Six on Saturday 09/11/2019

The weekend is here again! The weeks seem to be passing by so fast at the moment, probably because there’s a lot to do in the gardens, this week has been a mixed bag weather-wise with equal measures of rain, sun and wind, temperatures have definitely turned autumnal too as it’s been down to 15°c mid afternoon during the week, and it was a decidedly chilly 9°c when we got home last night - brrrrrrr! I’ve been busy moving plants this week as we’re turning the fact that the nasty xylella killed off our Polygala Myrtifolia into an opportunity to create a new mood by prepping for some tropical style plants - still absolutely gutted that they were killed off though as they were some of the most prolific flowering shrubs we had. Elsewhere in the gardens there are still lots of flowers, the roses in particular are taking advantage of the fact that the sun isn’t trying to cook them.
So here’s my six for this week, as always, if you want to join in pop over to the host of Six on Saturday and add your own and feel free to leave a comment on my contribution.  https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/six-on-saturday-09-11-2019/

1) Still in bloom and looking great in November, there are bucket loads of white roses in flower but I didn’t get a chance to take photos of them all.

2) Cactus and succulents are still happy despite rather a lot of rain, this  Opuntia microdasys is growing really well, although it might have to be moved as the nasty glochids come away so easily and just walking too close to the pot means a risk of getting them in you or your clothing, obviously the fact that it’s getting bigger increases the risk so this and the matching one in another pot might have to move home to the cactus bed where they can grow undisturbed.

3) More succulents, these Aeonium are one of my favourite plants, I adore the huge rosettes, the fine toothed edging and the way they change colour from one season to the next. This picture shows the same plant in May and again in October, it looks like a different plant. It’ll stay green over the winter as it’s getting low levels of sun and more rain (this garden is at quite a high elevation and gets frosts over the winter so I cover this and the others in the garden with a layer of  fleece to protect them), but come spring when the sun starts to get higher and hotter again it’ll return to the beautiful colours in the top picture.

4) Beautiful Bougainvillea, I love this but my OH hates it because of the spikes, he climbs the ladder to cut it back several times a year and curses like mad when they get at him through all the gear he wears to protect himself from them. I just see stunning colour in mid November, in fact this flowers for around 7 or 8 months of the year on our south facing wall!

6) Limes, this tiny lime tree has 20 limes on it and is about to blossom again! It stands at the grand height of approximately 30 inches tall. That’s one of the things I love about citrus, they’re prolific fruiters and sometimes you wonder how they take the weight of the fruit on them. This one needs to be put into a larger pot in the spring so it can spread it’s roots a little. It’s in the tiny little black pot, the blue pot has a rosemary and a pelargonium in it and is about the size of pot I’ll move the lime in to.