Favourite Plant of the Week - Cycas revoluta

Okay, just this one in particular...

Cycas revoluta

It spent most of the summer under glass after being defoliated when it was left outside last winter. We initially thought it was dead after all of our Cycas revolutas have flushed already when this one haven't yet. But knowing that this cycad can be erratic when it comes to the timing of its flush (ideally it should flush early in the summer so the leaves will have time to harden off before cold weather sets in) we left it where it was and forgot about it.

Well it did eventually flush late in the summer which was a nice little surprise and left it in its position undisturbed until the leaves have hardened off. When cycads start flushing ideally you should avoid moving or changing its position until the leaves have hardened off as they follow the direction of light. Moving them whilst in the middle of this process can potentially distort the shape of the leaves hence best avoided.

Although this particular one was left undisturbed all through it flushing ritual somehow the pinnate leaves on the tips remained fused together as it hardened and now it looks odd. We don't know how it ended up looking like this but...

it's a nice kind of odd though and we like it!

Cool huh?

We join Loree of Danger Garden on her weekly meme Favourite Plant of the Week!

Mark :-)

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Seize the Day!

What would you do if you know you'll only have one day of the weekend with good weather and you have lots to do, or at least raring to do some gardening? Seize the day of course!

That's exactly what happened this weekend. We were planning to have a day out to Brighton on Saturday but decided to cancel and stayed at home to do a few more things in the garden. The weather prediction here was sunny and dry on Saturday, then near constant rain on Sunday, quite a contrast! Having had a rather busy working week for the both of us, we had a bit of catching up to do and it looked like Saturday was our only chance for the weekend.

This flushing Cycad revoluta is enjoying the rain!

It turned out to be a very good decision indeed, as whilst sat inside writing this blog on a Sunday afternoon it's raining heavily outside and it's been pretty much drizzly at least since the morning. And there's no sign of it stopping soon.

And so it was an activity packed Saturday, starting with getting some of the weekend garden routines done like sweeping the patio and cleaning out the filters of the pond. Then off to four different shops to buy some fish food, paint, garden bench, and stone slabs. Even squeezed in popping round car showrooms en route to these four shops.

Some of the shopping could have been done on a rainy day like today but I had run out of fish food so I can't delay that, plus in the same shop we met up with a fellow member of the Koi club to show us some of the filters we're considering (hitting two birds with one stone). Also at the moment the summer sales are on and a reduction on the costs of the paint we need will be much appreciated. Oh yes, and a garden bench too which we needed at the jungle area. As for the stone slabs, there's a rockery centre near us and we needed a few bits to complete the project Gaz has started on our new garden last weekend. We'll be back to purchase a whole lot more from that rockery centre in the next few days, I love that place, so much to choose from and definitely worth it's own blog entry.

And so as soon as we got back, Gaz got stuck with angle grinding the slabs and cementing them in place whilst I got stuck in doing some more tidying up in the garden, including sorting out a massive pile of Clematis armandii on the bottom patio which we chopped off a few days ago. We still left a bit of it to grow back but I'm starting to consider removing it altogether and replacing with Actinidia chinensis, or just let the Vitis vinifera 'Chardonnay' on the other side of the pergola to take over totally. Anyway, one to decide later on.

One fine day and it was well spent I think! It's too wet and drizzly outside this Sunday so not much we can do. Not complaining though, forced rest indoors now and again is a good thing! :)

Mark

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