Dispatching my Aeonium overflow

The Oxford Dictionary defines an "overflow" as "an excess or surplus not able to be accommodated by an available space."  That applies to the current surplus of Aeonium arboreum bloom stalks in my garden.  I started to count them several weeks ago and stopped when a got to a hundred.  More have appeared since.  It seemed time to reduce their number so a neighborhood giveaway was in order.  I've done this before as shown in this prior post dated February 18, 2022.

I filled 5 good-sized recycled plastic canisters with water and used the bench as my staging area.  I cut about 40 stems.  The bees were all over them but they paid me no attention.

I set them facing the street in front of my succulent bed

Closeup of my sign.  I put the flowers out late Monday afternoon and 3 of the 5 canisters were gone when I checked on them at early Tuesday morning.  One empty plastic canister was later returned empty, which I refilled late Tuesday afternoon.  Between the bees and the fact that numerous neighbors have Aeoniums of their own, I may not get many more takers.

I threw 5 more stalks into this vase with no water so I could assess how long they last without it

There are still a lot of flower stalks left.

It looks as though I hardly made a dent in the number of flowers.  They were more prolific to start with in this area of the front garden but, as I have Aeonium arboreum scattered everywhere, I cut stems from multiple locations.

At least I cleared all the stalks that made this it hard to walk along this path

Lest you think I've foisted off my problem on my neighbors, I should note that I've found the flowers make decent and long-lasting vase material.

This is the arrangement I created for "In a "Vase on Monday" on January 5th. In addition to the Aeoniums, it contained Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt', Argyranthemum frutescens, and Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder'.

This is a photo of the same arrangement taken a week later.  Other than white Marguerite daisies, it looked even better a week afterwards on January 18th but I failed to take a photo before I chucked it out to make room for another floral arrangement.

Any spent or disfigured bloom stalks have already gone in the green bin.  More will go once the green bins are emptied later this week.  I may keep a dozen or so but that's it.  Meanwhile, a more interesting flower opened yesterday.

This is Hippeastrum 'Amadeus Candy'.  I've 3 of the bulbs in a pot and 2 stems have blooms, with the third still in bud.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: Limited Choices

I got an early start on Sunday, planning to take advantage of a break in the rain.

I was rewarded by a pretty sunrise

Unfortunately, that break didn't last as long as I'd expected so I wasn't able to dilly-dally about my selections this week.  There also weren't a lot of flowers that held up under the near constant rain we've had over the last couple of weeks.  I grabbed what I had available.  My Aeonium arboreum succulents (aka tree houseleeks) are in bloom, and they're not bothered by rain at all.  Only a relatively small portion of those succulent rosettes bloom each year; however, my informal count indicates that there are nearly a hundred in bud or bloom at the moment.  I've referred to the tall bloom stalks as "Triffids," a reference to an old science fiction movie that featured carnivorous plants that attempted to take over the earth.  Three of these ended up in a vase this week with just a few other stems.

Almost all the Aeonium arboreum bloom stalks have a dunce-cap shape with small florescent yellow flowers

Back view: I used Acacia cognata as a foliage filler and the colorful bracts of Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' as a "floral" accent

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt', Aeonium arboreum, Argyranthemum 'Mount Everest', and Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder'

I filled just the one vase.  Luckily, both of last week's arrangements are still looking good.

Both last week's arrangements were almost fully intact.  The original Anemone coronaria 'Lord Lieutenant' in the arrangement fell apart yesterday morning but I'd already rescued another stem of the same anemone as a replacement.

It looks as though the rain may be done for at least awhile beginning today.  I'm looking forward to dry conditions for a change so I can get back to work in my garden.  Hopefully, the plants in my cutting garden won't be flattened next week.

To find other IAVOM creations, check in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

The return of the Triffids

The Triffids do not exist in real life but, whenever my tree houseleeks (Aeonium arboreum) produce their dunce-capped bright yellow flowers, I think of those fictional plants.  I saw the science fiction/horror movie featuring them just once many years ago.  The film was already old at that point but, for some reason, it stuck in my memory - maybe because who thinks of plants turning against people?!  The "Triffids" of the tale (first described in a book and later represented in a movie and a TV series) were giant carnivorous plants of unclear origin that walked the earth, killing people.  Aeoniums don't eat people but they do seem take over landscapes if allowed to do so and, when they bloom, they can't be ignored.  Bloom stalks show up early in the year and suddenly the flowers are everywhere, at a time when my garden is otherwise relatively subdued.

They're impossible to miss.

For the record, yellow is one of my favorite colors but this display is a bit too much for me

And the plants are known to surreptitiously take over my garden beds

I also really hate it when the prettiest of my Aeoniums, like the rosettes of this 'Mardi Gras' cultivar, all bloom at the same time without leaving any offsets behind to replace them

However, I do like the flowerless Aeonium rosettes and I frequently use cuttings to fill in empty spaces as they're virtually indestructible plants in my climate.  Most branch out in time and eventually they get tall.  Although some of the larger cuttings bloom within a year, most take several years to flower.  Periodically, I find they've gotten out of hand, at which point they need to be either replaced, either by new cuttings or different plants altogether.

