Agave mediopicta alba 🌿

 I took this photo at about 7am this morning . Very surprised !  It is quite rare for Jack Frost to come dancing here on the Lizard .

It was gone within the next half an hour , thank goodness ! 

Those poles on the gravel area are going to be a teepee in that red tub .  I had sown sweet peas back in the Autumn but after my spine injury I couldn't even fix up the fleece like I usually do and now we are waiting for the guys to come and empty the septic tank ....and that tub is on top of the manhole cover . So now I'll have to wait until they've been and gone .

I'm hoping the Black-Eyed Suzies  will have self sown  along with the sweet peas . Not sure if they will have come through this stormy winter . 

Anyway the sun came out and we moved the garden seat off of the deck of the summer house and I cautiously peeked inside ......you know .... 🕷️🕸️🐭🐁🕷️  !!! 

On the coffee table I had left these Agaves to over winter ..... looking a bit ..well ..it's the over wintered look isn't it ? !

I decided to repot the one on the far left .

                          

                                 🌿  Agave mediopicta alba 🌿

 It has two nice sized pups ....off shoots  .  Very happy me ! This one is a special one . Not as hardy as the others but very beautiful . I think this one is the most beautiful of all the Agaves . 

                       It's not rare , but is a hard to find one .

                 I pulled it out of the pot .

...and shook off the old gritty compost .The off -shoots were quite easy to untangle and wriggle apart .

I noticed a tiny pup in there , but decided to leave that on as at that stage it won't have developed any roots .

                     I found a few more !  🤩  

It's easier to remove the pups when they are at this stage with this variety of Agave .

I needed to pull off the old dead and crispy leaves . I always try to tug them right off to the roots if possible , but if they won't come away , then I just snip off what I can .

I mixed some of the old gritty earth with some fresh compost . 

I can't find horticultural grit anywhere at a sensible price .

Agaves need to have earth which allows really good drainage .

I am careful not to bury the base of the Agave plant itself . I really need to get some horticultural grit to go on the surface , it is important  . (I might make some myself . Watch this space !)

I'm putting Mumma Agave back into her original pot .  She's so glad the two teenagers have moved out and now there is more space for her to enjoy !

.........and now they have terracotta pots of their own !  Everybody happy !

I'll let them settle in , with only the scant moisture from the fresh compost that I have mixed into the old  .  Then I'll very gradually introduce a little rain water in a few weeks time .

               🌻🌹🪻🌿    Hope you're having a nice weekend 🪻🌹🌷🌻

                                                       🌤️⛅🌥️

Marlothistella uniondalensis - is flowering !

 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 !

Rainy Foggy Day in Mullion Today

A very rainy night here in Mullion and a foggy old day too . ..but I make the most of it and take the opportunity to dig up the Dasylirion that I had planted back in the Spring to replace to Agave which had flowered and then slowly died .
 I had been growing this Dasylirion  longissimum up in one of the vegetable beds , surrounded with chicken wire .  It was doing really well there and I thought I,d plant it where I could enjoy it even more .

                                      Alas ! It has been nibbled by the rabbits !

 Never in a million years did I think that the rabbits would be interested in a Dasylirion ! Sigh ! So out it came and in with another Agave . I can not remember which variety this one is , but it is going to be a much bigger one than the last one I grew here in this spot . It has very glossy , dark green leaves and I think it is a much hardier one too .

 I arranged slabs of rock around it , as it is the wet that kills these more than the cold .
The rocks are arranged so that the rain will just run away from the roots .
Also the rocks heat up under the sun and pulse it back out over night .
In the winter I will put a large cloche over it .....in fact I put the cloche on later on this afternoon as the heavy rain continued .
  I began pulling the weeds that you can see behind it ...but then got carried away playing with the stones .

                   And then the sun came out ....and off we went to the beach !
Poldhu Cove was very busy with lots of happy families and I can recommend the Poldhu Beach Cafe !
We decided to drive a little further though today and visit Marazion Beach  .

                                                             Marazion .

                                                      St Michael's Mount .

Gravel Garden + Agave update

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 .

Bringing in my Cornish Window box for Winter

 This year I planted up my kitchen window box with  succulents and pelargoniums .
I called it my Cornish window box  , but actually most of the things in there are actually South African plants and the Agave is from South America .
 Well I think it did really well and now all I have to do is get it into the greenhouse and hopefully I will be putting it out again next Spring .

 It's looking good and flowering away on this South facing window ledge .
That's some of my collection of Heart Stones on the window ledge behind .

Pretty Aeonium and sweet mesembryanthemum (or "Sally me 'ansom s  " as they are called in Cornwall ) looking pretty right now , but yesterday we had some scary thunder and lightening and torrential rain ......actually while I was having my flu jab at Mullion Health Centre .... we had a power cut !
   Anyway  , I was thinking I'd better get a move on and get some of my more precious plants into shelter .

         It was heavier than I expected and  awkward even in the wheel barrow .......

.....but I got it though the veg garden and up the slope to the greenhouse , a quick cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit to give me strength  and then ......

...... shoved it into the greenhouse ....yes .... no .....there's not a lot of room in there now !
 I can just about squeeze in there now to open and close the windows .
                                           Aah ! That's that job done !

Baby Agaves

 So yesterday the man came round to let us know that he was coming today to fix the fence . The fence that runs along behind my gravel bed with the Agaves in that is  ...

 Well , I had planned to let the little Agave pups grow a bit bigger before pulling them out  but I cant take the risk of the man trampling on them ..... sigh ..... : (

                                     So I had no choice but to take them out now .

They all have a little bit of rootage  on them , but these here are all connected ,so I am laying them down together in this tray . I added some gravel to this compost , by the way, for good drainage . There were also a couple of teeny weeny shoots which I nestled in there , they are hard to see .

                                             Some more gravel around on top .

  All done and into the greenhouse . I think there may be a few more pups around the other side of the mother Agave . Oh the weeds ! ..and now the leaves are beginning to tumble off the trees all around too ! Can I ever catch up with it all ? !!!