By the first week of December, any activity that’s not directly holiday related can seem a bit, well, selfish. But it’s also the time when the bulbs that have been prechilling in a crisper drawer in the fridge since September, which require at least six to eight weeks of this treatment to flower here in zone 10, need potting up. Most of the bulbs were mail-ordered mid-summer for fall delivery, with a few kinds picked up locally. One year for the holidays I gave away vases and jars of forced paperwhites, which imposed a lofty purpose on the winter bulb operations. This year no bulbs were given for gifts. All for me. And that was really what the shelving ruckus was about. I knew there’d be lots more pots on the ground, about eleven more, and room needed to be made. These are by no means all the pots.
Buying potting soil at a local nursery, I just happened to bump into Echeveria imbricata, possibly one of the most dizzyingly geometric of all echeverias. I’ve always wanted to build up a big supply of this echeveria’s offsets to let it spool out into a ground-hugging carpet of those intricate, clockwork rosettes but never seem to run into it for sale. That urn’s been kicking around for years, holding everything from plant labels to tools, and even though it has a proper drainage hole, until today it’s never been planted.
At the opposite end of the urn is another echeveria I picked up the same day, E. secunda, also a hens-and-chicks type, which except for smaller and tighter rosettes seems almost identical to E. imbricata. One of the benefits of going to nurseries a lot is knowing when something out of the ordinary comes your way, like E. secunda. A plant can be common as dirt elsewhere but rarely seen in your own neighborhood. (Plant Purchase Rationalization No. 42.)
Selfishness aside, I think we can still bring this around to the holidays. Imagine a gift of Echeveria imbricata brimming over the undulating rim of the Poppy Pot from Potted’s Campo de Fiori line of mossed terracotta planters. (And in case any of my family is reading this, the Poppy Pot goes at the top of my list too.)
Some years it can be so difficult to transition into the gift-giving season. Thank goodness there’s a few more weeks left to practice.
I think that urn looks divine with the Echeveria, good thing you hadn’t used it for a lesser purpose earlier.
All that work (the cooling part I mean) to enjoy a display that I could get by just planting, and yet I don’t. I think you’ve inspired me to plant up a few pots with bulbs. I’m never happy with them in the ground but a temporary home in a pot…that sounds do-able.
As for the gifts…I suspect my family and friends are hoping this might be the year I run out of garden/plant related gift ideas for them.
Loree, compared to the amount of work you go through in fall protecting the danger garden, this is a breeze. I bet you’d find chillin’ with the bulbs, finding cool pots for them, etc., loads of fun. I do like bulbs best in pots too.
My single ‘Imbricata’ rosette is now 50 rosettes, at least. The gift that keeps on giving. The bulb pots will soon be beautiful. If I were not so lazy…
Hoov, what a riches of E. imbricata! Trying my best to catch up…