Another installment in the Our Lives Are Never Dull Over Here series On Sunday around 7:30pm my neighbour phoned me in a panic about chaos 2 houses down so I went to see what was going on. As I got within

I'm still here to write this because somehow the kitten and I survived my stupidity but I am truly a deserving nominee. About 10 days ago, I noticed that little princess pictured above had a lump under

These little ones have fever coats - caused by their mother being sick while she was pregnant. They will change colour; there are actually only 2 grey kittens there 2 years ago I took on the task of feeding

I have a lot of Aeoniums blooming outside my front door and I noticed a large insect on one and went to take a closer look. There was an Assassin bug that had caught a honey bee and was feeding on it so

When I moved in to my house, the yard was a wasteland and the soil stony and filled with trash. Since growing things is one of my favourite activities, I got down to sieving the soil to get the basics

I've noticed that where I live, rainwater seems to be mother's milk for plants: growth really explodes when the rainy season starts and I always thought it was something to do with the lack of dissolved

I haven't posted a gardenjournal in ages because I wasn't feeling very inspired by my vegetables but I got started on major earthworks this winter. Why winter? It's cold enough to work outside and the

Conophytum bilobum gracistylum There's a man who holds monthly WhatsApp sales and he offers conophytums from time to time. I was late for the sale and surprised to see that everyone was going made for

Adromischus are an extremely variable genus found throughout the drier parts of Southern Africa and the hotter, sunnier and drier it is, the more they like it. They love my greenhouse and are happiest

The succulent society that I belong to always gets a stand at the yearly bonsai show and those of us that wish to sell plants can do so, in return for being there over the 3 days that the show runs and

Although we think of deserts when we think of cacti, there are a group found mainly in tropical America that colonised the trees. Epiphytic is the name given to plants that live on trees and we usually

Springtime is when the cacti bloom and here are some more Turbinicarpus flowers. The first is T. alonsoi and the second T. schmeidickianus Sulcorebutia is still quite pale, it hasn't fully woken up but

Wut, is she taking me somewhere again?!? Toffee is about 10 years old and was part of a group of 3 cats living rough on the mountain when I moved into my house. Unfortunately the other 2 died before they

This has been a week of repotting and bug spraying as the plants wake up from winter dormancy. I also have some of the Astropytums that are considered less collectable but I just love them all: Astrophytum

This winter has been brutal and killed off a few of my plants because we had quite a few nights of minus temperatures. Most were inside or in the greenhouse but the ones in the ground suffered. Thankfully

For context, see here: When I first started feeding Milo after she gave birth at the end of September, there was another man living at the house with a female cat and he expressed an interest in having

Wrestlemania in the kitchen: Simba and Batman have a lot of fun together. Simba is doing really well, he still limps a little but is normally active, climbing trees and doing cat things. It's midwinter

I saw some Adenium multiflorum at a local garden centre and told myself I would probably regret buying one but because this plant is a flowering size, which takes 4-5 years, and well priced for what it

The succulent society got another invitation to visit my favourite garden and off I went: it's not too late in the season and the light was kinder. Something that Ian the garden maker said really resonated

I've posted about my Conophytums before so I want to show some new ones and some progress. Conophytum are quite particular in their growing needs but if you get the basics right, they are pretty tolerant.