Conservatory Update

 

We haven't shared an update from the conservatory for a while, there has been a lot keeping us busy in the garden itself, and work commitments during Covid have been a little more unpredictable. Still rather than making excuses for the lack of an update, here we are with a look round in 2020.

Long standing readers will recall the summer of 2013 was quite an eventful time for us, both personally and in the garden. The garden fire was a significant hurdle to overcome, and with it coming at the same time as the house renovation lead to a very busy period for us. The positive from that year was of course the changes we made to our home, significant remodeling of our living space, the addition of the from porch and of course the conservatory that we added to the back of the kitchen.

This space, whilst fairly small (slightly less than 3m deep by 5m wide) has become a haven for us. a place to grow some of the plants that would not enjoy winters in a greenhouse, and also a tropical spot for us in winter. With the back of our home being north facing, we don't usually get too hot in summer, which is a typical complaint of many conservatory's.

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A Blue Pots update

Over the years we have regularly returned to the blue pots at the front of our house. Our front garden is very much on the small side, and when we move in 15 years ago it was a completely baron driveway, block paved and devoid of all live. Over the years we have made a few changes - although the need for a parking space has always limited what we were able to do. A few years back we erected railings and planted a cherry tree. But the long term feature has been a series of blue pots that have featured more than a few times on the blog.

With visits out and about curtailed we thought we would turn our attention back to the pots. The succulents have filled out, and seem to like the south facing position up against the house. There is a radiator on the other side of the curved wall for the bay window which presumably leaks some heat over winter. That said the last few winters have been pretty mild,so we haven't had many low temperatures or much in the way of snow to worry things.

Mark giving everything the once over.

The Cherry - prunus nigra has started to fill out and help give the small spot some height and a bit more of a garden feel.

Three years back  and the plants in the corner by the porch were filling the space, however by yesterday they needed a little more room.

2017

2020 - we spaced the pots out a little more.

On the other side of the bay window, not quite such dramatic growth, although everything seems to be thriving in the pots.

Trichocereus terscheckii by the front door. Often gets comments from passers by.

Aloe polyphylla

Echeveria rosea

It's been a while since we last blogged, work commitments, travel and simply spending time in the garden has meant less spare time in recent years, however we will try and not leave it quite so long until the next one!

Gaz

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Blue Pots, Bricks, Bins, and a British Gas Van

I seem to be collecting pots now almost as much as I do plants. But then again each pot is a planting opportunity.

Now time to give an update on the plants growing at the front of the house...

Three years ago we had a makeover of the front of the house by adding blue pots with drought tolerant planting. Later on we have also planted out a flowering cherry tree and added some railings to demarcate our space complement the house (it used to have railings back in the day). This year, sensing that we could add more pots to the corner seen above without compromising parking space, we proceeded to add three more to make the display stronger. Prior to that we wanted more height at the back so the Nolina nelsonii was repotted to a much taller blue one.

With three new pots to fill, we had to select new plants that will go in them and do well in this area. Taking cue from the plants already, we bought a few more drought tolerant plants on our recent trip to Urban Jungle.

First to be planted was an Agave parryi var. truncata. Upon removal of the plastic pot it came in with, I was rather fascinated by the pups circling the rootball - they looked like snakes or slithering creatures of some sort.

Fascinating they may be, they still got snipped before being placed into its new blue home. Next to be planted was a Dyckia 'Nickel Silver' followed by Agave neomexicana.

We're really pleased with the end result, and love the way the greens and blues from the plants themselves mix and complement each other (if I may say so).

What about the other plants at the front house? Here they are now:

The backdrop of the photo above is far from glamorous, with it being a parade of rubbish bins. It does tell a story though, of the our neighbour finally getting a house extension done after mulling about it for years. So the bins were out at the time these photos were taken to keep the side passage clear so the builders can do their work.

On the other side the backdrop is a British Gas van. One can easily guess what our other neighbour does for a living. The van is actually very rarely parked in that spot but by chance it was there then, and I actually like the way the paintwork coordinates with the colour of the pots!

