Changed my mind, and decided I'd try and root A Grim One in water! It's supposed to be quicker than propagating in soil, plus I can see the roots appear.
Visitors
Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Leaves and Cuttings
I've been impatiently waiting for an order from Etsy (Dabri Plants, from Hungary), and it's finally arrived - yeah! The seller, Sabrina, very helpfully labels everything, and sends gifts - I got this cutting and a sticker - thanks 😁
The String of Tears (or String of Beads/Senecio herreianus) cutting unfortunately is almost dry, but I've put it in the pot with the rest of my cuttings and we'll see if it makes it. If it doesn't I'm not too bothered, because this isn't cat-friendly and I was avoiding it! Not that my cats eat any of my succulents, but better to be safe than sorry ...
I also bought a pack of 28 leaves, and only one didn't make the journey, but because it was a Sedum pachyphyllum, of which I have 7 babies growing nicely in a pot already, I wasn't too unhappy!
I'm using a muffin tin and an egg box for my leaf propagation. Oh, it was so good to have those labels - thanks Sabrina! 😀 I wasn't sure if I was going to propagate in water or soil, but went for soil in the end because it was easier to keep the labels with the corresponding leaves. There are some varieties which were on my wish list - eg the Black Prince, Fred Ives and Cubic Frost, and there there are plenty more which I've never heard of. I even have a couple of Kalanchoe Tomentosa leaves, which although not on my wish list (not cat-friendly ...), is a beautiful plant. I hope I get lots of plants - fingers crossed.
And last, but certainly not least, I bought these two -
The one marked Echeveria Exotic is a Laui hybrid, and the other one is a Graptoveria A Grim One. They're both tiny! I've removed the dry leaf from the Laui, so that the little plant has a better chance of lying flat and growing lots of healthy roots! The Graptoveria is an unrooted cutting, and I'm not sure whether I should have got it to root in water first ...
All in all I'm very happy with the order. I'm also waiting for a String of Hearts plant from Sabrina, and I hope that arrives soon!
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I watered my succulents today ... Rather than taking all the plants to the bath, I put them in the laundry basket and blue tub and watered them in the craft room. I wish I had an outside space where I could have my succulents, and then I wouldn't have to be so careful with watering - ie getting water all over the floor.
Hope my new Argos shelves arrive soon, because it's going to make things a little bit easier for me, because I won't have to keep moving the shelves to get at the plants, as well as it being much better for the plants - I'll have more room and they'll be able to get more light. And I have a few on the floor already as there's no more room on the wicker shelves.
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String of Hearts
This is my second String of Hearts cutting, and it looks like it's growing! I have another one I bought earlier, and although it's not dead, I'm still not sure it's rooted - but I don't want to pull it out of the pot to check. That one was the one I had been trying to root in water. This one I just potted up in compost, and watered it and put a plastic bag over the pot, and it seems to have done the trick!
Sunday, 28 July 2019
Wilting Fatsia!
Uh, oh ... my fatsia is wilting!! I watered it this afternoon to see if it'll perk up. The stem feels "loose", and like it's not able to support the branches and leaves.
Saturday, 27 July 2019
Dead Echeveria, Shelves, Pots ...
This is one of the gifts I got with my order from the Canaries. I've moved all of the plants from that order into the craft room, but haven't watered them yet. When I picked this one up I noticed the centre of the plant was black and when I touched it all of the leaves dropped off. The stem was black, dry and hollow! If I'd watered them I would have thought I had given them too much water, but I haven't watered these yet.
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The shelves I wanted from Argos aren't available any more, which doesn't surprise me because they were so cheap, so I've asked them to check if these other shelves are in stock -
It's a pack of two, but for now I only have room for one of them, but, who knows, maybe at a future date I'll be able to use the second shelving unit.
There's no room left to put any more plants on the wicker shelves, and I've had to start putting some on the floor, which isn't ideal.
I had to move the shelves a little bit further back, so I hope the plants all get enough light. (I really need to clean those filthy windows!)
