How can you not love succulents

[Chrisg]

I have been moving my plants around out of winter storage and waking them up. They don't look at all bad given this is when they should look thier worst.


greenhouse-table-01-apr13 by Chris, on Flickr

I love the range of shapes and colours you get, what's not to like. Then if there is shape you can't find naturally you can always manipulate the plants to give a look you like


dudleya-01-apr13 by Chris, on Flickr

Or maybe you want an aloe on a stick


aloe-aristrata-x-striatula-01 by Chris, on Flickr

[Wayne]

Looking good, Chris!

Agree with you, I would of thought they would look a little rough, but no!
How are your bigger Aloe's??

My agaves always take a small hit, but the Aloes kept frost free all look good and I'm looking foward to a flower or too...

I remember last year things were pretty bad and even my Aloe Striatula failed to flower, this year it should be more promising. Happily my E.Afterglow has produced numerous pups , so I can use them like bedding.

What a great bedding plant that is! :D

Wayne

[Chrisg]

Wayne, sadly I don't have any of the very large aloes any more, Some where just getting too big to store so I gave them away to other people, and the last large aloes didn't survive last winter, that very early cold spell before they had properly dried out did the damage. Like you I found last winter was hardest on the aloes. While I still have offsets from them all I don't have any specimen aloes any more, apart from perhaps my aloe plicatilis which is growing and branching nicely.


aloe-plicatilis-01-apr13 by Chris, on Flickr

I did take cutting from the Aloe Striatula I had planted out and so I have 4 pots of that now which if I pot them up this year should be a decent size by the end of the summer.

I am pleased yours all got through winter without problems, E.Afterglow is a great plant, I know Paul uses a really simple trick of top cutting them each Autumn and letting them re-root, and the taking two of the bases only and using them to offset. He gets about 15 - 20 pups off two plants and uses them as summer bedding.


Echeveria Afterglow by Chris, on Flickr

[charlie]

You can love em, but they don't necessarily love you back!

[David Matzdorf]

...my aloe plicatilis which is growing and branching nicely.

That looks great. MIne is suffering from having been kept indoors too long. All my tender Aloes are, but A. plicatilis, despite being kept dry, always makes a bit of etiolated early-Spring growth before I can get it outdoors. In 2012, it went out in March and rapidly outgrew the spindly, floppy leaves, but this year, not only is there twice as much indoor growth, but it has all been bleached by this week's sunshine. It will probably be OK, but it's going to look pretty weird for awhile.

My experience with this sp. is that it grows much faster if it gets a lot of water in warm weather. I don't know where its native range is (somewhere in South Africa...), but I'd guess it's somewhere with heavy, frequent Summer rains.

[islandcassie]

They are looking lovely Chris - wish I could grow them too.

[Chrisg]

Thanks.

David: I have had problems in the past with them getting leggy leaves. they are hard to stop growing over winter and tend to suddenly come into growth. I stop watering early and slowly move in darker spaces and don't water at all until I put it into brighter light.

IC: Is the problem too much humidity?

[islandcassie]

Yep - hot and steamy does not do well with spikeys!

[Chrisg]

you should be able to manage the spikie broms and you can grow so many other lovely plants that most of us drawl over :lol:

[islandcassie]

Chris - talk to you about tropical spikies when I get back from Central America.