is coming to an end (though truth be told it has been quite spring-like here the past month). I’m going on a trip in a few days but I’ll be doing a spring bloom and garden update post soon.

El Diablo!

It is no wonder that deer have cloven hooves for they are surely the minions of the devil!  At least from a gardeners point of view.

This Geranium ‘Bill Wallis’ has been munched!

All the construction for the sewers in town means that a large number of fences are temporarily down. Now I am not foolish enough to believe that any of these little fences offered 100% protection against deer but my neighborhood had a series of fenced areas that seemed to funnel the deer to other areas of town.  Sadly that barrier is now gone. Shortly after the construction began I noticed my beautiful Eschscholzia californica ‘Mahogany’ had been munched on. That seems particularly cruel since the field the deer came from has tons of wild California poppies that no one would miss. Next on the menu were my Clarkia seedlings. Clarkia amoena seems to be a particular favorite as most of the plants have been eaten to little nubs.

Finally the above Geranium was munched on and since I now live on a sand and dirt road (courtesy of our new sewer pipes) I found evidence leading right up to the plant.

There is no question who the guilty party is!

One of the annoying things is that my neighbors don’t share my horror at these hoofed vermin infesting our neighborhood.  They are all like “OMG it was a buck. It was so pretty.” and when I suggest that the next time they see him they chase him off or sic their dogs on him they look at me with horrified expressions on their faces.  As if I am some sort of serial killer.

The real serial killer here is a plant murderer though!

I’m trying out some Liquid Fence on some of the tastier plants and so far that seems to have done the trick for now.  But reapplying it may be a bit costly.  What tricks have you used to keep hungry critters from munching on your garden?

 

 

More Mediterranean

I’ve finished this round of planting in the medit garden.

Remember that ugly lawn? I’m so glad it is gone. Of course I still have to weed out sneaky clumps of Kikuyu grass but the worst of it seems to be over.

The new panorama feature on my iPhone is great for getting a full view of the garden. Try not to notice any ugly bits.

Chamelaucium uncinatum ‘Purple Pride’, from western Australia, has replaced the purple-leaved plum.

I’m hoping that Phylica plumosa, from South Africa, will make a nice mounding specimen in the center of the bed.

Dudleya pulverulenta has doubled in size since last spring.

I’m really fond of the South African heaths like this Erica Baueri. I love any Ericaceous plants that have waxy or plastic-like flowers.

I’m really proud of this Erica diaphana that I grew from seed.  It is about six inches tall now and looks like a miniature Christmas tree. The seed was like dust and I left them in a plastic bag under grow lights for ages until I felt like they were large enough to be potted up and safely brought outdoors. They were less than an inch tall when I pricked them out and I never thought they would survive the process. Even though I have grown tons of plant from seed this is the first woody shrub I have ever attempted. Next step is getting it to bloom!

Now obviously the plan for this garden is to grow plants from all the mediterranean climates of the world. Much of California, central Chile, western South Africa, southwestern and southern Australia and of course the Mediterranean region itself are all considered to be mediterranean climates with dry summers and mild rainy winters. Other dry regions of the world with drought tolerant plants are acceptable as well such as parts of the southern US and Mexico and the Canary Islands.  Whatever it takes to make beautiful garden with plants that will need very little water in the summer.

Of course sometimes I will make mistakes.

When I saw a six-pack of Craspedia globosa (actually Pcynosorus globosa) last summer I couldn’t resist.  It is normally a really ugly container plant and I couldn’t bring myself to pay even wholesale prices for a one gallon plant.  But a six-pack of tiny plants was cheap and seemed worthwhile. It is an Australian plant and I kept finding references that mention that it is drought tolerant. The common name is Billy Buttons and the flowers are little yellow spheres that make great cut flowers.  Sadly it is native to eastern Australia and my experience has been that it really wants very regular water. If I let it go dry it wilts dramatically.  It seems to be happiest in moist heavy clay which won’t do at all. I am willing to spot water thirsty plants when they are getting established but in the long run I really want plants to be able to fend for themselves for long stretches in the summer. I don’t plan on adding drip irrigation to this garden. So at some point they are all going to be removed. I may try to relocate them but I am not sure I want a plant that needs a lot of water to be happy.

I may replace them with Nepeta tuberosa. This is an unusual Nepeta with upright spires of blooms rather like a Stachys. It is from Spain and Portugal and should be much happier in dry conditions. In fact I am not sure why it didn’t get planted in the medit garden in the first place.  Luckily the three clumps I planted last year in the other border had about a dozen little seedlings all around them so I potted those up today. Once they are large enough I may use them to replace the Billy Buttons. The picture below is from June and I think this plant will add just the right amount of architectural drama that I want.

Winter Garden

Our weather here on the central coast has been quite cool and rainy since the fall. This past week we warmed up considerably but not before a stretch of night-time temps dipping dangerously low. Luckily in my year old garden I have not amassed much of a tender plant collection (yet).