This small but dense planting of Aeoniums at the base of one of the raised planters in my cutting garden suddenly fell into decline over the past month or so and I decided they had to go

 

The plants aren't hard to pull but there were a lot of them and the mass had grown well over 2 feet tall.  It took a good hour to pull them out; take some cuttings; and clean up the mass of debris left behind.  I filled half of one of our green bins.

I'd planned to simply replant a handful of these cuttings on the spot but, with rain falling earlier than expected, I decided to leave the area alone for a time.  There may be an opportunity to plant something else there.

Last January, I pulled a larger area of Aeoniums out under the citrus tress in the cutting garden.  I ended up sowing California poppy seeds there and planting Gazinias and Lotus bethelotii in that bed.  The 2 Lotus plants alone have covered over half the space.

After receiving 3.83 inches of rain within the last couple of weeks, the soil is saturated and, following a short pause, more rain is expected on Saturday, continuing into early next week.  I've therefore placed the decision about replanting the small bed on a temporary hold.  In the meantime, I've taken down our Christmas tree and tucked all the ornaments away to give the new year a fresh start.  I'm already looking forward to an early spring.

The first 2 blooms of Camellia 'Taylor's Perfection' opened literally overnight to make their appearance on New Year's Day

Best wishes for a colorful weekend.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Some projects look easier than they turn out to be

As our morning marine layer backs off and temperatures begin to climb, I thought I'd tick off one of the easier projects on my list this week.  After all, I'd tackled the hard part a few months ago - or so I'd thought.

This is the area in question as photographed in January, a bed in the back garden badly congested with overgrown Aeoniums and a rambunctious Ceanothus

This photo, taken in late April, shows a worsened situation in which Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi' in the bed directly across from the one shown in the first photo had effectively merged with the other bed, impeding the flagstone path that lay between the 2 areas

This "after" shot was taken once I'd cleared the path by removing most of the Aeonium 'Kiwi' and a portion of the taller noID Aeonium arboreum planted in front of the large Ceanothus shrub

My stage two project was to pull out all of the tall, bare-legged Aeonium arboreum, lightly prune the Ceanothus, and then replant.  It appeared a quick and easy fix to me!

I thought I had a better shot facing that area but, if I did, I couldn't find it, and I didn't take an updated photo prior to starting this phase of the project.  This photo, taken on April 30th, has to suffice to show the leggy Aeoniums on the right.

Pulling out the large Aeoniums took longer than I thought it would as many of them were buried underneath the Ceanothus but it wasn't difficult, even though I enlisted my husband's help digging up the more stubborn stumps.

I saved a fraction of the Aeonium arboreum for use in replanting the area, focusing on stems with multiple rosettes.  What I can't use there, I'll plant elsewhere or give away.  The discards filled one of our 3 green recycle bins.

This is a shot of the bed once the Aeoniums (with the exception of 2 clumps of 'Kiwi') had been removed.  I'd foolishly ignored the asparagus fern buried in there until it was fully revealed.  It proved to be another problem.

I don't know if it's apparent in the preceding photo but that noID Ceanothus is a behemoth.  It's the only one left from the garden we inherited when we purchased the house.  Like the mass of Ceanothus that originally occupied the front garden, it's backed by the Xylosma congestum hedge that runs the entire length of the main level of the backyard garden as well as most of the front of our property.  I'd no reservations about pulling out the three massive Ceanothus in the front garden when the plants began dying because the narrow space between them and the Xylosma made me claustrophobic.  The Ceanothus-Xylosma pairing in the back creates a similar feeling but I seldom pass through that section of the path, which is generally used only by the gardeners during their quarterly shearing of the hedge.

Pruning the Ceanothus proved harder than I expected.  Not only does the bed slope downward there but there's another sharp drop of two to three feet between it and the maintenance path separating it from the Xylosma.  I thought about asking the gardeners to prune the top of the shrub for me but I expected they'd shear it with an electric pruner, leaving the top looking butchered so I did what I could with manual pruning shears.  Given the sloping ground, there was no way I was going to attempt the job atop a ladder, or ask my husband to do so.

Here's what the area currently looks like.  The dead lower limbs of the Ceanothus have been trimmed back but they're still homely.  New growth will emerge but I plan to replant the space in front to hide the shrub's base anyway.

Thankfully, my husband jumped in and did his best to remove two foxglove asparagus ferns (Asparagus densiflorus 'Myers').  That plant is a menace and should never, ever be planted directly into the ground, except perhaps by someone who lives in Death Valley.

Although I'd been assured that the foxtail form of this asparagus fern is better behaved than it cousin, it appears to be as bad or worse.  I introduced one plant but we found 2 and they'd spread over a wide area.  We filled 4 trugs with their bulbous roots and I doubt we got them all.  Our recently purchased Root Slayer paid for itself when used on the ferns' roots.

