Now's the time of year for planting succulents

Crocosmia "Lucifer"

My favorite time of year: the best time to put Agaves, Yuccas, Aloes, various cacti and other succulents in the ground because they don't need to be watered in.

With that in mind, Matt and I popped up to the garden and spent a happy 4 hours cleaning up the terraces, planting as many plants from there as possible, and taking care of the compost bins.

Kniphofia "Pineapple Popsicle"

I turned one of the bins into an empty bin, layering in straw to help speed up the composting process. Pretty good workout right there! In the meantime Matt was pulling all the potted plants from the terraces, weeding and sorting through them to get them planted.

A list of plants released "into the wild" to grow out of pots today (and yesterday too) includes:

1 Agave colorata
1 Agave desmettiana - variegated
3 Agave lophantha
5 Agave parryii
4 Agave shawii
1 Agave sisiliana
1 Agave weberi "Arizona Star"
4 Aloe maculata
8 Bromeliad sp.
8 Echeveria secunda 
1 variegated Furcraea sp.
1 Furcraea longaeva
6 Gasteria sp.
1 Mangave "Macho Mocha"
6 Puya sp.
6 Sempervivum sp. 
2 Yucca aloifolia 
1 Yucca sp.

Yucca aloifolioa var. gets a haircut.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some but that's about 60 plants in the ground: not bad at all! I also moved an Aeonium, cut back some Euphorbias, swept the terrace steps and organized a bunch of pots behind the shed. Phew!

Another marathon day

Today Matt and I set out to plant as many plants on the terraces as we could, since we need to prove to the people who gave us grants that we've spent their money as we said we would by November 15th. Eeek!

We worked from 10am to about 3.30pm, and we planted a lot. Here's the list:

1 Aeonium arborescens "Atropurpureum"
3 Aeonium haworthii
5 Aeonium sp. 
1 Agave lechuguilla (Shin Dagger Agave)
4 Agave parryi
1 Agave sp. (smooth leaf edges and long apical spine - ideas?)
1 Agave vilmoriniana (Octopus Agave)
7 Aloe brevifolia
1 Aloe polyphylla
4 Calandrinia spectabilis (Rock Purslane)
1 Crassula lycopodioides (Watch Chain Crassula)
6 columnar cacti, unidentified
1 Echeveria rgida
3 Euphorbia characias
4 Euphorbia lambii
3 Euphorbia "Silver Swan"
1 Furcraea sp. (variegated)
3 Gasteria acinacifolia (Giant Gasteria)
1 Hesperaloe parviflora
2 Opuntia subulata
Lots of Senecio mandraliscae (Blue Chalk Sticks) cuttings
5 Yucca sp.

That's at least 60+ plants, and we probably have almost as many to plant where the shed is. When we remove the shed and landscape that area. Oh yes, another big job coming up!

Matt also worked on flattening the path to the composters and added rebar stakes to the steps too.

Later on we went by Home Depot, Flowercraft and Lowes looking for tall Cordylines for the middle front bed.  No luck, but I did find some nice Australian natives for the steps area - Leucophyta brownii. A silvery, mounding shrub that's supposed to be tough as nails, and has little yellow flowers.

All in all a pretty productive day!

It was a sunny and warm January weekend...

Matt's Aloe project

... yes! Sun and warmth! So off we went to the garden.

On Saturday I planted a Carpenteria californica (Bush Anemone) in the left bed and mulched it in. Moved some Gasterias and a Cotyledon orbiculata in the middle back bed. Weeded all sorts of things. Cut back a Salvia leucantha (Mexican Sage) and went around weeding and pruning and tidying all over.

Just when I was getting ready to go home for lunch, Emily showed up so I handed off my new knee pads to her and she went to work on weeding and mulching the red bed. Garden relay!

On Sunday Matt and I went out and I planted 12 Gazanias in the front border (poor front border, looking scruffy after it's weeding recently) and mulched them in. Then I weeded and mulched part of the front middle bed, and swept the sidewalk.

Matt decided to take on an awesome task: the removal of ivy from the bottom of the steps. Which led to the rediscovery of all the Aloe nobilis planted there back in May 2009 which had become overwhelmed by ivy and Aptenia. Poor things. He dug them all out, I trimmed off the rotten leaves, and Matt got rid of the ivy. Together we replanted the aloes. Looks fantastic: it was a major job! Matt also planted an Aloe nobilis at the front end of the handrail along the storm drain, and a big clump of yellow ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis) that Jes gave us too.

Flowering now

10 points* to each person who can tell me where these plants are located in the garden!














From left to right, top to bottom:
Gasteria bicolor (Lawyer's Tongue)
Salvia leucantha (Mexican Bush Sage)**
Tulbaghia (Society Garlic - Variegated)
Dianthus barbatus nigrescens "Sooty"

I also noticed that a big clump of what I thought was Crocosmia in the Canna bed is getting ready to flower with white flowers... so maybe it's a clump of Watsonia? Anyway, I'm surprised it's flowering at all, as I thought we'd have to wait a year to see flowers in that bed. Another Crocosmia clump looks like it might have red flowers - nice surprise if so, as I thought all our donated Crocosmias were orange!

*Points have no cash value. Points may be redeemed at the garden. 10 points = a hearty "well done!" from me, delivered in person. Points are not transferrable, but never expire.

**Thanks for the ID, Paw!

Getting stuck in (the ground) today

Things that got the dubious pleasure of being planted in P. Garden today include:

2 Solanum laciniatum (Kangaroo apple)
2 Heuchera (Coral Bells) "Snow Angel" and a dark purple one.
2 Impatiens niamniamensis "African Queen"
1 Bougainvillea (top - the "before" pic. Wonder what the "after" will look like!)
1 Hardenbergia violacea (Purple Coral Pea vine - below)
1 Cactus of unknown sort

Also: Digitalis purpurea (foxglove), Iris, Fragaria vesca (Alpine Strawberry), Cineraria and 3 Gasteria bicolor (Lawyer's Tongue) - all from craigslister Emma - thank you so much!

Hopefully the Bougainvillea and Hardenbergia will cover up the nasty chainlink fence, and deter people from climbing over it back there. I found several needles too - I should buy thicker gloves...

Our neighbor from up the hill David came by and offered us a lovely wooden garden arbor, which looks fantastic at the top of the steps. Thanks! He also brought us a massive bag of gorgeous lemons from his tree (how I covet that tree!) and I met his pretty daughter Julia too. Good times.

On top of that, Ron the Iron Maverick came by and man, is he a double espresso! In no time he had the arch picked up, put in place and staked. Then he put bricks on the steps. Oh and he added landscape stones to some plants on the hillside so they don't slide off. Oh and he shored up the downhill side of the path to the steps. Oh and he moved a big branch for me, and experimented with wavy bricks and, and, and... most of this time I was standing gabbing away with his lovely wife Gina and his dog Tank, so you know I felt like a loser when he drove off. What can I say - thanks for giving up almost a whole Saturday to P. Garden - I truly appreciate it :)

I did manage to scrape all the leaves and junk out of the gully and form them into a compost heap of sorts (left - not one that will decompose into usable compost as apparently cordyline leaves have a half life of 763,000 years), as well as weaving the front round border edge from all the leftover branches. I have to say branch weaving has been my favorite project at P. Garden - it doesn't murder my back, and they results are instant, useful and look good! I have spied more branches at Jackson field round the corner, and will try to get some (before they are wood-chipped) so I can weave edges for the remaining three borders.

I also extended the front edge border so the compost pile is gone (left.) The compost-and-branch pile is gone at last! What on earth shall we plant there?