I made the gravel area of my garden about 15 years ago ..and landscape weed membrane has lasted very well. It makes a pleasant interlude for the eye as you look around the garden . It is a nice place to sit and we have a seat here . A gravel bed/garden needs to be raked often to stop weeds germinating ...I like to rake patterns in the gravel and keep it looking nice everyday .
However I wasn't able to keep up with it while poorly the last two years , the leaves fell from the trees, people walked on it with mud on their boots , the wildflowers crept in and well nothing lasts forever . The big Agave potatorum which flowered three years ago , I had cut down it's flower mast after it had gone to seed and I had expected it to die....hasn't died ...and I thought I,d wait and see what it might do after cutting off the flower spire .
Would it die ? Would it carry on growing ? Well , it has pretty much remained in a static state , doesn't look to be fading away , but not growing either .
The weeds crept in around it ....sigh....brambles too .
Time to do something about it .
After four days of heavy drifting fog ,the sun has at last returned . I found a comfortable flat slab of rock to sit on and with the sun warm on my back and bucket at my side , I must have spent a good hour taking away all the rocks and pulling out weeds .
There were even snails in there hibernating underneath those spiky leaves .
I pulled off the very lowest leaves that came away easily and left the one you can see here. There is beauty in them too . They actually go hard and crispy and shelter the ground underneath and around the plant . The rocks that I put around the Agave soak up the heat from the sun all day and pulse it out again during the night and help shed the rain away from the roots . I also put a big cloche cover over it , on cold ,wet days and especially during the winter months . See the first picture of the cloche cover . It is more the wet that kills them than the cold .
Then look what I found ! A baby Agave ! So it is still growing !
Usually I take these off from the mother plant , leave to dry off for a couple of days and pot up in gritty compost .
I decide to leave this one on for a bit longer and remove it when it is a little bigger and has better roots . I put some earth around it , a hand full of sharp gravel and returned some rocks to protect it .
I put back the large rocks ....my hands aching and sore... it is going to be very cold tonight after such a lovely day of sunshine and clear blue sky . I put on the cloche cover and weight it down with more rocks .
Such a lovely day..... I get cleaned up and we take the dog for her walk along the cliffs.
We sit and watch the waves .
I have a few other young Agave plants waiting up in my greenhouse to replace this one when it finally goes .
Hope you had a lovely Sunday ....I will dream of Agaves tonight .
