succulents – sharolyntownsend

Yay Success! A Succulenteur’s Propagation Story Has a Happy Ending!

Hellooo!

So, way back when, I started a little propagation experiment with some cast off succulent leaves I found at the local nursery.

Check out my April post title “Never Go Near A Garden Center a.k.a. Human Magnet” to see where it all began.

This is mostly a success story, but as with all good stories there is also a little bit of bad, so let me get that out of the way:

Back in April when I got some new succulents I bought one that was called Bear Paws. Loved them. Planted them right alongside the other one I’d purchased. I kept them indoors out of the frost, coddled them, kept them in filtered light and spritzed lightly with water. It did great for several months, and then inexplicably, the paws started to drop off. At first I thought it was because the curtain had snagged one and amputated a paw…but over several days they all started to droop and one by one they fell off. Needless to say, another one bites the dust. I don’t even have a picture to show you because it all happened so quickly there is literally nothing left to show.

On a happy note, even though it’s neighbor died a horrible and inexplicable death, this succulent is thriving and starting to form a flower!

But oh how I loved that Bear Claw. I will have to give it a go one more time. I will not be defeated!

Now on to the success story! Remember the cast off leaves and the bed of Perlite and the beginning of growth? Check this out!

This is what I’d been waiting for, the original leaf is now shriveled and discolored which means the new plant forming at its base has used up all the leaves good stuff and needs to be planted. Glad to oblige!

Check out that root action!

I just so happened to have the perfect little planter: a retro, made in Japan, cute as can be, ceramic girl with puppy planter:

Et voila! If I can do it, you can too! All it required was patience waiting for the little bugger to start doing something. It’s really quite enjoyable to watch the process inch along.

So get busy, start scouring for those poor abandoned succulent leaves at your local garden center!

Attempting to be a Successful Succulenteur and Other Garden Hits and Misses

Many posts ago I started on the path of succulent propagation. My biggest experiment was using the “let it sit” method with a few leaves I’d gathered that had fallen from a succulent plant at the garden center – NOT stealing as they would have been considered cast offs and no doubt swept up and tossed.

So, to refresh, the method is to let them lie on a bed of Perlite in filtered light until they push out roots and then begin to form their own little plant. A while ago they put out a few tiny roots, but check it out now! The little plant is starting to form at the base ( you’ll probably need to click on the photo to enlarge it so you can really look closely):

Also, the heads of my Hens and Chicks have robust roots and are more than ready to be planted…if only I had a place to put them…

And, as I may have mentioned before, the art of becoming a succulenteur is really about experimentation. I just made a new observation about one of my succulents. It could almost seem to be a deliberate experiment with two test groups, but in reality it is all just coincidence that I had the same succulent type planted in two very different locations. One is outside in full sun, the other in filtered light. Check out the difference between the two!

The first one is in full light, the second in filtered. Note how in full light and heat they have balled up and tightened. In the filtered light they have opened up and stretched that neat webbing to its max. Both are doing well, but they adjust to their conditions in order to do so. Also, the one in full light popped out a lot of babies ( off shoots) in early spring due to lots of consistent rain…unlike the ones in filtered light which rely on my non-consistent watering patterns!

On the garden front…well, the Bok Choi bolted. This is the third attempt and the third failure. We’ve had really odd changes of temperature. I’m pretty sure the week of scorching heat is what caused them to bolt. But if it weren’t for the heat, I’m sure the pests would have done them in:

Note all the munched leaves.

Our little planter with chard turned into a potty for some nocturnal animal. All the sprouts were dug out and I believe if you look close enough you can even see a turd in the bowl. Boo!

Okay, since we’re on the track of failures at the moment, I may as well tell yo that some of my succulents started looking rather weird in the way they were forming their leaves. Also, I noted aphid-like critters on some of them. It seemed to be spreading, so I uprooted the ones that looked diseased.

Also, because of the funky weather, my living rock succulent’s flowers shriveled up and died without actually blossoming. I thought the whole plant would die, but it seems to be doing okay if you disregard the desiccated flowers at its center.

Onwards to brighter things! The Romain is doing fantastic. We had our first garden salad of the year a few days ago. The roses are in bloom, my Lambs Ear are taking over the entire patch and the bees are loving the flowers that just started blossoming from them. My Lavendula Dilly Dilly ( yes, the actual name of the lavender I planted, of course I chose it for its name!) is getting ready to bloom as well.

Our Purple Iris has run its course

But replacing it is a new kind:

And my established Hens and Chicks are also blooming:

And finally, after three years here, a lovely California Poppy has decided to join our accidental garden!

Annnnd we have a blue bird family in our little bird house. Every time we step into the garden you can hear the little babies chirping from inside, saying “feed me, feed me, feed me!” Our presence in the garden worries the parents who stand around with worms and insects in their beaks flitting to the roof of the house then away again unwilling to reveal to us where their precious babies are. And in accordance the babies fall silent too; until my hubby and I freeze in our actions to the point of shaking with the extended exertion of it until finally the mommy or daddy decide we’re no longer a threat and finally deliver the food to the anxious and voracious babies.

Mommy and…

Daddy!

Also, now that it’s getting hot, we are visited by our friendly neighborhood lizards who love our concrete step leading into the garden.

All in all, we are rather happy with our little backyard. We haven’t invested as much time in it as the previous year, but it is still a delight. Everything seems so alive and so active.

So, despite some failures in the gardening department, on the whole I think it is much more of a success. I’ll leave it at that!

Update on Succulents and a Few Other Things

So last time I wrote about succulents I’d just been to the garden center and picked up a few new wonders of the succulent variety as well as a handful of loose succulent leaves. Well, I laid them out on a bed of perlite and left it outside under filtered light (my covered porch) and waited. It’s been what…two weeks now? Well, I am happy to report that they are now pushing out roots. Check them out!

I’m going to wait a bit longer until it starts to form a new plant, so I will get back to you on that. They still have a lot of juice in them. No watering is required. You know it’s ready to put into the ground when the leaves are desiccated and a new mini plant is formed at the end where the roots are.

I also showed you how you can propagate by just cutting off succulent heads, scabbing them over and putting them directly in soil. Well, I cut too many heads and didn’t have enough planters, so some of the heads I left sitting on the perlite. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they also started to push out roots. These should be placed in soil pronto as the leaves are getting really thin, indicating that it’s using all it’s juice to make those roots and needs water soon.

So that’s the most recent skinny on succulents.

The end of April brought the first BBQ of the year for us. Very exciting. Nice to have the longer days and the warmer evenings.

For our inaugural BBQ we grilled burgers. Not to be forgotten, sweet red onions drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt.

Look at its transition to absolute tastiness heaven:

Add to that my mother in-law’s home-made pizza…and we were so very good to go!

The accidental garden is doing well. Those petunias just keep on flowering!

And my hubby planted a lot of seeds that have been happily germinating on the window sills in our apartment. Look at this happy sprout greeting the vegetation outside our window:

Soon they’ll be ready for the outdoors.

Unfortunately pests have discovered my Bok Choi that was so happily flourishing in our planter boxes. I haven’t the heart to upload a photo. Have been experimenting with sprinkling cayenne pepper on and around them. So far no evidence that this has helped in any way. Does someone out there have advice for me? We think it might be earwigs getting to them. Booooo! Hisss!

That’s the latest. Will upload photos of recent artwork soon.