SURVIVE AND THRIVE!
Succulents will beat the fiercest of droughts and still look superb
During current Sahara conditions, succulent plants are looking great. They are drought-resistant and can cope with dry periods lasting months — or even years. unlike most other plants, they store water, usually in their fleshy leaves or thick stems. When conditions are favourable, they grow, but in dry spells they shut down and wait for rain.
you might assume all succulents come from the world’s arid regions. Most do, but you can also find them in unexpected places, here in Britain. our commonest succulent,
Sedum acre or biting stonecrop, has tiny fleshy leaves and bright yellow spring flowers.
Another native, Sedum album has cylindrical leaves and short, upright stems smothered with starry white flowers in summer. The leaves turn reddish when stressed, giving extra colour.
There are more than 400 sedums and many are good in-fill plants. They’ll live happily in gravel, wall crevices or paving cracks. Some can be used on green roofs, as can sempervivum.
BIG AND BOLD
you can go bigger and bolder with exotic succulents. Many of us have admired huge agaves or prickly pears in the Mediterranean or giant African aloes.
Such plants are hard to grow in small uK gardens but there are manageable alternatives.
Aeoniums, originally from Madeira and the Canaries, make lovely patio plants. Some, such as Aeonium tabuliforme, grow as flattened rosettes. others, especially A. arboreum, resemble tiny, fleshy trees.
The easiest, A. arboreum Zwartkop has gawky stems, each topped with a rosette of nearblack, spoon-shaped leaves. Hybrid, Aeonium Logan rock, is smaller and has pointed leaves edged with tiny bristles.
Aloes are widely variable. Some are huge, others ugly but most are interesting or even beautiful.
Aloe barberae can become an 18m (50ft) tree. But they’re all tender except one — Aloe
striatula. This has fleshy, toothed, pointed leaves and orange-yellow poker flowers.
i’ve grown A. striatula unprotected outside for eight years. it beat last winter’s Beast from the East and is now a waisthigh tangle of rubbery stems.
grow potted succulents in a mix of coarse grit, sand and peat-free potting compost.
SMALLER SPOTS
if you lack space for large succulents, try pretty echeverias. They’re dream pot-plants for lazy gardeners. Smaller varieties can live for years on sunny windowsills. All are gorgeous on a sunny patio.
Some have interesting flowers. But their best quality can only be described as ‘skin tone’. The hairless leaves are smooth, often coated with a subtle blue-grey bloom like a ripening plum.
one of my favourites, E. Perle von nurnberg, has neat rosettes and blue-grey-green leaves suffused with pink. They’re the hues of westering clouds just after sundown. The orange-pink flowers come in loose spikes, adding further interest.
Varieties of E. gibbiflora have larger, more rounded leaves, also with subtle colour combinations. Echeverias are not all lovely and some are grotesque with wart-like protuberances. But leaf coloration is not only alluring, but changes through the growing season.
Time to dig up and divide your bearded irises, from the spring-flowering dwarf sorts to tall bearded varieties, which have finished flowering. mature plants (undisturbed for three years or more) will benefit from this and bloom more profusely next year.
Dig out mature plants with a fork and shake as much soil as possible from the roots.
With care, break the clumps of knobbly rhizomes into smaller sections. Select the healthiest of these — usually on the outsides of the clumps. Use a sharp knife to cut away plump sections of rhizome.
each divided rhizome should have a healthy cluster of roots growing from its base and a ‘fan’ of clean green leaves. With a knife or secateurs, reduce the length of the leaves by a half to two-thirds. Also, cut away old rhizome, retaining the younger section which has the roots.
Re-plant the healthiest and plumpest sections where you want them to flower in future years. Plant so that the newly developed roots are deeply into the soil but with the top of the horizontal rhizome level with the ground.
On soils where irises have grown for some time, bonemeal is an excellent fertiliser which releases its nutrients slowly.
The young iris roots will grow for a few weeks but will then contract, pulling the rhizomes firmly to the ground.
in exposed sites, it may help to anchor the plants to reduce wind damage. An easy way is to use stiff wire, bent into a loop and pushed down to peg the rhizome.