When I get my new shelves I also want to re-pot some of the plants into smaller pots - like that sempervivum on the right of the this photo - the pot it's in is huge, plus I could do with that size pot for other plants.
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I went out earlier today, to get some more pots from GibralFlora. I thought these lighter ones were the same size as the ones in the photo above, but they're a little bit larger. I got 14, and I think I'm going to go back and buy a few more on Monday, because I know that I won't be able to get them if I wait until I actually need them. The darker terracotta pots were 80p each, and these are 90p.
Friday, 26 July 2019
More Plants
The latest additions to my ever-growing collection of succulents. They arrived from China, in two separate parcels. Unfortunately one of the plants didn't make the journey - it's dried up. I've e-mailed the shop (succulentzone.com) to let them know, and also that I need help to identify most of the plants - I don't even know what the dead plant was. I know which one the Haworthia is, and I think I've got the one top right correct, by the colour, but I can't work out which of the rest is which!
A Flower!
So it was a flower on my Echeveria Hera!! It's not opened up yet, but hopefully it will soon! This is the first of my succulents to flower.
Thursday, 25 July 2019
Pots
This is one of my new Echeverias. I had it in one of the small glazed pots, and it was much too small, and the other terracotta pots I had were too big, so I checked to see if I had any more terracotta pots in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, and I found this one - perfect.
And I also found these two pots -
The squat pot is probably from an old cactus arrangement, but I don't know about the other pot. It didn't have a drainage hole, but it does now! I have a feeling the painted pot is from an Easter egg.
Wednesday, 24 July 2019
Homemade Compost
I'm going to buy this Addis compost caddy from Argos to make my own homemade compost -
but for the time being I'm going to use this tin as a makeshift compost bin. I've lined it with a 100% compostable shopping bag, and put in bits of apple, crushed egg shells, tissue paper and cardboard. I'm going to ask Mum to save me a few potato peelings, and more eggshells.
Let's see how it goes ...
Tuesday, 23 July 2019
New Plants, Parcels, Shopping for Shelves ...
I got four parcel today, and three of them were plants! Yeah 😉
The first one came from Malta, and it's another String of Hearts cutting (Ceropegia woodii). I think it has a long root (not 100% it's a root ... it could be new growth), and I've put it in a pot with my soil mix, and fingers crossed it roots. According to my Internet research it should root in about 2 weeks.
Then I opened this one ... Unfortunately the box was wet on one side, and the plant is rotten! I've written to the seller, so let's see what we do next. I'd like him to send me a new plant ... I think I'm going to leave this to dry out, although I don't think it has a hope of surviving ...
I don't know if the box got wet on the journey from China, or the seller put the plant in wet tissues, but the poor thing is soggy and floppy!
And then I opened the largest box, which I'd left for last because I knew what was inside, and I needed time to pot everything up. It was my echeveria purchase from Etsy, and had travelled from from the Canary Islands. The seller had numbered the wrapping paper around each plant, and had listed the names, so they were really easy to identify. I bought the 6 larger plants, and he sent me the 3 smaller ones as gifts! The parcel came wrapped up in tissue paper, with a cactus pattern, and I was amazed to see the wrapping had survived the journey!
I'd thought the fourth parcel was plant labels, but it wasn't, so I decided to make my own. I cut strips from a plastic notebook cover, and I think they turned out really well.
And here they are, in their new pots.
I decided to decapitate the second leggy plant from my arrangement - it didn't look right.
I've put the leaves I took off this plant, plus a few which fell off one of the ones in the parcel from the Canaries, which dropped off as I was potting it up, in a saucer and hope I can propagate them. I'm just going to leave them be and check them when I remember ...
There's no space on the wicker shelves to put many more plants, so I'm going to order a new shelf unit from Argos. It's a plain steel and plastic contraption, and not too pretty, but it's more practical than the wicker shelves. The new shelves are open on both sides, so I'll be able to see the plants from the inside of the room, and not have to keep moving the shelves to get to the front to get at the plants.
