Autumnal Wednesday

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Sidewalks of San Francisco

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For a person visiting San Francisco from "The Great White North", one is struck not only the weather but also by the plant life that flourishes in this ideal mediterranean climate. I've just returned from a week in this lovely city, and again I was impressed by the quality, variety and creativity of gardening that I found there. In this post I am paying particular attention to the gardens I found in the front gardens which often  overflowed onto the sidewalks and boulevards. Many of the plants that I saw there are the same that I grow outdoors and have to move indoors from November to April. And since the San Francisco plants are grown in the ground they are huge compared to my container grown collection.
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Rescue Plants

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It is so satisfying to liberate plants from the imprisonment of an uncaring Big Box store. This I did last Fall when I found three Agave desmettiana, a mature plant with two large offsets crammed into a two gallon pot. I managed to winter them over under lights in my basement and was further satisfied last week when on a mild day I was able to take them out onto the balcony where, with a little surgery, I was able to separate them and give them their own root space in new pots. I can't wait for the warmer weather when I can get them out of doors.  Agave desmettiana 'Variegata' and two offspring, crammed into a 2 gallon pot. Divided and repotted.
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Many succulents have bloomed for me this year, perhaps this is not so remarkable in more temperate climates, but here in Montréal these plants have to be wintered over indoors and live a life with considerable human intervention. This I believe might discourage their normal flowering cycle. So for whatever reason, this has been a bumper year for flowers on plants that I grow mainly for their foliage. The most recent to bloom is  Crassula rupestris sap. marnieriana, it has curiously beautiful foliage that forms chains of compact succulent leaves that take on the apperience of a bucket of worms as they snake out of their pot.
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