Scents and sensibility

Arctotis power activate!

Today I popped out to do a few hours of gardening in the calm, winter sunshine and noticed a lot of great smells in the garden. Used to be that the only smell was dog poop and freeway fumes...

Now, it's more like perfume! The cherry-plum tree blossoms smell like cherries. The hyacinths and narcissus scents are wafting around. And the Psoralea pinnata will be flowering soon - watch out for the smell of grape Kool-Aid!

Determined to get more plants out of their pots and planted, I went back to the terraces and weeded a lot of pots, pulling out a few items that could go in the ground right away.

Hesperoyucca whipplei

First up was a Yucca whipplei (syn. Hesperoyucca whipplei) also known as the chaparral yucca, or our Lord's candle.

That went in on the steps (damn Achillea roots everywhere... curse them!) and I also popped in an Agave parrasana (or some hybrid thereof, if you're an Agave expert) on the opposite side of the steps - a cute little clumping agave about the size of a softball.

I weeded the terraces as I sorted, and planted two Aloe brevifolia, a clump of Senecio kleiniiformis and four cuttings of Cotyledon barbeyi maybe? Not sure - Josh gave it to us.

Agave parrasana and hyacinth

I cut back the Salvia canariensis up by the dog area - that wooly monster grew really quickly, fell over and tripped. So it's back to stumps now though I expect it'll zoom right back up in no time.

I weeded out about 3 massive tubtrugs full of weeds.... time to move those pots in the back area so we can turn the compost! It is piling the heck up again. I have an idea to put almost-done compost in back bags in the sun for a week or two to kill weed seeds (our compost doesn't appear to get hot enough - lack of "brown" stuff in it I think)

Aloe speciosa - small...

I planted a Dendromecon harfordii (Bush Poppy) in the left bed, but am not convinced it'll do well as it was a bit stressed. Also getting to spread its roots today is an Aloe speciosa that's been waiting around forever. It went in behind the wrong way sign - I hope it grows nicely there.

Lastly I sorted out all the cuttings and Agave pups for the sale next weekend. Lots of plants have GOT TO GO so come on down Saturday 9.30am-12pm and buy some lovely, tough, xeric but cheap plants to support PSG!