Come Dine With Me Again

As summer is looming the time has come to plant up the succulent table again. 

It was exactly a year when we featured it on our blog and a year on it beckons a new display of bedding succulents. Before we proceed, a reminder on how it looked like last year...

Which also reminds me that we need to oil the surface again once we're finished replanting it and when dry weather comes, to get that nice sheen on the hardwood back. Exposure to the elements and one winter and the wood has now gone grey, which is also nice in its own right.

The succulents we put in did well during the course of the summer and stayed out all winter. To our pleasant surprise half of them sailed through winter fine and survived well...except that they all got nibbled by vine weevil larvae in early spring! I treated all pots with anti vine weevil last year, except for the succulent table. Lo and behold,  the succulent table got infested. That'll teach me to treat the table planting too next time I do my treating rounds. Anyway the survivors of winter and vine weevil onslaught are now repotted in a couple of dishes, one of which is below:

Back to the table, it is relined with landscape fabric, filled in with some styrofoam and plastic pots are put in position to mark where the succulents will be planted and to leave gaps as I backfill the space with compost.

Four echeverias will go in and a clump of Aloe aristata.  They are nice, big clumps of succulents already, almost a shame to just treat them as bedding only. But who knows, they might also sail through winter. I just need to make sure the succulent table is treated this year against vine weevil.
Finished product coming up soon! I need some warm and dry weather soon though so I can re oil the table. Mark :-)