Yay! and Yikes!

By Alternativeeden @markngaz

Yay that our Kumara plicatilis (syn. Aloe plicatilis) is flowering...in the summer!

It's not much and the display isn't spectacular by no means but still very pretty, considering that this is the first time it has flowered for us during the warmer months, not during the winter.


Love its coral colour!

It's one of the few remaining original plants we bought in Cornwall the first time we went there almost ten years ago. It used to live in our lounge during the winter wherein it flowered then, in tune with the inverse season in the Southern Hemisphere. It started off as a single fan with no visible trunk and grew slowly to how it is now by virtue of being kept in a pot. The last two winters however it lived in the minimally heated greenhouse during the winter, hence experiencing some relative chill when before it was warm and cosy in the the house at the same period. This has obviously re-set its rhythm and now it is flowering when it is supposed to be, in the summer.

Yikes!! This Yucca linearifolia is about to flower and the spike is growing really fast. So fast that I only spotted this a couple of hours ago and we both go past this plant at least twice a day, and so many times during the weekend.


Nothing bad with it flowering as such but blue yuccas tend to look worse for wear afterwards, for an entire season as it recovers from its floral display after putting so much energy to it. 


As this yucca is already well rooted and established in its spot I'll leave the flower spike be and enjoy the spectacle. Had if it's just been planted I'll cut the spike off so it can put its energy in re-establishing itself.


Hopefully none of the other blue yuccas will follow suit and flower this year, or in the near future. I much prefer then with perfect heads with blue spheres of leaves.


But I think I spoke too soon...


Oh no!

Yikes again!
Mark :-)