The 10 best indoor succulents for your home

You'll already know that I'm a fan of succulents.

You'll have read how I've enthused about my Schlumbergera more commonly known as a Christmas Cactus (or in the infographic below a Thanksgiving Cactus); giggled along with me at the best plant name ever and pottered along with me in the greenhouse as I've tended my Aloes and marvelled as I've propagated new plants from discarded leaves. 

Yes it's safe to say I'm a fan of succulents.

So when UncommonGoods got in touch with their infographic I was interested to know what was on their list.  And I wasn't disappointed. My favourite, the schlumbergera, was in number one spot. Looking through the list it made me realise that part of the reason I like succulents so much are for their names. There's not a plain one among them is there?

I realised too that they appeal to the lazy gardener in me, as they're resilient, hardy and versatile. And they still manage to look pretty. That surely has to be a win-win. If you're not sure where to start with succulents then there's a wealth of information on the type of light they like to how much water, as well as if they're toxic to pets in the infographic. Let me know if this encourages you to get started with succulents, I promise you they really are easy plants to grow and love.

My favourites are on this list, are yours?

This is a collaborative post but all views and opinions are my own.  All images courtesy of UncommonGoods.

A year in Greenwich Park: September

I got thinking the other day, Greenwich Park is now such a big part of my working week that it'll be interesting to watch it close up over the coming months. And so, my thinking led me to think sharing how the park changes with you would be a good thing too. 

I'm hoping to capture how people use the park changes, as well as the more obvious changes in the trees and gardens. You'll remember last month I shared how I took a diversion through the Flower garden and I'm counting that as the start of this series as that coincided with my daily commute to Greenwich.

Each day I've been walking the same route, and it's often as busy as this:

Seriously though, the view above is now one of my favourite in the park. Before I'd really only thought of the park as a whole, and with the exception of the Flower Garden which is gated, not individual parts. I do see people on my way through the park and we'll come onto those in a moment, but first conkers.

Yes, on 1 September I found my first conker. That was quite a shock to the system as the weather was still very much warm, and the warmest two days were still to come. It's been fun to see children with their parents scour for the biggest ones, with only a few of the bigger kids encouraging the conkers out of the trees with sticks.

The park is still quiet in the mornings, but I've noticed that it's now quieter in the afternoons too. Where once there were impromptu picnics and gatherings as I walked home, the park is less busy. There's groups of schoolkids messing about, as you do, after school. But it's in the mornings that I notice people more. 

People walking their dogs. Like the old man with the Jack Russell and the man with the greyhounds, who hang back and then gracefully bound past me. The greyhounds that is, not their owner. It's got to the point where I judge if I'm running ahead or behind schedule on where I meet people along the way. Most often it's behind schedule, but occasionally I see the panic in their faces because they must be doing exactly the same thing!

The light has been great this month, it's that time of year when the sun is low and it's been great to capture how the sun shines through the trees. It's actually been quite captivating. And magical.

THE TREE WHERE I TURN RIGHT

I've watched the sweet chestnuts turn from green to brown, but that photo is technically next month so you'll have to wait for that. The grass in front of the tree where I turn right, is usually a good indicator of how my day will go. I mean the day after the Autumn equinox, it was a lovely day and I risked sandals. Walking over the grass I soon realised this was a foolish decision and I arrived at work with wet feet. Lesson learnt and now it's trainers every day.

Ironically there's less cyclists in the park this September. Perhaps most were taking advantage of the lighter London traffic and can't quite fit a cycle commute into their "back to school" September routine, who knows.  And I say ironically as September was supposed to be the month that I'd start cycling in - or rolling down the hill one way at least.  It hasn't happened partly because I'm still enjoying my walks, even the uphill ones on the way home, and I'm not ready to give those up just yet. Maybe October will be the month, maybe...

There is one tree that I think is pretty special, and that's this one.

If I were to follow a tree here, it'd be this one. It's a fantastic shape and as you can see its leaves are starting to turn. It'll be interesting to see how it changes, along with the rest of the park over the coming year. And if you're wondering I haven't checked in on my first tree for quite a while, maybe I should.

While there's been less cyclists, there's definitely more people using the park to keep fit with runners jogging past every which way. My favourite fitness thing though has to be the girl that jogs backwards. It makes me smile inside every time I see her, it just looks so peculiar. A bit like these greeny-grey pinecones. I've got my eye on these, though they'd better hurry up if they want to be in contention for the bleached treatment.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of October brings for the park and sharing that with you.  Do you have a place - park or otherwise - that you visit regularly and note how it changes?

Propagating some succulents

I do seem to have luck with succulents, in that they seem to grow for me, so I thought I'd see how far I could push that luck. And the short answer is, quite far.  On a trip to the garden centre to buy a couple of succulents I noticed some discarded leaves in the bottom of the trays, so after checking with the staff there I left with my bedding plants, a couple of succulent plants and quite a few of those discarded leaves. 

I wanted to see if I could get them to grow. And basically, get some free plants. 

Unsure quite how to proceed I started by stuffing one leaf into a pot. While it didn't die, it didn't really grow either. But what I noticed was the leaves I'd not done anything with were starting to form roots. 

Checking the internet I learnt that the trick is to make a clean cut - oops, too late there and to leave the leaves to dry out. So once again the conservatory - home of the succulents - was called into action. During the warm weather it was the ideal place for some low effort propagating. 

The idea was for the leaves to dry out, which seemed counter-productive to producing new plants, but after a week or so, look what happened.

My free succulent leaves were starting to sprout new flowers and what I assume are roots. At this stage I put them near some soil. Not in soil. On it. I used a gritty soil as succulents seem to like that. I really wasn't sure what would happen. All I needed to do, apparently, was to keep the soil moist.

And sure enough, they started to grow.

And now, I have a new generation of succulents from a few leaves that had been knocked off the plants.  Including a couple of new-to-me varieties.

It's so easy I couldn't believe it, and so easy I bet you could do it too. In fact the hardest thing was the waiting! 

Let me know how you get on if you give it a try.