September gardening: Hope springs eternal, cleaning and planning
After last month's misery, it's turning hot and windy and flowers are blooming and the antihistamines are within arm's reach, although we had a final venture into minus territory last weekend, killing off my bean seedlings and one or two other things, meh. These little mesembs, aka vygies in my country always herald the start of spring. These tough little plants like it hot and sunny and don't need much water so they are perfect for the garden
Some more: these were from the closing down sale
but wait, there's more!
On to the planning: last year, we cleaned out this corner and removed the remains of the roots of the invasive belhambra tree , which was in the process of smashing the wall again. The wall is an awful eyesore but I'd prefer not to pay to build another one. I left the ground to settle and now the plan is to plant edible vines to cover the thing.
I was given a Cairo vine tuber, an indigenous edible plant - both the tubers and the leaves - of the Ipomoea family and that's one candidate. The other is an indigenous cucumber that is more resilient in my climate
Then, I'm finally going to going to be able to construct a dry house. A dry house is a greenhouse for succulent growers and it is basically a tinted polycarbonate roof to keep excessive amounts of rain off the plants and supply some shade in my case. I'll build it out of the leftover brandering from when I replaced the upstairs tiled roof with zinc, because the idiots who built my house put tiles at a pitch that is suitable only for zinc. Of course the thing always leaked.
Here's a garden selfie for @riverflows, it's a few years old, from when I was clearing the overgrown mess to the left of the corner I showed. I got proficient with using chainsaws, axes and machetes dealing with the awful mess in my yard
The dry house will enable me to grow even more succulents, because my long-term goal is to be able to sell plants as an extra income. That's my excuse for having too many plants anyway.
That's what I'm up to in September: @ewkaw and @kansuze why not join in and give us and update on your gardens? Look here: https://hive.blog/hive-140635/@riverflows/hive-gardeners-its-time-for-the-september-gardenjournal-challenge-25-hive-in-prizes
The little mesembs are super nice! Especially the second one.
My balcony looks quite miserable now. Summer is not it's best time and things either way just grow or die cause it's too hot :p
I'll try to remember to take some shots tomorrow :) Thanks for the tag!
Yay, you're joining! I never get tired of mesemb flowers
Good luck with planting and growing plants!
I especially liked the color of the flowers in the first photo!
P.S. Did you ask?
Thank you! I am still trying to get an answer from them 😐
Ok, I thought you forgot :-)
Never!
👍
Eventually I went to the PO, since they don't answer the phone. They are neither sending nor receiving anything to or from Cyprus and they said that all mail is taking weeks now anyway 🙄
How is it now?
That is what they said yesterday and they showed me their list of countries. No Cyprus mail allowed :(
It's a pity ... but we'll wait ...
Can I send letters?
Some seeds are ripening :-) and I can send them in a letter
There is no mail being sent at all 😐
:-((
Maybe one day.....
Yes...
Dein Selfie ist einzigartig... hahahahahah.... Schöne Exemplare, die Sie in Ihrem Garten haben ausgezeichnete Post.
☻☠😎
I didn't realize that those succulents had glorious flowers like that!
Yes but they love sun and don't open unless it is sunny so they might not bloom at all for some gardeners
Oh man that's fantastic - love the selfie! That wall sure has character - it would be annoying if it came down! Every time I see succulents flowering, I think of you now!
Those horny cucumbers are great - hmm, perhaps that' snot how I should describe them... te he..
Here is a present for you for being early! Woohoo!
Thank you! Haha maybe I should breed longer varieties with horns
I got around to trying it in my post: looks great! Thanks again
Two years ago I also had that idea of growing plants in pots to sell and get some extra as we have a backyard that currently is not utilized properly. The weather is so rapidly changing though, all my attempts so far end with dead plants and I think I gave up last year when we planted a couple of walnut trees to just grow big and cover the backyard with their huge shadows as the summers are too hot and harsh ;) Hopefully in 4 years we'll have our first walnut harvest. Good luck with yours ;)
Thank you! It does take a while to figure out what you can and can't grow at your place and then the freaky weather adds the element of surprise. I hope your walnuts work out
Thanks :) I hope that too. The year prior the walnuts I planted four other trees - two columnar apple trees and one columnar pear and also one Japanese Persimmon tree, however contrary to my expectation only the Persimmon grows steady and has no pests. Probably they pests wonder what this is :))))
That's possible too :) I would love to grow persimmons but the winters here can be too cold
Hm... I think our winters are colder, sometimes it gets to -20 C. This particular variety seems to be able to withstand our harsh winters ;)
That's good. We only get the Israeli cultivar here
I never realized that the flowers on the succulent plants were so awesome.
I think the wall as is, is a thing of beauty. It speaks of a time long ago and adds so much character to your garden. It may need a little TLC to keep it sound, but other than that I love it.
I've never heard of a dry house, but I can totally understand how it would come into play if you are thinking of growing enough succulents to start a little side business. Good luck with that idea, a few extra bucks can always come in handy.
I love the selfie, but more than that I love the fact that you can use a chain saw. For the first time ever I got @farm-mom to use a chainsaw about a month ago. She was very apprehensive at first, but after about a half-hour she was cutting wood like a lumberjack.