These are the shelves, turned to face into the room, but if I want the plants to get more light I have to turn them the other way, which then means you see the shelves from the back. They have a metal design across the back too, at each level, which also means I can't get a pot off the shelf without turning the whole thing around! So they're pretty, but not practical. I'll probably use these for the overflow, or maybe put some of the smaller pots - we'll see.
These are the shelves from Argos. They're only £7.24!! Too bad I don't have the room for another one. They're roughly double the width of the wicker shelves, so I should be able to fit plenty of plants on them. I'll have to wait until Friday (pay day) to order them, and hopefully they will still be in stock. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, 21 July 2019
Leggy
I don't think these are getting enough light. I bought them in an arrangement, but the bowl didn't have a drainage hole, so I re-potted them into this bowl, which I had in the bathroom for a long time, but had since taken the blue pattern off and had started to plant cacti in it, but never completed the arrangement. They are unnamed, other than as "Echeveria". The purple plant had lost its rosette-ness, and got very leggy (etiolated), so I decided to cut the top off and try to save it. I've left the decapitated head on top of the soil, for the cut to heal over, because the soil in the bowl is still quite damp. I took lots of leaves off the bottom part of the plant and have left them in a wooden strawberry box to root. I've also re-potted the plant off the part without the top! Let's see what happens to all the different components and how many of the parts root and flourish!
The silvery plant isn't looking that good anymore, but I didn't want to cut off its head for the time being. I'll see how it goes and if it continues to stretch then I'll cut its head off too!
Fatsia and Scale Insects!
I bought this gorgeous plant in February, and it was doing really well. It's a Fatsia japonica elegantissima, and I don't think I'd ever seen one before, and I just had to buy it.
It quickly started to sprout new leaves too. But the other day I noticed a sticky substance on the floor near the plant, but thought it was something I'd spilled ... Then yesterday I picked up the plant to take it to the bathroom to water it, and I noticed the sticky stuff was on the leaves! It had an infestation of scale insects, so I put some washing up liquid in water and gave it a good spray, and then went over all the leaves with toilet paper and removed all the little brown bumps! It's left brown marks on the leaves, but the soapy spray and rub down has also made the leaves really shine!
Saturday, 20 July 2019
4 Year Old Succulent Seeds ...
I've probably wasted a couple of hours sowing these seeds, because I bought them in 2015! I had 24 packets of succulent seeds (no names ...), but one packet was empty! Fingers crossed they germinate, but I don't hold out too much hope.
Friday, 19 July 2019
Seeds
I got these four packets of seeds today. I bought them from Walawala Succulent Studio on Etsy. The seeds are so tiny, I had a bit of trouble getting them out of the packets! I've sown the seeds in little pots and fingers crossed they'll germinate.
Wednesday, 10 July 2019
10 July 2019
No parcels today - plant-y or otherwise ... So here's a picture of my nursery/sick bay shelf instead.
I've bought leaves to propagate, on Etsy, tonight too, from a seller in Hungary.
9 July 2019
I received a parcel today, though it's not the complete order, so hopefully I'll get the rest tomorrow. It took just a week to get here from "next door", which isn't too bad. I've bought from this seller previously, and I think that parcel took a bit longer to arrive.
This is an Echeveria Runyonii Topsy Turvy.
And this weird thing is an Avonia Papyracea Anacampseros Papierartige ... phew!
Monday, 8 July 2019
Morrisons Cacti
I went to Morrisons this morning (well, OK ... early this afternoon 😏) for a packet of charcoal, for the plants - but now I'm scared to use it - too many warnings on the packet
! I went to look at the plants too, of course. They have fatsias, like the one I have, but nothing else too exciting in the area outside the main supermarket, so I then went to looked at the cacti inside the shop, and ended up buying two.
The cacti were £5 each, which I thought was quite reasonable, as they're quite large.
They're not labelled, so I don't know what sort of cacti they are.
There's this one, with lots of spikes ...
And this one ... which needs a bit of a shave! The hairs are very soft, but I still got a spine in my finger when I was re-potting it!
And here they are, in their new pots. I've just watered them, and I want to put them in the craft room, with the succulents.
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