It has been a bit wet and windy and loads of fireworks going off (despite the ban in this area) but now things are starting to turn colder and sunnier. We did manage to get the harling fixed on the patio walls and a few other patches here and there. The harler also put some extra cement at the top of my ramp as the ramp itself had sunk an inch or so from the flat slabs at the top. I now don’t have to bunny-hop over the edge of the slabs with tools or plants on my knee.
A lot of leaves have fallen now but there are still some falling into the pond so I have to keep on top of that. There are a few flowers out still but I will be concentrating on house plants just now. I have had to move some of the more delicate ones from the cold conservatory so I now have plants in almost every room. There are still loads of plants in the conservatory that can handle the cold and I try to keep it above 5 °C.
Back in June I chopped the head off the aeonium ‘Voodoo’ to see if I could get the head to root and the cuttings to root and branch. There was mixed success: the head did root but some of the new leaves were a very strange shape, but these have now fallen off and it is looking good. The larger of the cuttings rooted and started branching, the smaller cutting just rotted, and the bit that already had roots that the head came from has done nothing. I have been spraying the stem where the buds should branch from but nothing so far.
The crocus are now coming up, just slightly ahead of the ones outside on the patio. In the background is the pot with the Oxalis palmifrons which I am glad to say are coming on well. Although I am sure they were in flower this time last year.
On the lefthand side of the conservatory is a collection of plants. Beaucarnea recurvata (ponytail plant or elephant’s foot) which really aught to be re-potted but I don’t have a big enough pot and I know it will be a real struggle to do so I haven’t done anything about it. Davallia canariensis (hare’s foot fern) which in hindsight is in the wrong kind of pot: it is clay and I have to spray the plant regularly as the fern likes moisture but the the clay pot is now disintegrating. I do love the hairy rhizomes of the fern and I have another one else where in the conservatory. The only streptocarpus I have left is the small succulent leaved one called Streptocarpus saxorum and it still has loads of flowers. I gave it quite a ‘hair cut’ a few months ago and it is looking better now. The Selaginella Kraussiana is a type of clubmoss and although it is looking ok just now I did take a few cuttings and potted one up in a small pot and and put the others in a bottle. It was looking rather bedraggled before. The mice have been having a good chew at the bottle cork!
I still have sempervivums and a few echivera hybrids and cacti in the conservatory along with a couple of herbs and cuttings I am trying to root. The cyclamen have buds ready to open.
There is also a large tree fern and a few other miscellaneous plants in the conservatory.
The sitting room isn’t all that warm but some plants don’t mind too much. The Pilea peperomoides does well so I have taken a few cuttings to sell at the plants sale. The Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant) likes it there and I have another couple of cuttings of it elsewhere around the house. The Rhipsalideae gaertneri (Easter cactus) is still quite small but has a few new leaves on it. I have a large Crassula ovata here and a cutting in the craft room. The other plant that does well in here is the Spathiphyllium (peace lily). There are a few of theses dotted around the house as they appear to do do well just about anywhere.
The craft room doesn’t always have room for plants but I have squeezed a few in.
There is a pink flowered Schlumbergera (Christmas cactus) with a Sansevieria trifasciata cutting, Crassula ovata cutting, and a Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant) in the background.
In the room with very low light levels I have large dark green foliage plants that can deal with the light levels. I like to keep the room fairly humid by spraying them every day.
The palms tend to take up a lot of space as the foliage ‘fountain’ out and droop down so I think they are better on a small table. I adore my Dypsis lutescens (Areca palm) and I am eyeing up a few other types to add to my collection.
The Areca palm has never flowered but the unknown palm, left to me by a friend who has sadly passed, has produced very strange looking flowers. I think they are male but not quite sure.
The pinky/purple colour on the wall behind is the grow light for my air plants. I have not managed to get them to flower but at least they have survived. Maybe next year. The Stephanotis doesn’t like the cold or draughts so I had to bring it in from the conservatory but it didn’t like it much and a lot of it’s leaves have gone pale, some have gone yellow and dropped., so I am hoping I can keep it alive until the spring when I can put it back in the warm sunny conservatory. Orchids are not plants that I would ever buy for myself as I tend to kill them but I do have a couple kindly given to me which I have kept alive so far – a white one and a purple one which are in the dinning room. Another plant just moved into the dinning room is the Amaryllis which was one bulb when I potted it up this year but I have two distinct sprouting areas each with 2 leaves. I just left it so shall see what happens. As I have loads of houseplants I am always afraid to get ill as they all have different watering and feeding requirements. Some you have to spray/mist regularly and others that should not get water on their leaves and although it is great to have friends and a husband who can help out it would take forever to tell them which ones get what treatment. It also takes a some time each day to check each plant and tend to their needs. So long may I stay well enough to look after all my green pals.
