Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Recent Acquisitions

They say "Nature abhors a vacuum." Well, I think it's also true that plants will continue to expand into the space allotted to them, which is what seems to be happening out in the greenhouse. I recently made more room for seed starting, but before I could actually get out there and start filling pots with soil and sowing seeds, one of the shelves that I had cleared off for seed trays started to...um...magically fill up with plants.

How did they get there?

But, surely they won't take up much space. They're just teeny-weeny, itty-bitty 4 oz. pots. Every year about this time, succulents in 4-oz. pots start appearing at the big box stores, and at only $2.98, they're hard to resist. They're really well-labeled too, and not just with the tags that say "treated with neonicotinoids." Not to mention I'm in the Home Depot Garden Club, which emails me every week with a $5 off coupon per $50 purchase.

I thought this year I'd try putting some tender succulents right in the ground in the gravel garden (which is getting a makeover -- more on that in a future post). Over the past summer, I saw Senecio mandraliscae planted in the ground, like an annual, at PowellsWood, so I thought I'd try that. I had to go to two Home Depots to buy up all the S. mandraliscae they had in those $2.98 pots. Ultimately I ended up with 12, and I'm looking forward to the cool blue statement they're going to make.


Of course, there were a few more cuties there that I had to get as well.

Echeveria 'Lola'

Aeonium 'Catlin Hybrid'

Echeveria agavoides

Sansevieria cylindrica

Three pots of Euphorbia tirucalli 'Firesticks' which also may end up in the ground

How could I resist a Mammillaria spinosissima cactus called 'Red-Headed Irishman'?

It's the same color as my ginger son's hair

And Mammillaria hahniana 'Old Lady Cactus'? I mean, come on.

She's getting ready to flower soon

This little guy is Mammillaria nejapensis 'Silver Arrows'


Euphorbia flanaganii cristata

I've been so pleased with the success of my first Aloe, Aloe glauca, which has been blooming all winter, that I decided to check out a few more.

Aloe bakeri, with one slim flower stalk poking up

Aloe zanzibarica

I think this one, which was labeled simply "Succulent," is Aloe fragilis

Here are the adorable, and very ethereal-looking, flowers, so very different from my A. glauca's thick, muscular, asparagus-like flower stalk

I better get out there and get some seeds going soon, or else I'm going to be in big trouble.