My self-sown seedlings from last years annuals are doing remarkably well.  In fact I have had blooms already!

Mentzelia lindleyi was grown from seed last year and planted out rather late.  They didn’t bloom until June. Left to their own devices their seedlings have grown to flowering size remarkably quickly.

California native annuals are pretty cool, huh?

Another neat California native is Coreopsis gigantea, native to the southern California coast  down into Baja and on the Channel Islands.  I’ve posted pics of them before, from my trips to see them in bloom along the coast north of Malibu, but now I have one of my own.

 

Can you believe this three-foot tall monster was a little plant in a 4″ pot last March.

I was pretty excited to see that it is starting to form its first buds.  The bright yellow flowers should start opening by March.

Maireana sedifolia is doing  well next to the Coreopsis. It is very important that both of these plants have excellent drainage. They are planted on a raised mound of soil which helps but it makes me a bit nervous that an Artemisia frigida planted right below them completely rotted out.

Salvia africana-lutea has been bulking up and I’m finally getting to see some blooms.  Whatever nasty little caterpillar was eating the flowers last summer doesn’t seem to be active in winter.

One plant that was very unhappy with our 30 degree weather is Trichodesma scottii.  It is a borage relative from the island of Socotra. All of its buds and the ends of its leaves turned to mush. I hope it will bounce back and bloom this summer. At least now I know it isn’t cold hardy and can throw a sheet over it on freezing nights. Other plants that suffered some damage were Lotus berthelotii, Iochroma cyanea, and Pycnostachys urticifolia but they should all bounce back.

I was just looking at pictures of this garden from last spring when all the plants were brand new and it is exciting to see how much everything has filled in.

I am still not sure exactly what is going to happen with the sewers. I know the original plan was for the pipes to go right down the center of the left hand bed in the photo above.  My landlady made an appointment with someone from the town and spoke to them about it and apparently she can fill out an amendment requesting that they go through the street instead.  Unfortunately I had an appointment on the day the guy came out so I couldn’t be there and I only got to speak to her about it briefly.  So for now I am cautiously optimistic and I have decided to do a bit of work on the garden.

The garden looked OK last summer but I was not completely happy with it.  I kept adding to it bit by bit as interesting plants became available and the overall plan was a bit off.  So I dug up all the Santolinas, Scabiosa, and some of the Festuca and rearranged them. I moved my Eryngiums to the other side of the bed and replaced them with some Phlomis leucophracta that I grew from seed. I’ll be adding some inexpensive plants to empty spaces and across the front of the garden I’ve moved around some of the seedlings that are coming up.

I’m just going to move forward hoping that this garden won’t be harmed and if worse comes to worse and I have to dig everything out again at least I got some exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 1st Mesembs

I had this plan to take photos of my Mesemb seedlings the first of every month so I would have a record of their growth. I was doing well with my project but fell short these past few months.  I’ll try to start it up again (but no promises!).

Cheiridopsis glomerata sown 3/11/2012 and badly in need of being pricked out and given their own pots.  The problem is I have nowhere to put all those little pots! I am going to remedy that soon though.

Gibbaeum comptonii sown exactly a year ago today!

Muiria hortenseae also sown a year ago today. To tell the truth I am a little nervous to pot these guys up. They are supposed to be tricky and they are doing so well. I’m afraid if I mess with them they will all drop dead.

Oophytum oviforme are also said to be tricky.  They are very tiny and slow-growing too so that makes me even more nervous to pot them up.

Lithops optica var. rubra 

Honestly it is a miracle I have kept any Lithops alive a year and a half.  I have killed more Lithops than any other mesemb.

Mitrophyllum grande (left) and Monilaria pisiformis

These are also a year old today and have been potted up and growing outside since spring.  They went dormant over the summer and I am shocked that they Monilaria survived.  They were all just a few millimeters tall when they went dormant and nothing was left but a few wisps of papery dried up husks. But they sprang to life with the fall rains and the one pictured and a few others are already about an inch high. This one even branched already.

The story for Dactylopsis digitata is not as happy.   Another tricky one to grow they are not thriving since coming out of dormancy. Their old dead leaves are still clinging to them and they have put on little growth. This is supposedly pretty common. I expect they will just wither away.

Mitrophyllum dissitum however are doing really well. Sown 1/16/11 so almost two years old. This past summer was their first dormancy and I was surprised how huge they had become once the rains started in fall and they started growing again. For a while I was nervous about them because like the Dactylopsis their old dried skins were also clinging to them.  But the wet and humidity of a few rainy days in November seemed to do the trick and the old skins washed away.

I think I need to start up some new mesembs and other succulents from seed.  They are far more forgiving than regular herbaceous and woody plants so I can go out of town and not worry about them too much.  People are always raving about Mesa Garden so maybe I will place an order with them when their 2013 seed list comes out.