Puttering about

I've been busy for the past week cutting plants back, tidying things up, and even doing a little planting.  Between taking down the dead Auranticarpa rhombifolia and my end-of-summer pruning activities, we filled all three of our green recycling bins so I felt compelled to take a little break until the waste material is collected on Thursday.  In the meantime, I repotted some succulents and gave myself time off to check out a houseplant sale at the local botanic garden.

These are the spiffed up containers arranged outside the back door

The green pot contains Aeonium 'Jolly Green' and Graptosedum 'Vera Higgins'.  The tall blue pot holds Mangave 'Black Magic' and the small pot holds a Faucaria tigrina.

The green pot shown here is one I planted a couple of weeks ago with a Crassula, Echeveria, Kalanchoe, and a small Sedum.  The wide blue pot containing Aeonium 'Sunburst' and a variety of other succulents is still in need of sprucing up.  I can't remember the name of the Aloe in the Talavera-style pot.

I just upgraded Mangave 'Praying Hands' (left) to a larger pot.  Behind it is Mangave 'Aztec King' and on the right is Mangave 'Falling Waters'.

 

I also did a little cleanup in one area of the "bromeliad bed" in the front garden.  Only one section of the bed actually contains bromeliads.  The other two sections are filled with succulents.

I cleaned out most of the leaves that were covering this section.  In addition to assorted Echeverias, it contains Aeonium 'Lily Pad', Crassula orbicularis var rosularis, and several Haworthia cymbiformis.

The translucent leaves of Haworthia cymbiformis are tougher than they look, at least when provided adequate shade

 

Yesterday morning I took a drive over to the local botanic garden to check out the house plant sale they'd advertised on Instagram.  It looked impressive in the video they'd posted but sadly it was underwhelming when I visited in person.

To be fair, they may have sold out a lot of items following the video I saw late last week but the pickings were pretty slim at the time of my visit.  The woman manning the plant stand said she expected another shipment of plants later in the afternoon.

I took home just this unlabeled Vriesea (maybe Vriesea splendens)

 

After spending all of ten minutes in the plant sale area, I took a walk through the garden.  Here are some of the highlights from the Desert Garden area:

Like this Alluaudia humbertii, a lot of succulents were looking healthy and happy, presumably plumped up by the rain delivered by Tropical Storm Hilary last month

Cyphostemma juttae, aka Nambian grape (It's grapes are NOT edible as they're poisonous.)

The leaf-less Drimia maritima flowers were in full bloom

Two interesting Mammillaria clumps

Pedilanthus bracteatus, aka tall slipper plant, looking better than any others I've ever seen

I've seen Pseudobombax ellipticum 'Alba' (aka shaving brush tree) in bloom many times but I can't remember ever seeing it fully leafed out like this

 

Just outside the Desert Garden, I also saw something I'd never noticed before:

There's a mass of what I assume are Epiphyllums (orchid cacti) climbing up this tall palm tree.  It'll be an interesting sight when those plants bloom.

 

I'll be back to pruning later this week.  I really should get to work on the back slope but I misjudged the activity level among the fire ants earlier this week and have already accumulated almost a dozen bites.  I'm inclined to wait until the temperatures fall into the 60sF and the ants become less active.  The alternative is to hose myself down with insect repellent and put on the equivalent of a hazard suit.

All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party