Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves

This morning I spent three hours moving plants around, trimming back and picking up leaves that had fallen off.  When I planted everything in the spring, I had no way of knowing how everything would grow.  I've been shocked at how fast and full things have filled in, so I needed to rearrange a few things.  In doing that, I ended up rescuing a bunch of leaves.  The ones in the two stackable ones are leaves that need to root and the ones I the silver tin had begun to root already.  Then there is the pile of  Kalanchoe cuttings that I'm going to share.  

Hopefully, I'll have more babies than I'll know what to do with!

The cleaned up beds will be another post for another day...

Happy Gardening!

Mandy

Front Succulent Beds

It's been a while, but that's another story for another day.  I have been going stir crazy not writing about my recent, or not so recent succulent happenings though. 

 

Since we brought Thing One and Thing Two, aka Charlie and Molly, home one and a half years ago, things have been a little stunted in the gardening area.

 

 

 

 

 

First, they decided that anything in the ground make for a great jungle like adventure and they took great joy in flatening anything taller than them in the back yard.  The potted things up on shelves survived until they realized that it was great fun knocking them over, tearing the contents apart and listening to Momma lecture.   By the way, the Kalachoe 'Chandelier Plant' has never truely recovered from this attack. 

Then came the greenhouse that had to be put behind a quickly put up fence after said puppies learned they could bust through and destroy relocate my plants and then make their escape. 

 

Keeping things behind the fence worked great all last summer. 

 

 

 

Then came the new greenhouse and a rather blustery Christmas Day and all that went to pot.  After having to spend the rest of the winter in the garage; thus kicking me and my car out of it, I decided enough was enough and put them all in the ground.  My friend Amy has her succulents in her back yard for the most part and they always do awesome during the summer.  I figured that since my front yard gets the same sun as her back yard that I'd just throw caution to the triple digit summers and give it a whirl.

 

And so the experiment begins.  Mixed in are some hibiscus that were either rescued from the crazy ants at the coast or added to my jungle from lack of self control.  While I was at it with the succulents, I decided to give these a chance to show off in the ground as well.

 

These next few photos were taken back in May when I was taking serious heat from my husband for junking up his gargae and the front yard.  

 

The bed above has one hibiscus on the left corner.  There is a Euphorbia 'Jacob's Ladder' and then is flanked by my newest hibiscus (at time of photo) that I absolutely adore.  I put the Kalanchoe 'Pinata' in a pot to add variety and keep it from taking over.  A Euphorbia 'Firestick' takes the middle spot of the bed and is loving it.  The Kalancho 'Fang' is one of my favs, next to that.  There are a mix of others including the Kalachoe 'Flapjack' and 'Fantastic' finishing off this side. 



Another angle of the left side.  I lost the Euphorbia a the far right side, so that is empty at the present moment.  I rescued a few pieces, and am hoping that they'll grow and I can put it back here when they get to a decent size.  My pig and red pots are loving their spots on the porch again.



The front porch has always been home to a number of my succulents, with a few additions this year.  The Epiphyllum strictim 'Queen of the Night' is loving her new home up here and has given me lots of pretty blooms this season. The varigated cactus is new this year to the front porch and is growing like a weed!

The bed to the right of the door is home to a number of my favorites.  Let's start with the Euphorbia 'Lady Slipper' that is in the pot at the left side of the bed.  I had her in the ground at one point, and had to rescue her from the puppies.  Since then, she's been in this pot and if her growth is any indication; loving her pot!  The back row is home to more Euphorbia's...'Pencil Stick', two that I don't know their fun names and the 'Red Bird Cactus'.  The hibiscus on the end is about at the end of my trial period and soon to be relocated.  There is a beautiful varigated 'Crown of Thorns' being hidden, so some rearranging is in order.  The Kalanchoe beharanis - both fuzzy and non-fuzzy cap off the ends of the second row.  Kalanchoe 'Silver Spoons and 'Bronze Spoons' are enjoying their new home as well. 

These weren't the best pictures due to the river rock that took the place of mulch thanks to the neighborhood cats, but they are growing and I will post new pictures later.  The back row is shocking as to how fast it filled in. 

The next group is just an update on the front tree succulents that I planted last year.  They survived the winter and have also done great over the summer this year.  I lost a few things, but for the most part, what you see is part of the original planting from this original post and this updated post.  I did add some things when I did the beds above as well to try and get everything I could in ground. 

 

I should have put a warnig that this one was going to be long, but hey...if you got to this point of the post, you are probably as crazy for succulents as I am!!  If that's not the case, thanks for hanging in there!