So, this project isn't entirely done.  I want to make another pass through the bed to make sure all (or at least the vast majority) of the asparagus ferns' bulbous roots are gone.  Then I need to supplement the soil and replant.  As yesterday's trip to the garden center didn't provide other ideas, I'll replant the bed with Aeonium cuttings once again, even though the Aeoniums are entering their dormant status.  They do a good job of masking the underskirts of that Ceanothus.  I just need to be more meticulous about keeping both the Aeoniums and the Ceanothus well-trimmed in the future.

I'll close my Friday post with some prettier photos of two succulent plants in flower at present.

I think this is a monkey tail cactus (Cleistocactus colademononis as that was how it was labeled but my phone thinks it's a rat tail cactus, C. winteri).  In any case these are its first blooms 

 

The sweet bell-shaped flowers of Cotyledon pendens in this mixed succulent container was a nice surprise.  I bought the plant for its foliage, having no idea what its flowers might look like.

Enjoy your weekend!

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Another project ticked off the list

Last Friday I reported on one project involving a cleanup in my north-side garden.  I also referenced the horde of Aeonium arboreum I'd accumulated as "edging" in my cutting garden.  It started innocently enough.  Shortly after we moved into our current home in December 2010, a close friend gave me several cuttings of these plants, which I think she got from her parents' home.  Unsure what to do with them at that point, I planted them along the border occupied by three citrus trees in what was originally set up as a vegetable garden.  I figured I could always dig them up or harvest rosettes from the plants to place wherever I liked once I'd made some decisions about where I could use them.  And I did just that year, after year, after year.  But I never removed the mother plants and the clumps only grew larger and larger with each passing year, until I could barely move between them and the raised planters I now use for growing flowers to cut.  Meanwhile, I have more Aeoniums of numerous varieties spread about in virtually every corner of my garden.  

I decided that it was time for the Aeoniums in the citrus beds to go.

"Before" shot taken just over a week ago

Closeup of the ungainly efforts I'd previously made to prevent tripping over the plants extending into the pathway

I removed half the mass last Friday morning, filling one and a half of our three green bins.  I was planning to hold off on the rest so I'd have room in the bins for other material I planned to prune; however, I asked my husband to remove two stumps I couldn't budge.  Two hours later I discovered that he'd moved the stumps and the remaining expanse of Aeoniums.  I'd planned to give away the Aeoniums in the best shape but oh well!  As it was, it took me a couple of hours to pull up stems and roots still embedded in the soil.  I also paid a visit to my local garden center to pick up soil amendment to give the somewhat sad citrus trees a boost.

I really needed more than this but I didn't want to get ticketed for blocking my rear view on the way home

I could still use a couple more bags of soil amendment but at least the bed looks better already

Side view of the same bed

I also cleaned up an adjacent bed occupied by a persimmon tree, a dwarf Japanese maple, and more Aeoniums

One small Aeonium cutting filled this small planter on my back patio

So, do you think I visited the garden center and just picked up soil amendments?

I rarely leave a garden center without plants and this was no exception

In addition to a citrus fertilizer, set aside to spread after we harvest the citrus currently on the trees, I brought home two other varieties of Aeoniums and an Agave 'Snow Glow'.  I think I was relatively restrained.  I emptied a large pot in the succulent bed in front of the garage of Manfredas and Sedum that had seen better days to give my new Agave 'Snow Glow' pride of place.  I've looked for a reasonably-priced specimen of that agave for years.  Along the way, it could be said that I've lowered my expectations of what a "reasonable price" is.

This is the replanted pot.  Although the agave will probably fill the entire pot in time, I thought it could use an embellishment.

The burro's tail succulent (Sedum morganianum) in this pot has been trailing the ground for some time.  I took 6 cuttings to trail down the side of the pot containing 'Snow Glow'.

I did a little tweaking of the succulent bed while I was working in the area.

The 3 small pots of Aeonium decorum 'Sunburst' went into the bed next to the mutant cutting I took from elsewhere in my garden last year.  Note that 'Sunburst' and the "mutant" are similar in color but the variegation is flipped.  The mutant has yellow stripes down the middle of its leaves with green edges whereas the variegation in 'Sunburst' is the reverse.

I'd never seen Aeonium 'Super Bang' before so I picked up 3 of those in small pots and added them to this bed too

This noID Aloe was included with a variety of plants given to me by a neighbor in a temporary planter made of the base of a fallen palm frond.  It and its companions were stressed and needed to be planted in the ground.

I also moved around succulents that were crowding Veltheimia braceteata bulbs.  I transplanted the bulbs last year in the hope that, given time, they'll bulk up and bloom again.

I've more work to do on that succulent bed but that may take a backseat to the pruning I still need to finish now that my three green bins are empty again.  Meanwhile here are shots of yet another variety of my blooming Anemones to end the week on a colorful note.

These are both examples of Anemone coronaria 'Rarity'

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party