My favourite backdrop though are the bricks of our house...

Mark :-)

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Yay! and Yikes!

Yay that our Kumara plicatilis (syn. Aloe plicatilis) is flowering...in the summer!

It's not much and the display isn't spectacular by no means but still very pretty, considering that this is the first time it has flowered for us during the warmer months, not during the winter.

Love its coral colour!

It's one of the few remaining original plants we bought in Cornwall the first time we went there almost ten years ago. It used to live in our lounge during the winter wherein it flowered then, in tune with the inverse season in the Southern Hemisphere. It started off as a single fan with no visible trunk and grew slowly to how it is now by virtue of being kept in a pot. The last two winters however it lived in the minimally heated greenhouse during the winter, hence experiencing some relative chill when before it was warm and cosy in the the house at the same period. This has obviously re-set its rhythm and now it is flowering when it is supposed to be, in the summer.

Yikes!! This Yucca linearifolia is about to flower and the spike is growing really fast. So fast that I only spotted this a couple of hours ago and we both go past this plant at least twice a day, and so many times during the weekend.

Nothing bad with it flowering as such but blue yuccas tend to look worse for wear afterwards, for an entire season as it recovers from its floral display after putting so much energy to it. 

As this yucca is already well rooted and established in its spot I'll leave the flower spike be and enjoy the spectacle. Had if it's just been planted I'll cut the spike off so it can put its energy in re-establishing itself.

Hopefully none of the other blue yuccas will follow suit and flower this year, or in the near future. I much prefer then with perfect heads with blue spheres of leaves.

But I think I spoke too soon...

Oh no!

Yikes again!

Mark :-)

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Sweet Little Treats

December and in the run up to Christmas, a period of indulgence! And I have been indulging over the past few weeks (way before December actually) with lots sweet little personal treats, but not the calorific kind.

The earliest batch went into colourful containers...

I have been buying little succulents over the past few weeks and have continued to do so even when the weather has turned noticeably colder than before. Every week a little parcel arrives which I always open with excitement, like a kid opening a box of sweets! Ebay is where I look for these little succulents, usually on a Thursday night and check out the ones that will end on the Sunday. If the starting price is low I put on a bid and if I win it then it usually arrives on our doorstep by the latter part of the following week.

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Succulents Away!

Packing up plants for the winter is not something I look forward to, as it means summer is over and the colder months are lying ahead. The perk of it though is I get to inspect the plants more more closely than I would when they are actually out on display.

Only a small fraction of our succulents made it in the sun room as both of us don't want to clutter it too much. The rest of the house will remain almost plant free (we're not going in the 'jam as many plants indoors' direction ever again). I mentioned on a previous post that I may put plants in our lounge but I retract that now, best not to start in case such action will cascade into having more plants in the house.

Fortunately there are the two greenhouses where most of our not so hardy plants will be stored for the winter and packing it up has begun. Agaves and aloes are usually the first ones to go in so they get a chance to dry out before winter sets in.

The first batch are in:

Aloe cryptopoda

Agave salmiana angustifolia marginata

Agave montana - this one has thin variegated stripes only on one side of the plant

Agave titanota - stayed compact for a couple of years but this year the leaves have elongated

Agave guadalajarana

Agave victoria-reginae

Agave ghiesbreghtii

A few more succulents that may or may not stay in here for the winter. Some of them will need more warmth to sail through so will be relocated somewhere else, a new garden outbuilding that we are constructing at the moment (more on that later).

This coming weekend I'll be putting in more plants in this greenhouse and start sorting out the other one. We've established a routine now and although it looks like we have a huge amount of plants to move in it's not really as much as other enthusiasts do and not as tiring as it looks. It's quite relaxing in its own right actually.

Although I still much prefer moving them out.