Happy Planting!
Mandy

New Huerrnia - Huernia Procumbens

While it's only been a few months since I have been on a succulent hunt, it has felt like forever.  A few weekends ago, my friend and I stayed home from the coast and went on a hunt.  As usual, Shades of Green had several things that we couldn't go home without.  One of them was this cool little Huernia.  I was really excited that she had a bloom on her so I didn't have to think about the possibility of me having it already. 

Is this not darling!!

She has the raised middle like the Huernia Zebrina/Confusa 'Lifesaver', but her petals go straight back.  Below is the entire plant.  She's also a much lighter shade of green than my others. 

 

 

Of course, the piece with the bloom on it fell off on the ride home, so Amy's got it rooting across the street.  I'm looking forward to many more cool little blooms from her. 

I'm off to search out her name...  That didn't take long.  I no sooner posted this that I found it, Huernia Procumbens.

Mandy

Kalanchoe Mortagei Crenata

 

My plant has a real, bonified name!!  Meet Kalanchoe Mortagei Crenata, with much thanks to my Florida blogger friend, Julie at A Succulent Life for her tenacious researching skills!!  She found it on this really cool website that I somehow had forgotten about Glasshouse Works, let's just be clear that I've now added this to my favorite list so I don't lose it again!  They have it with the fun name of 'Mother of Hundreds', but I much prefer my nickname of 'Big Mama Donkey Ears'.  These leaves are so much larger than my regular 'Donkey Ear' has ever gotten.  Of course, I lost my original plant after she bloomed.  Once they bloom, they begin to die, so I'm on year one of babies trying to get big and beautiful.  Thankfully my neighbor friend, Amy, has a ton of them as well in case there's an emergency and I need more. 

 

I'll have to take pictures of the plantlets on this one, they are very different as well.  They seem to have a ball that connects to the leaf with bigger roots.  It makes them a little odd to put in the dirt, but we're working on that. 

 

Thank you again, Julie!  I believe you should go by the title of Succulent Rock Star from this point forward! 

 

Make it a great day!

Mandy

Phone Test

Playing around with my new phone to see if I like it or want time switch it out with the iPhone5...looks like I can blog much easier.  Let's  see how this comes out.

Kalanchoe Gastronis Gonnierfi 'Donkey Ears'

One of my absolute favorite Kalanchoes is the Kalanchoe Gastronis Gonnierfi 'Donkey Ears'.  In one of our weekend coast trips, Amy and I spent the day visiting local nurseries.  At a new one to us, I found what looked like a Donkey Ear, but without the mottled leaves.  I saw it from two rows over and knew that if it was less than $25 that it was coming home with me.  At our nurseries in San Antonio, this baby would have been that at a minimum just based on sheer size alone.  That being said, I cautioulsy slid through recently watered muddy ailses and hit pay dirt!

 

This baby was $12.50 and it was huge!  It was tagged 'Donkey Ear' and the little plantlets grow on it's leaves the same as the one I already have, but the leaves are much longer, fatter and not have spots like the one below.   I bought a few other things and ended up getting her for $9.00!!!  Talk about making Mandy a happy girl! We pulled off a number of babies and still had a bunch left on the plant.  If anyone knows anything about this different variety of the Donkey Ear, please share.  I've Googled until I gave up because I can only get the one below to show up.

 

Mandy

Front Yard Succlents Update

It's been so long since I've posted, and since one of the last comments was asking how my front yard succulents were doing, I thought I'd start there.  These were all taken at the beginning of August, so they'd had about five months to take root and get happy.  There is noticible growth in most since my first post Front Yard Succulents. 

 

View From Street

 

 

View from House

 

I was shocked that the majority of them held in there during the intense heat of the summer.  I have also come to face the sad fact that aeoniums and a number of the hen and chicks just aren't cut out for San Antonio summers. 

 

The purple 'Kalachoe' is crazy!  I'm not sure this was a good choice to put in the ground since she's so lanky, but she's very happy.

 

These are all happy.

 

The Senecio fulgens in the middle is doing good, as is the purple echeveria and the 'Wooly Rose' Echeveria in the back. 

 

The Echeveria in the front corner is getting huge and is the Golden Sedum and Senecio that are to it's right and left.  This corner gets the most sun, so my choice was a good one with these.

 

The Echeveria in the middle and far right corner are still doing really good.  The red Hen & Chicks, not so much.

 

 

Aeonium 'Kiwi' is not real hardy right now, but she's still trying.  The Kalanchoe 'Panda Plant' is hanging in, I expect to see more growth in the cooler months out of both of them. I believe it's a Senecio in the top left corner, and she's really spreading out.

 

The Echeveria in the right corner is still going strong.

 

The large one at the top got attacked and is no longer in the bed.  The Hen & Chick in the front corner tried to hang in there, but the heat won. 

 

 

 

Mandy