Friday 31 July 2015

Alpines loving the rain

July was a month of two halves. The start lovely and warm with the hottest July day on record, the end cold and wet.  It is interesting watching how the plants reacted to these different conditions. Some agaves loved the heat, others stopped growing. Almost all the alpines struggled, with the heat and are loving the colder wetter weather.

There are quite a few sempervivums in different stages of flower,

Sempervivum 'Green Dragon'

Sempervivum 'Lilac Time'

Sempervivum 'Lion King'

Sempervivum 'Engles'

Sempervivum 'Virgil'

Thankfully all have offsets, so no need to replace them.

Those that are not flowering are looking good as well, I'm liking this small form at the moment, such perfect little rosettes.

Sempervivum ciliosum

This trough was only recently planted so they still look a bit un-natural. It's a good offsetter though, so next year should cover that end.

It is not just the semps that are happy, remember my poor little orostachys fimbriata. The foxes dug it up scattering tiny bits around the garden. The original post can be found here. These were planted up in the hope some would survive.


My first flower.  It doesn't look as interesting flowering on its own, but then I am trying to re-build the clumps to fill the entire trough, so good to only loose one. This is much smaller than the normal form, part of the charm, so it's going to be a while before that is filled.

I finally I may have cracked my other nemesis, scleranthus biflorus. I think I killed three of these in the last garden, then found out the problem was treating them like succulents and not watering them.  These now get watered and so far so good.


I've just spotted the label is still there, sorry Loree. These are usually either buried or removed once I have photos and can place what is where. Anyway, it has doubled in size since being planted a few months back, and has already filled the space nicely. If the success carries on and it survives winter, I have plans to use them more widely in the front garden.

While the alpines may be enjoying the cooler weather, we could do with getting the sun back again now. It is meant to be summer not Autumn.

6 comments:

  1. How startled I was to be reading along have have my name jump out at me! No worries (and I'm I really that picky!?)...I think everything looks fab.

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    1. Thank you. being picky is not a bad thing, I can't remember where it was I read that you disliked labels being left with plants in the ground.

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  2. Your semps are beautiful, enjoy seeing them...they struggle here (at best). I like the ciliosum trough with the stone--that will just get better.

    Just killed my 2nd (3rd?) Scleranthus, though it did last three years, I think. They do like water. Drought tolerant not here.

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    1. Thank you, the ciliosum trough has already filled out and it has only been planted a month. Should be good next year.

      And I agree scleranthus definitely not draught tolerant, not even in the UK.

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  3. Love the trough with the Sempervivum ciliosum. The colors are beautiful together and the un-naturalness is cool!

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    1. Thank you, I think it is going to mature into a good one.

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