Mark :-)

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The Party Continues Indoors

Summer this year has been a blast and it seemed to have flown by so quick! It almost felt like a party that started early but was so good that before you knew it it was morning the next day already.

Philodendron 'Xanadu'

Well the party doesn't have to stop, it can continue indoors.

Boxes and plastic bags are two of Twinkles' favourite things! Here she is 'helping' me tidy up!

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Greenhouse Tidy Up

One rainy day last week I took the time to tidy up the greenhouse down by the bottom of our garden. This is where most of our succulents live in the winter and with many of them out already acclimatising in the garden now is the perfect time to give it some spring cleaning.

Their home needs cleaning!

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Technicolour Trewidden!

Colour and warmth it was on our last day in Cornwall! It may not be from the weather but it certainly came from our visit to Trewidden Nursery last Friday!

The beautiful restio Cannomois grandis

For most of our stay in Cornwall the weather was brilliant, really sunny and somehow warm, just about right to feel comfortable walking around places in a t-shirt. But by Wednesday the rains had arrived and it was pretty much consistently drizzly all day on Thursday. Come Friday morning the rains have ceased and it was actually sunny for most of the day which was great! An unexpected bonus on our last day of stay in Cornwall.

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Spring Greenhouse Review

Spring finally seems to have arrived and we have been able to check how the plants in our greenhouses have been doing. We have two at present, both are 8'x6' aluminium framed greenhouses, one is used for more arid plants and the other for the lush/leafy ones. We provide a little bit of heat to both greenhouses, keeping them just above zero Celsius - usually about 2 or 3C as a minimum. Through experience we have found that for the plants we want to over winter under glass this is just enough heat to prevent the pots from freezing. More tender plants are over wintered in the house, but we try not to have too many like that.

First up is the greenhouse in the working area next to the filter house for the new pond. This greenhouse will be moved in due time, but for now its home to the more leafy plants.

A selection of choice plants, Cussonia at the back, with an Illicium just in front on the left hand side and Cordyline stricta on the right hand side.

Schefflera delavayi 'oak leaf form', we have tried a hardy selection of this Schefflera outside for the last winter, and i'm pleased to say it has shown no problems from winter.

And on the other side a few more plants waiting their time to be planted out, including Fatsia polycarpa and small Schefflera taiwania. The young palm seedling in the lower left of the photo is a Butyagrus - the mule palm, a cross between a Butia and a Syagrus palm, there was hope at one point that this would be a hardy palm for the UK, however sadly this has proved not to be the case.

As I mentioned this particular greenhouse will be relocated within the working area, and will have a new function once it is moved. It will no longer be used for plants but will house a quarantine/treatment tank for our fish. This will allow us to quarantine any new fish before we introduce them to the pond - just in case any have an illness or parasite not spotted at the dealer. We wouldn't want to introduce any problems to our large pond. It will also allow us to remove a sick fish from the main pond so that it can be treated on its own. Hopefully there will not be too many sick fish, but it is worth thinking ahead just in case.

I'm sure you are thinking why would we give up greenhouse space, well, that's not quite the full story. Do you remember this blog when we collected a second hand greenhouse... This greenhouse will be erected in the working area to be our new 'lush greenhouse' and as its bigger at 8' by 10' it will allow us to grow on more plants over winter, or at least have them better spaced out. When we bought it I don't think we anticipated it would be in waiting for quite so long, so I will be pleased to finally build it. Both of the greenhouses will be built on low walls to give an increased head height making it more comfortable for us and also easier to house slightly larger plants.

The other greenhouse houses our arid plants, keeping them separate allows a different watering regime and helps to keep the humidity lower in this greenhouse.

Its been a tricky winter this year for the arid house, autumn was very wet, so potted plants had to be placed under glass whilst still quite damp, and then with the wet cool winter they stayed on the moist side. This was sadly fatal for a small number of plants, including all the Aeoniums Mark had propagated last summer to be used for this current years displays. Fortunately we are off to Cornwall next month, so will be able to pick up some replacements.

