spotted these pretty flowers in a neighbour garden, and aren’t they a thing of beauty?
they’re orbea variegata, also known as star flowers. it’s a succulent with cactus-like “leaves”, but the flowers were what drew me to them — they grow around the edges of the plant in the winter rainfall season, and are just striking.
i’ve recently gotten my hands on a few specimens to plant in the garden, for further investigation… :P
the garden has been filled with slugs and snails lately, which have been steadily eating all my succulents and stunting their growth. :| i hadn’t paid them much attention in previous years, but this year they’re everywhere and really making some damage. i don’t like the idea of using pesticides and the plastic covering on the ground didn’t allow for beer traps… so this is our current method:
it’s been working more or less, and the succulents seem to be recovering a little. pffew!
ps – don’t worry, they land on a patch of clover on the other side of the wall — no harm done! :)
the setosa came to us unexpectedly (like most of our plants) when some neighbors about to move were looking for homes for their plants. we kept a few of their vases, and in one of them came this furry fellow.
we stuck it in our front garden between some rocks, and it’s been doing great ever since. as they go about reproducing and slowly dominating the patch of garden we gave them, the older leaves seem to dry out and drop, while the plants keep growing upwards.
i noticed it doesn’t need to shed leaves to propagate though: new “babies” just appear from the stem or the flower itself.
cute!
this one came to us unexpectedly, on a pot that had another plant on it. when this weird little sprout started growing in a funny shape, we put it in its own vase and low and behold, it was its own thing!
the circles at the end of each leave are baby plants that fall out of the mother when they’re ready, taking root and earning it the nickname “mother of thousands”…
if it stays true to its name, i guess we’ll soon have a baby boom around here! :D
i don’t particularly like cactus, but succulents are a different story. there’s something very pleasing about their almost fractal beauty, and the thick and robust leaves. plus, i accidentally found out that we can actually grow them outdoors here (more or less easily) so i’ve started a little collection of sorts.
i’m learning about it as i go along, making mistakes and seeing what works. i don’t know if this interests anyone, but i thought i’d write about it now and then, in order to keep a record of our experiments.
first up, this echeveria “perle von nürnberg” (i think?) that i traded my parents for some cuttings of our passionfruit.
isn’t it pretty? it was almost dead when it came to me, but has since decided to grow enthusiastically in the center, and i think it might about to start flowering even!
i look forward to putting it in the garden once it gets a bit stronger, and maybe even try to propagate it at some point.