Heatwave!

Growing up in the tropics the warmest temperature I've ever experienced was 34C (93F) in the depths of summer (albeit paired up with oppressive levels of humidity). Who would know then that I would experience 40C (104F) of all places in the UK? That's what just happened Tuesday last week when the heatwave that was all over Europe peaked here.

Thankfully from there temperatures have since dropped down to what are considered normal summer levels here, otherwise a lot of our plants would have been toast.

Heat stressed Schefflera taiwaniana Tuesday 19th of July

We think temperatures "only" peaked at around 38C (100F) in our garden but as I was working in central London that day, with the mostly concrete jungle that it is temperatures reached well above that even before midday. That made for a very unpleasant commute to and from work. 

UK is not geared for such high temperatures as usually there is a lack of summer heat and both society and infrastructure here are geared for that, not the other way around. 

The most dramatic manifestation of the high and relatively prolonged heat here was shown by our biggest Schefflera taiwaniana. It took a couple of days when the temperature went down to show recovery, unlike all other plants that showed distress during the same period but mostly recovered in matter of hours. Still a week on and you can now spot true damage on some plants with shrivelled new growth, and on bamboos with their aborted new shoots. Speaking of bamboos, some new shoots bent down at the worst of the high temperature but rectified themselves when the heat subsided, with some eventually aborting. But some damage is better than demise. If the heat persisted we could have lost many plants, including the Schefflera above.

Schefflera taiwaniana Thursday 21st of July

It's been a largely dry summer so far and now there is a threat that we may get a hosepipe ban in August if the lack of substantial rain persists. Let's see how it goes...

Mark

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Front Garden Update

No gardening blog year would be complete (I know we did skip blogging a year or two) without us giving an update on our tiny front garden at least once. It all started in 2014 when we finally sorted out our front garden and several changes have happened since. Fast forward to now, the plants are much bigger and we have added more pots to the mix

Agave salmiana is the star of the bunch, for obvious reasons

The three nolinas have all done well but the one that remained in the smallest pot unsurprisingly had the slowest progress so we gave it a bigger pot earlier in the year and underplanted it with a few echeverias. We chose Echeverias that have done well and usually sail through winters in our garden unprotected and expect them to do even better at the front of the house which has the best microclimate for succulents.

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Mad About Mangave Update

Last year we posted about out little collection of Mangave displayed on our top patio. Time for an update but first a little rescue story:

Mangave 'Mission to Mars'

Last weekend we spotted Mangaves on the clearance corner of our local nursery, sold for £1 each. There were several available but we only picked up three from the bunch. They were from a batch of Mangaves that were in their main sales polytunnel before, but they didn't fare well during the winter left in the same spot and didn't recover fast enough in the spring. So off to the clearance corner they went.

Mangave 'Pineapple Express' and two 'Mission to Mars'

Despite looking worse for wear they were still a very good deal and with a bit of extra care should recover nicely. 

The Mangave 'Mission to Mars' we have already is the same age as these rescue ones we just acquired. But you can see on the photo below how much difference being cared for makes...

So we gave them a good clean by brown biting, trimming off completely dead leaves, weeding, and removing the bark mulch. They were then re-potted on to bigger pots and re-mulched with gravel and presto, much better...

They are now in the greenhouse to be pampered for the rest of the summer and we're confident by the end of the year they would look really good again. Perhaps next year they will be part of the patio display.

So how do you care for Mangaves? Here are a few tips:

• As a group, they are generally not hardy for most parts of the UK bar the mildest areas. And even if they sail through permanently planted out, the other challenge is in keeping them looking pristine as the leaves are prone to marking. Repeated and heavy frosts, snow, and winter wet can easily disfigure their appearance. If planting out, a rain shelter is recommended to help them sail through winter alive and looking as good as possible.
• Otherwise, keep them in a pot and shift undercover during winter, in a bright/sunny spot that ideally gets some supplemental heating during cold spells. They also seem to tolerate permanent indoor culture fairly well provided that they are in a bright/sunny spot (they are marketed as a houseplant too).
• They do appreciate a free root run and grow really fast on the ground, an advantage of being planted out.
• Or give them bigger pot to live in and they can still size up pretty quick.
• You can obtain the best colouration and markings of the leaves if they are sited in full sun. In a shadier spot you may lose the markings and promote plain green leaves that are lax in habit.
• Supplemental watering in the warmer months and a little bit during the winter (if kept indoors) will encourage them to grow and size up quick.
• Keep an eye on slugs and snails, they love to graze on their succulent leaves and leave notches and cause scarring.
• They are monocarpic and relatively short lived, lasting only several years before they send an inflorescence and eventually die. Some offset freely before the main plant flowers or just shortly after flowering, while some send out bulbils from the inflorescence. Be patient when they bloom, you can harvest the offsets and bulbils once the main plant has completely died off.

The Mangaves we featured last year are all still doing very well and have sized up further, check them out:

Mangave 'Mission to Mars'

Mangave 'Lavender Lady'

Mangave 'Red Wing'

Mangave 'Lavender Lady'

Mangave 'Inkblot'

Mangave 'Inkblot'

Mangave 'Pineapple Express'

And a few new additions this year:

Mangave 'Silver Fox'

Mangave 'Blazing Saddles'

Mangave 'Snow Leopard'

All three together now

Mark :-)

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When Self Criticism leads to Better Things

 A few days ago the photo below came up on my Facebook timeline, from around 2015/2016 (I think)...

It's quite a significant photo in the sense that it led to the more familiar succulent pot display we do nowadays on our top patio.

The display above was fun to do, and perhaps quirky enough that it actually made it to a gardening magazine. However, it also made me cringe looking at it shortly after....can't believe I displayed two agaves so prominently in ordinary plastic pots, and to be published too!!

Perhaps it wasn't too bad, after all we had fun doing it then. But it led to several changes:

• To never ever display plants in plastic pots so prominently ever again.
• As I fell in love with Vietnamese pottery and other glazed pots shortly after, to use them instead. They are more robust and instantly adds colour (plus I enjoy looking at the pots itself).
• Instead of using a collection of small pots, use larger ones instead that can hold bigger specimens.
• And to make a more permanent year round pot display, by using hardier spiky plants that can stay out all year

How it looks this year

As with the last point, the display above consisted mostly of non hardy succulents that needed shifting under cover before the first frosts arrive. The sheer volume made moving them in and out very time consuming and impractical. So a more permanent display of hardier spiky plants made less work and provided interest on the top patio all year round.

On a more poignant note, whatever happened to most of those succulents in those tiny pots? Most of them are gone now, they perished in the autumn that followed that summer. It was also a period wherein both of us became exceptionally busy at work then when the time came that they needed shifting, neither of us could do it before the first frosts arrived. It was a little heart breaking that they had to be sacrificed due to lack of time. So another important lesson: finding a balance between what spare time you have available with the kind/amount of plants you acquire. We have since moved on....

Anyway, on a more contemporary note., I took the photo above yesterday of our 'spiky jungle' area. I thought it looked alright, but Gaz spotted the pot on top of the pillar, saying how much of a non entity it was. So he's thinking of replacing it with a bigger vessel/urn with a plant in it.

I say go ahead, bring it on!

Mark :-)

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