However despite a small number of losses, the vast majority of plants are looking good after their winter holiday into the arid house.

Once the spring weather arrives it is always nice to see plants move back out to their summer homes, allowing us to give the greenhouses a good spring clean and undertake any maintenance needed. Of course they never become totally empty and will be home to plants we are propagating during the summer months.

Gaz

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Succulents in the Dome

As an antidote to all that tropical lushness we've been posting recently about from our recent trip to Singapore, it's now the turn of Cacti and Succulents as we found a fantastic display of them inside the Flower Dome of Gardens by the Bay.

Succulents inside the colossal Flower Dome

The Flower Dome is one of two cooled conservatories (or glasshouses) within the complex of Gardens by the Bay and it houses a collection of plants from temperate regions of the world. This conservatory is climate controlled, with a cool-dry atmosphere while the other one, the Cloud Forest Dome has a cool-moist one (more about this conservatory in an upcoming post. The Flower Dome itself is colossal, actually both of them are and I will have to feature them in segments as well as a general overview of each of them.

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As Darkness Falls

As darkness falls, it seems we are banished to being nothing more than weekend warriors in the garden....

Not quite, but it sounded dramatic anyway!

It's mostly true though. Now that we are in a period again that it's dark before and after work, there's very little we could do in the garden during the week and most tasks have to wait till the weekend. True that we could always put artificial lights on, or at least carry a flashlight with us along the way but nothing substitutes the illumination bought about by natural daylight. I find judgement better and precision work easier with natural light rather than artificial ones, in the garden a least.

At the moment there is still a small window of opportunity to do some gardening after work with natural daylight still present. But only if I manage to get home on time, and even so I only really have a half an hour or so (an hour tops, if it's not grey and overcast as well) before the sun has truly set and night time has totally crept. And it looks like I'll only have this chance this week, come the weekend we move our clocks back again. We may (falsely) gain an hour extra over the weekend but that would also mean that it's definitely dark already when we get home from work.

But half an hour of productivity is better than having none at all so every evening (bar last night) I have carried on shifting some 'not so hardy' potted plants under cover and indoors to their usual homes for the winter. Little and often soon adds up and avoids a massive mad dash once the biting cold weather finally arrives (which I hope won't be too soon, and if ever, never prolonged).

And so it is, it is the time of the year again when the work shop starts to become lush with ferns...

I started to tidy the 'leafy' greenhouse last Sunday, ready to jam in more 'leafy' plants in it the following days. I started to run out of time this evening and it was fast getting too dark to do such a potentially delicate procedure so only managed bring in a few tonight. This was how dark it was just before I finished...

But of course flash photography helps! I'm sure it's better to see the plants illuminated.

Ta-dah! There's still lots of space left!

Succulents were the first to be tucked in under cover in the 'spiky' greenhouse, which I mostly did a couple of weekends ago, to give them a longer time to dry out. I've shoved in a few more last weekend and the only ones left outside are the ones that are either hardy (in our garden anyway), to go in the house, or bedding ones treated as annuals and waiting for the first frosts to end their pretty existence (or at least until I tidy them away myself.)

I don't always wait for the first frosts to remove summer beddings, sometimes I do it manually. I ensure I have back ups though, propagated last summer and tucked safely in the greenhouse.

A peek into the spiky greenhouse early in the evening. I wouldn't even try doing anything here in the dark, as you can imagine why.

Ta-dah! Flash photography comes to the rescue!

One thing about succulents is that if you keep them on the dry side, with gentle heating as and when necessary, they remain pristine all year round. And pristine plants are a sight for sore eyes whilst leafy plants tend to look scruffy during the depths of winter.

So here we go, the long process of tucking the garden to sleep has well and truly begun. There was an initial forecast of cold weather arriving by the end of the week but that seems to have been lifted off now, or at least it won't be as cold as first predicted. Good as it buys as time. Slow, steady, and stress free, that's the way to go.

Mark :-)

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