Chainsaws are great fun, provided you have adequate safety awareness
About 10 years ago I just caught my leg with the chainsaw. 20 stitches later I was good to go. From that day on I have worn a pair of chaps.
Ouch! I'm glad you are still in one piece. I've also been to casualty from tool accidents and it's no joke
meow!
Great selfie! Beautiful flowers, looks like you have some work to do on that wall. Good luck with that. Is that barbed wire on top of the wall?
It's razor wire, standard for the top of walls in my country and yes, the wall is diabolical. Whoever built it made it look straight for the neighbour, who was paying, and didn't even bother to clean the mortar on my side 🤦♀
Wow, I didn't realize things were that tough there, it's for security and maybe animals ? Pardon my ignorance.
It's going to take a lot of work, but with vines, flowers and succulents, it could be a masterpiece.
Wishing you the best. Your selfie is wild by the way.
Sadly, we have a very high crime rate in our cities. The animals just get hurt: I've had cats cut their paws and seen pictures of cats caught on the wire and needed assistance to get them off it.
Thank you. I'm glad you like my sense of fun
Yasas!
That pic is hilarious haha, machete wielding. How come no new selfie, do you do selfie only on leap year? 😁
Most importantly where is the dagga?
Good idea for the dry house, first time I've heard of it but it does sound like a dope project! Where you guys are based in Joburg? Did we already speak about it and I forgot? It happens a lot 🤣
Mostly I couldn't be bothered to do selfies because holding the camera yourself is lame. So you need friends who are sober enough to take photos. If you looked carefully, the dagga is on the left of the ugly wall picture but here's a picture of it, just before a freak wind snapped the stem and the top section died. In the end the harvest was crap and the birds had a good time eating the seeds and I have little weeds sprouting everywhere
No, we didn't speak about it before, I live in Kensington, where do you live?
What if you don't have friend, like me? 😁
You can barely notice it hahaha. Joking, that's a monster plant, a pure (Swazi?) sativa for sure, That's a bummer to hear those lucky birds got a feast, I am sure they had a good time!
We moved to France a year and half ago (almost 2 years in October), but we were in Randburg (Blairgowrie) for a bunch of years, before that around Parktown, Rosebank, etc...
I know Kesington well because when I arrived in South Africa in 2009 to record my first album, the first studio I recorded was there, and owned by rastas, next to Jeppe Highschool. We smoked so much weed that day, and I stayed in SA for 10 years after that...
If you don't have friends then family will have to do
Hahahaha, sounds like you enjoyed your stay here
Yep that's home for us, hopefully soon we can go back. Nice to meet ya Catlady!
Nice to meet you too, I hope you can make it back soon
Beautiful colors on the mesembs, especially the fiery one with the yellow and red combination in the third photo! :)
Ouchy are your teeth ok after holding machete like that?! Looks like you have done a really great job clearing the yard.
My teeth are well-trained :) Thank you, it's been hard work for years but I am finally at the point where I can actually create something and it's slowly taking shape
Love these flowers in your garden. The goal to be able to sell plants is a great idea and I hope it could work well as people tend to look for more different plants to grow. :)
Thank you, I hope so!
Love your succulent blooms.
I need a dry house too.. I have been struggling with excessive rain actually in fits and starts.
Some of my adenium plants are inside the house and the leaves are yellowing.
I don't have space for the succulents inside our home..the dogs and the birds will ruin them.
I just checked with a guy here and he quotes a huge sum for the project..
Sad to see my succulents in the rain I am praying they will survive this season. Most of the are lying on their sides. LOL
Sorry to hear that, summer can be very frustrating
Have a look in google, dry houses can be constructed cheaply. Humidity is often still a problem although it's less problematic if you can keep the plants cooler
In our kind of weather humidity isn't the problem its just the copious rain which won't stop for days. Root rot is a big issue I face every rainy season..our summer is long gone.
I get the root rot too. Getting a roof over them will help although the root rot is often caused by bacteria in the soil that become active when night temperatures are high, even without much watering and that is what I mean by humidity problems. Using extremely gritty mixes can help plants in pots endure summer rainfall. I have been surprised at the amount of rain that some succulents tolerate if the soil drainage is good
True, I get what you mean..
I use succulent soil mix which is extremely well draining.. but sometimes when there is non stop rain for days some succulent more than the others develop root rot.
I use anti fungal anti bacterial powder to water them once in a while.
Shame on me… just now it dawned on me that I never comment on your post, perhaps because I am mostly looking for the needlework tag or, perhaps because I am simply and inattentive mushroom (sorry mushrooms if I insulted you). So here I am and reading your amazing garden post which is so foreign to me as our garden (rented for a bit more than a year now) is so different, to sum it up, its wet :-DDD (we had flood catastrophes here in the last weeks) So, I find it fascinating to read about this completely different flora you are surrounded by. I would have no clue about (eatable) plants which grow in different climates than our own (yeah.. ignorant me, so much to learn) Your succulents and the spiky melon?cucumber? are fascinating. I hope your wall stayed put and you could start on the dry house. <3
Don't worry, I know how being a curator/community builder drains all your time... I'm also learning more about traditional food plants. I also started with more traditionally European food plants but I'm working on growing plants that are more suitable for my climate. I enjoy eating unusual vegetables too :) Show us more of your garden renovations some time