Time out for succulents

A "time out" usually refers to a suspension of activity, either as punishment for a naughty child or a pause in athletic play.  In this case, it refers to short breaks from my caregiver activities to putter in the garden.  It being summer, a questionable time to do any planting here, my puttering was generally confined to work involving succulents.

Shortly after my husband's surgery, blogger friend Denise of A Growing Obsession contacted me to ask if I'd like some of the plantlets (aka bulbils) she'd harvested from a bloomed out Agave vilmoriniana 'Stained Glass' (variegated octopus agave) in her SoCal garden.  She offered to mail them to me but she ended up dropping them off as she prepared to leave town.  There were a LOT of them.

This bag alone contained on the order of 100 bulbils

She left me the stalk too, with more plantlets that hadn't yet been harvested

 

As I've no plans to open a nursery, I contacted  several local friends to see if I could pawn off any find someone to adopt a portion of them.  Two friends offered to take a "few" but another friend contacted a member of the local Cactus and Succulent Society to see if they were interested and, luckily, they were.

These are the plants I saved for myself and the 2 friends that asked for a few.  Not all will root but, of those that do, I'll probably save only 2-3 for myself as this agave gets very big.  I'll offer those that don't go to friends to my neighbors.  I haven't had a neighborhood giveaway in quite awhile so that'll be a good way to kick off the fall season.

This is what I offered to the representative from the Cactus & Succulent Society who graciously agreed to pick them up: 3 flats and the remaining unharvested bulbils.  I filled the flats with cactus soil mixed with what perlite I had on hand.  Each flat contained 36 tiny plants.

With the 'Stained Glass' Agaves sorted, at least for the time being, I took time to pull a large clump of dead Cerastium tomentosum (snow-in-summer), filling the empty spot with three Echeverias I'd purchased in late July.  The Cerastium spread but never bloomed and, even with cooler-than-usual summer temperatures, the foliage burned up.

The noID blue-toned clumping Echeverias (possibly E. imbricata) were purchased for another location but hopefully will be happy enough in this one

 

I also rescued a tiny agave that popped up under a clump of Aeoniums.

I removed an Agave colorata from the bed in which I found this small pup at least 2 years ago so the discovery was a surprise

By way of an update, the larger Agave colorata we dug out of our street-side succulent bed earlier this month when we discovered that the drip line underneath it had sprung a leak, has a new home.

I think it's a better spot for this Agave colorata than the 2 areas I'd mentioned as prospects in my earlier post.  Maybe the pup will end up here too once it grows larger.

I'd like to add more rock to the bed shown above but, as I need help picking it up from the local building and landscaping supply outlet, that'll have to wait.  My husband will be limited from lifting anything heavy for some time yet.  In addition to its purely aesthetic value, rock helps to retain moisture, limits evaporation, and modulates soil temperature so, under current circumstances, the more the better.

This little vignette shows just how happy succulents are snuggled in among rocks.  The plants here include Aeonium 'Lily Pad', Crassula orbicularis var rosularis, and noID Haworthia (possibly H. retusa).

I've done a little hand-watering, mostly of plants in pots and my cutting garden, as well as deadheading.  Although I'm itching to cut back a host of scruffy plants, I'm trying to hold off until our temperatures are consistently cooler.  October would be optimal but it remains to be seen if I can restrain myself that long.

Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.  I'll close with a new dahlia bloom to start the weekend off right.

The tuber that produced this flower was sold to me as Dahlia 'Akita', which it's definitely not.  Based on the flower's size, the petal shape, and the proportion of white versus red color, my best guess is that it's 'Duet' or maybe 'Rebecca's World' but then dahlias can mutate quite a lot as they mature.

 

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