I can't be the only one looking for foolproof plants to brighten the patio during summer, but it's always nice to try something a little different too.
I can't be the only one looking for foolproof plants to brighten the patio during summer, but it's always nice to try something a little different too.Traditional summer bedding has its place, but it does demand regular attention.
Daily watering, weekly feeding and frequent deadheading do create more work at a time when, to be honest, there are other things I'd rather be doing in the garden. Riding to the rescue have come a growing assortment of succulents - more unusual plants with very few demands.
It all started a few years back when my jade plant (Crassula argentea) was put outside so that a summer shower could wash dust from its thick fleshy foliage (tap water just isn't the same, as it leaves a white deposit of limescale when it dries). There it stayed, long after the shower had gone, and my search began for more succulents to join it. Every year my collection has grown...a nice compact haworthia, some lovely aeoniums, sedums, echevaria, more crassulas, and this year joined by several agave.
Aeoniums are wonderfully generous succulents, as they can be propagated so readily from their rosettes by cutting them from a parent plant and pushing into pots of gritty compost to root.
Many succulents are hardier than often recognised, though you need some nerve to risk leaving them out all winter as an experiment. Some will simply turn to mush when touched by frost, so I find them a home on a bright bedroom windowsill that remains frost free. One of my neighbours has several succulents planted out permanently in a bed, and provided the drainage is sharp so that they don't get waterlogged, they do not appear to mind the cold.
I prefer growing mine in pots, moving them around every few weeks to create a fresh display. Come autumn these will be carried into my unheated greenhouse (probably before the end of October), and only need an occasional and very sparing watering during winter to keep them going. Next May they'll move back outside - a little bit bigger and bolder - to be joined by more succulent acquisitions. Now, which varieties should I try next?
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