A first casualty...

When I planted up my first group of succulents I didn't consider each plant's watering, light or temperature requirements.  I didn't research whether they were happy or not being crowded in with other plants or if they needed space.  Instead I took the not terribly scientific approach of "What looks nice?"  Thus I ended up with eight plants in a wide-ish, shallow pot.  They were a mix of substantial (1) plants and some smaller specimens (2).

They've been planted up a few weeks now, and I take them out of their plastic cold frame and put them out in the garden during the day to maximise their exposure to air and light, only bringing them in at night, or if the rain threatens.  And they seem to be doing ok.  They all look healthy, the Delosperma 'Congestum' seems to be spreading itself out a little and on the whole, I - and they - are quite pleased.

Except one.  One of the dwarf plants, Aeonium 'Cornish Pixie', got slightly squeezed between the aforementioned Delosperma and the Echiveria 'Cubic Frost'.  As these two have relaxed and spread out (3), the Cornish Pixie has suffered.  It's ended up almost under the Echiveria, which, I suspect, has reduced the light and air getting to it.  As a result, when I inspected it the other day, it looked a bit worse for wear.  Leaves were dropping off and it generally appeared a bit 'sorry for itself'.

Mrs Boo to the rescue!  We found a small pot, mixed up some suitable compost and grit and lifted the Pixie out, tidied it up a little and repotted it.  It's early days yet, but it seems to be doing ok at the moment.  It'll take a while to be sure though.  How long, I don't know - weeks, possibly months, rather than days at a guess.

Cornish Pixie in its new home

But it gave the opportunity to look at the main pot again, and we're thinking that the other smaller plants may benefit from their own space.  Therefore I think that Pachyphytum 'Little Jewel' and Sedum 'Silver Roses' may be on the move soon.  There is a Sempervivum 'big sam Pink Pomelo' that is considerably smaller than the other plants, but at present it seems to be holding its own, so it can probably stay where it is for now.

It'll make the pot look unbalanced for a while, but this first attempt was always going to be a learning process, so if things have to be moved, or if I have to find a new plants to go into the gap (4), then so be it.

I shall report back!

The other news is that I have joined the British Cactus and Succulent Society.  More on that next time.

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(1)  Relatively speaking.  Even the largest, the Aloe, is no more than about 5" across.

(2)  I'd picked up the 'Succulent Fairy Garden' Dwarf collection from Corseside Nursery - a selection of five miniature plants.

(3)  Again, relatively speaking, these plants aren't known for their speed of growth.  It's probably more that they're out of a small pot and have just spread out a bit.

(4)  A new plant!  Such a hardship!

A quandary...

Weather.  It changes.  Depending on where you are, it can change a little or a lot.  If you were a resident of Death Valley, Eastern California then the temperature would probably range from 'Hot' to 'Hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet'. (1).  Rainfall is typically 'None'.  Snowfall is highly unlikely.

If you live in the UK though, the weather runs the gamut of hot, cold, dry, wet, humid, arid and more.  Though unlike New Zealand, as documented in Crowded House's wonderful song, 'Four Seasons In One Day', it usually takes a while to move from one to another.

But change it does, and in North London (as in much of the UK) of late (2), we have seen torrential rain.  My two little pots of succulents have sat outside and, quite frankly, got soaked.  They had no time to dry out before the next deluge began, and after a week of this, I started getting a bit concerned.  The one general rule I have picked up thus far is that when watering, you wait until the soil has dried out completely before watering again.  Indeed, wait until the plants are looking thirsty, rather than just 'the soil seems dry'.  So drenching upon drenching didn't seem like a good idea.  Roots rot if they sit in damp soil, I am reliably informed, but how long they have to sit there, soggy, before problems start to occur, I don't know.  I'll add that to the list of things I need to look up.

So with more rain forecast, and no greenhouse to fall back on, I went online and found a small plant shelter / cold frame type thingummybob and that has at least given them a fighting chance of drying out a little.  I take the plants out during the day to maximise their exposure to light and air, but they go back in (with the plastic door open) overnight or if it rains.

The Mojave Desert it is not, but it'll help a bit...

But it got me thinking...

North London is not the natural habitat of a succulent, alpine or cactus.  So is it right to bring these plants to what is a wholly unnatural (3) environment?  There are rules, indeed laws, about keeping animals and rightly so.  You have to be able to provide the proper surroundings for them or officialdom will step in.  But plants, not so much.  Sure, there are rules about invasive species and so on, but when it comes to trying to keep a desert dwelling plant on a cold back garden patio, the view seems to be 'Go on then.'

I'm almost certainly making too big a deal of this.  Clearly many people are very successful in raising these plants at home, to say nothing of the nurseries around the country which propagate them, but I come back to the phrase 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.'

Okay, having disappeared down a rabbit hole now, so I'm just going to keep digging.  Let's look at fruit and vegetables.  Over the past couple of decades, the range of fruit and veg available to the buying public expanded, and the expectation of consumers was that that entire range of foodstuffs would be accessible all year round.  

However, of late, there has been a shift - a slight shift, granted, but a shift nonetheless - towards using and eating things when they're in season.  For starters things usually taste better if they haven't been shipped halfway round the world, or kept in cold storage for months on end.  Add to that the waxes, preservatives and pesticides that have to be applied to keep the produce in good condition out of season, and you can see why people are start to think 'local rather than global'.

So I come back to, 'Is it right to try and raise plants in an environment that just isn't natural for them?'  Clearly it can't have pricked my conscience that much or I wouldn't have bought the plants in the first place.  My desire to be able to keep and look at (in my opinion) unusual and very attractive plants 'in the flesh' seems to have outweighed my concerns for their welfare.  

Although I did buy them the little tent.

I guess if your plants survive and thrive then you must be doing right by them.  Succulents aren't the cheapest plants to buy, certainly when you start looking at more exotic varieties, and if they kept dying on you then nature, or your wallet, would be saying to you 'This isn't the right place for these plants." (4)  At which you may start looking alternative species / hobbies.

I think I've rambled enough for today.  I'm going to see how the plants are doing.

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(1) That said, it does get cold - relatively speaking - overnight and has been known to drop to below freezing in January.  When I was there, in the summer of '92, it was about 113 Degrees F.  According to the Ranger, that was nothing special.

(2) September 2024, for anyone finding this in the dim and distant future. 

(3) Okay, 'wholly unnatural' might be bordering on hyperbole, but 'not their chosen environment' is probably not too far from the mark.

(4) I'm making the assumption that if you're spending money on plants, then you're taking reasonable steps to keep them alive.