I had a wonderful surprise this morning when I uncovered the cactus collection of their sheets of newspapers . Little specks of purpley-pink caught my eye .
My Marlothistella uniondalensis is smothered in buds ! I swear they weren't there yesterday !
My brother gave me a tiny piece of this years ago and it really is my most favourite plant in my collection . It has slowly spread and is now a nice sized clump in this shallow terracotta pot .
It never fails to delight me with its dainty daisy-like flowers with a faint sweet perfume .
That is a quite rare species Pelagonium next to it...I cant remember it's name ..but it has a flower that smells like nail varnish remover ..so I was told at the Penzance Cactus Show , where I bought it from..it has since flowered ( green ! ) and do you know ...it really does ! Extraordinary !
Other things growing through the Winter months right now are this Tylecodon wallichii ..... Those green leaves will drop off and it will go dormant through the Summer just leaving that peculiar stump of a stem . It is leaning towards the light .I daren't put it any closer to the window , where it would be too cold for it .
......and this Dioscoria elephantipes ( so called on account of it's caudex looking like an elephant's foot ) .
I think this is now about to die back and become dormant ... I have just noticed that the leaves are a little bit spotted and ..aah..I think it has been dripped on from the leaking roof . I have moved it over and put that old washing up bowl there to catch the water . I'll take a closer look at it tomorrow , if it has become too wet I might bring him indoors and put him on a warm windowsill to dry out .
Whatd'ya think ?
Outside , I took the cover off this very young Agave this morning ,otherwise it would get too hot under it's cloche .
Actually I have just covered it up again for the night .
This Agave is not doing very well because I have not been covering it ....tomorrow I will be looking for another cloche for it , or I will dig him up and bring him under cover for the winter .
Agaves can take quite a bit of cold , but do not like getting wet . There are slabs of rock around these to drain away the rain and older plants cope much better ..no , I think this one is going to be dug up and given a bit of pampering .
Look at this pot of Snap-Dragons ! This is very much a typically English Summer time plant !
Tomorrow I will take a look to see if there are any signs of the Snowdrops coming up .
I don't think it will be so cold tonight .
So tomorrow , check the Snowdrops , dig up Agave and hopefully show you the Marlothistella uniondalensis with fully opened daisy flowers !
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