Sulcorebutia rauschii is finally safe from marauding snails
Having a proper space to grow my succulents in has been a goal for a long time, pretty much since I first moved into my house. I started with the frame a few years ago but then the project stalled, because the roof was unsuitable and the person who was helping me was alternately very sick or working away on a contract for months on end. We finally finished the structure in August 2023 and since then, it's been a joy to watch my plants start to thrive and bloom again.
Orbea variegata is very common but always a pleasure to see. It smells a bit like rotten eggs
The greenhouse structure is a wooden frame covered with a horticultural product called Knipol: it's shadecloth laminated with tunnel plastic. Most, but not all succulents enjoy heat but they don't appreciate the strong sunlight so a 40% shadecloth is appropriate.
Even more fun has been getting even more plants, now that I have an appropriate environment although once I had moved all my plants in there, it was already pretty full. Quite a few plants there were grown from seed and with the accelerated growth from the heat, I'll be able to start selling at shows.
Finally I have an evvironment where the slugs and snails don't visit although there are a few grasshoppers that fly in and nibble on the plants. In general, they are far less destructive than the snails but I was happy to discover one night that I had a large resident predator. Huntsman spiders are large enough to hunt geckosand there are a few geckos in the roof, hunting the smaller insects
I'll go into the plant families I'm growing in more detail in other posts, here are just a few flowers for you to enjoy.
Conophytum obcordellum blooms at night and is very fragrant. I see a lot of seed pods forming on this plant for the first time.
Pterodiscus luridus also flowered profusely
I grew this pot of Frithia humilis from seed and they have flowered for the first time
Pleiospilos bolusii flowers in the late afternoon
The greenhouse is currently my small oasis of sanity where I go to enjoy the plants and forget about the world and its troubles. Hopefully it will soon become a source of income too