With all this hot weather the succulents are happy. Echeveria agavoides is one of the more hardy varieties, although that is not saying a lot. They do Ok for me outside, but wont cope with much lower than the London lows. There are a lot of forms, sports of this one and I am slowly adding to my sets.
The first two are ebony in the front which is the one everyone is after. Then red edge or lipstick behind it.
Then silius, which looks like it could be a really good form. Good colour and very dark tips to the leaves which is the thing many people seem to look for.
Ebony sell for stupid money in my opinion, a small one sold for £80 on Ebay a couple of weeks back, which given you can by seeds for about £3 and they are easy and quick, that one is in its 3rd year form seed. Why pay huge money when you can grow lots and sell the spares :lol:
All 4 are flowering or have just finished, I have been out every evening collecting the seeds and sprinkling them on the soil around the plants, so we shall see if anything comes of it.
Ebony sell for stupid money in my opinion, a small one sold for £80 on Ebay a couple of weeks back, which given you can by seeds for about £3 and they are easy and quick, that one is in its 3rd year form seed. Why pay huge money when you can grow lots and sell the spares :lol:
All 4 are flowering or have just finished, I have been out every evening collecting the seeds and sprinkling them on the soil around the plants, so we shall see if anything comes of it.
£80, time to ditch the climbers and get into these me thinks! :lol:
There are some expensive plants that deserve the money, very rare, difficult to prop, very slow etc. This is not one of them. I think people just assume because they fetch so much that they are difficult. There is a massive market it for them in Japan. Sellers in the states report tour groups turning up and buying every single plant they have, I get quite a few emails asking how many I have for sale.
Charlie, they do take from young leave but to do it properly you really need to cut the plant down the centre, leaving one half to grow and taking all the leaves off the other half. You should get about a 20% success rate with the leaves, not as high as many forms.
I was just kidding! more than enough going on here to keep me out of mischief , trying to grow these succulents in the rainfall we typically get would only end in tears :)
I think there may be a second hiding on there as well. Assuming they survive the winter will be leaving them on there to form a clump, but am going to need a bigger pot, this one already fills this one.
LONGK wrote:That really is impressive to get that in three years from seed (to my eyes anyway)!
They grow very quickly, start the seed off in August, is a young plant by the end of the first winter. A good trick for succulent seeds is to start them off and grow them under lights over winter. Come spring you have a young plant which will put on serious growth over the first summer. Getting to around 8-10cm. Second summer is when the real growth happens I repot twice during the summer to ensure there is always root space, but not so much that I don't get top growth. Obviously only do this for a few plant, but with a good feed mine tripled in size to around 30cm by end of second summer. Then this year not much growth only about 5cm or so, but first proper flowers and offsets starting.
good thing about echeverias are they are so quick from seeds, most will be full size as above.
