Today was hot! And I mean really hot (as for February)! Even though there thermometer was showing 17 degrees the sun was showing what it can do. I went outside to have a look at the plants after the few days of rain we had and I got sweaty! But the plants love it! The had some nice cool rain and now are ready to roll.
This first thing is one pf my biggest and most favourite Echeverias that I grew from a leaf that I have found on the floor in one of the supermarket's garden sections. Such beautiful pink leaves! Funny, that I didn't see a pink one in a shop, otherwise I would get the plant. There was just some regular, light green leaves that had broken off and was waiting to be cleaned up.
Lucky me :)
And an Aeonium with some nice, refreshing water.
It was nice to see some buds coming up. This is Echeveria that has my least favorite flowers among them all. I usually do enjoy their blooms. This one is just nothing special. It could not bloom at all. But I do like the plant - you can see some small reddish leaves under the buds. That's the plant. It started to branch already and it could just keep growing. It is a lovely, small succulent.
Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (the most popular Kalanchoe and easiest to find in the shops) is waiting with those buds to open for a while. Soon... very soon :)
Some Sedum has tons of those stems sprouting. I have it in 3 pots and they all started to grow the flowers. Can't wait for those!
Another Sedum, but completely different looking one. Sedum Spectabile will die back for the after after the summer blooming and regrow every spring again. Extremely drought tolerant thing with gorgeous clusters of flowers.
They will need a bigger pot.... very soon!
And now buds, but those flowers are so pretty: Kalanchoe Lucky Bells has been in bloom for about a month. Nice to see some flowers in the middle of winter. So pretty!
And this is not on the balcony, but inside. This is my one tray with cactus soil that I use are my propagator (if I can it like that. It is just an empty plastic tray from butter with soil that I keep in sunny spot on my kitchen window :) ). I root all the leaves I find or accidentally break off from my plants there. I simply put them on top, every few days I mist them with water and that is it.
As soon as they get bigger I will gently lift them up and put them in their own, separate pot. The hole in a pot I will fill up and probably put another rescue leave on.
That's how I grew the Echeveria on the first photo. It does take time - a few years to get a nice size plant. But I am not in a hurry and they will eventually get there. Also it is very interesting to see the leave producing roots, then tiny leaves and then the plant getting bigger and bigger. I still didn't see mine blooming. Looking forward to that.
And last but not least...
Baby cacti! Maybe some of you remember my posts from few months back how I was picking the seeds from two of my cacti plants and sowing them. Then I showed the little green blobs sprouting...
Well... the first winter is usually the worst as the temperature drops and the babies are still very young and gentle.
They survived and now that they are getting some more sun they started to grow. The furry head is still about the size of a black pepper corn, but now they have a whole season to grow. This is Mammillaria Glassi. A very furry and cute cactus.
This is the mother plant. So if they do not die in the meantime, in about 2 or 3 years they should look look this:
That's it. To me the balcony season has started. Even though there has been always something growing or blooming, now it will all speed up. I manged to repot most of the things that needed a new pot. The rest will be done soon.
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Shot with Nikon D5500 + Sigma 105mm lens
All photos and text are my own.
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