Frost

We were woken at 5.36 this morning by a shrill beeping. My befuddled brain was thinking "I'm sure I didn't bring my mobile in here last night!" It appeared to be coming from the central heating vent and I'm madly throwing clothes aside in an effort to locate the vent. Then I realised it was coming from above the vent - the window sill in fact. I pulled aside the curtain to find our outdoor thermometer was flashing zero degrees celsius. I must have inadvertently set the alarm to go off when it reached zero. I didn't even know it had an alarm! Eventually I worked out how to turn it off and we returned to bed. "Must be a frosty night" I thought.
I got up at 7.30am and took the camera out into the garden. It had been a doozy of a frost - even the surface of the water bowl (second photo) was frozen! I took quite a few photos and was silently praying for a few things that looked a little sad. The Flanders poppies looked very sad (first photo) but a few hours later they are fine. Not so the Prostanthera magnifica - hours later the tip growths are still bent over as if in prayer. I did remember to throw an old towel over the strobilanthes last night and it is fine: still producing the odd flower now and then. The leaves of the aeoniums appeared to be frozen stiff at 7.30am yet look okay now. They've lasted a few years here so I don't have any qualms about them except the low clumping one called Green Carpet: only time will tell if it has survived.

Aeoniums

I started growing aeoniums during my childhood. I didn't know its name at the time, but one of the first pot plants I nurtured was Aeonium haworthii one of the hardiest and most widespread of the genus. This is a wonderful genus of succulents found mainly in the Canary Islands. They form large cabbage looking rosettes and occasionally produce cone shaped spires of yellow flowers. They are very well suited to our climate where many species go dormant during the warmer months (a pretty wise thing to do I reckon!). I have quite a few different species now and have recently set up one bed featuring them. This way I can compare size and form fairly easily. I am constantly on the lookout for a species that produces really LARGE rosettes - the bigger the better. I saw some used in gardens in California when I visited last year and I thought they looked fabulous!

Today I weeded the bed and planted some cuttings generously sent to me by another aeoniumphile (aeonium lover?!?!) The photos above are three of the species in my collection. The first might be A. arboreum, the second is an unknown species but I think the third (in my cute turtle pot!) is A. aureum. When it goes dormant in summer its little rosettes close up and become tulip shaped. I love it and I think I couldn't have chosen a better pot in which to grow it! I also grow several black cultivars. 'Zwartkop' is known as the Black Rose but I also grow 'Short Black' (a small version of 'Zwartkop') and 'Velour' (a paler version of 'Zwartkop'). These cultivars do well in a pot but I cannot keep them alive in the ground whereas A. arboreum 'Atropurpureum' has purplish tinges to its green leaves and does well in the ground. I'd love to know why 'Zwartkop' won't survive - its not as if I have soggy soil....

I've just heard from my aeoniumphile friend - he thinks the one in the middle is a hybrid of A. cuneatum sometimes referred to as 'Emerald Carpet'. I do love it when I can put a name to a plant!