As I have recently said I fell out of love with my garden at the start of this year but I am slowly but surely re-engaging with it. Whenever I go out in the garden all I can see is what is wrong with it and it is quite overwhelming to the extent that I have been putting my head in the sand. However, having been inspired with ideas to sort out the pond I am feeling re-energised and have started to get to grips with the garden. Whenever something is overwhelming me I find the best approach is to break it down into manageable bits – whether its one day at a time, or one flower bed at a time. So I have sorted out the compost heaps, replanted the top border but many of my other plans are dependent on us having some serious rain. However, there are small ‘problems’ that I can try to sort or tidy up and one of them can be seen in the photo above.
All is not well in succulent theater. Many of my Sempervivums have decided to flower. The flowers are quite stunning and have a wonderful texture – a bit like downy suede. Don’t get me wrong I really like the flowers they add a new dimension to the display but the problem is that some of the Sempervivums only had one rosette of leaves before they flowered. It appears that when the plant produces a flower spike it kills off the rosette of leaves that the flower spike appears from (see below).
So this means that once the flower is finished the plant will presumably be no more which is a real pity. Some of the others have a few small rosettes around the flower spikes which I can save but for the one above I don’t know what the answer is. Can I collect seed from the flower heads and if so how difficult are they to grow from seed?
The other thing I need to know is should I remove flower spikes as soon as I see sign of them appearing from young plants? Oh well at least none of my Sempervivums were expensive or special unlike some of my Echeveria.
To be honest the Sempervivums flowering isn’t really a problem more something I need to learn more about so I don’t lose more plants in the future.
A real plus in this area is on the fence behind the succulent theater where my Clematis mandschurica is growing. I grew this plant from seed two years ago and this is the first time it has flowered so I am really pleased. It is such a pretty plant with lovely very delicate flowers – I am very pleased with having grown it from seed.
