Pretty much as soon as I got home, everywhere I could, I have been collecting indigenous seeds that I can take back and propagate at my nursery on the other side of the country.

However on a short visit to a friend I noticed that her vygies or Aizoaceae (also known as Ice Plants) were very overgrown, and I promptly offered to cut it back for her - not that this was a completely altruistic sentiment, I was of course after some cuttings to take back to the nursery...

Vygies is a very hardy, easy growing plant, and is a very good seller in our nursery, and these were all types that are more common here, but hard to come by on that side of the world, and like any good opportunist, I was not going to let the moment pass.

I hacked away at her Vygie bushes, cutting them neatly back, and from that I managed to get quite a bit of usable cuttings, but I knew that I was not going to be leaving shortly, and I didn't want to lose the plants, so I put all of the cuttings into 'bulk bags'

This would help when it comes to loading the car to go back, if I had planted all the cuttings into individual bags, they would have simply taken up too much space and I would have to leave a great deal of them behind.

These mixed bags of vygie cuttings has since started establishing nicely, and they are holding up just great, in a few days I will start my journey back, and once I get to the nursery and these plants have been rooted, they will be planted out into individual bags.

Having a closer look at one of the vygie leaves:

All of the different types of vygies here have different leaves, however they are all succulent like and similar in many ways.

But one that fascinated me was the leaves of one of the
Lampranthus or dew-plant types.

Its rounded and almost scaly appearance reminded me of a lizard tail that had fallen off - and I almost expected it to start wriggling around in my hand.

The impulse buy:

The next plant of course was not taken from a cutting, in stead I found this one for sale at a local store, it is also a succulent plant and it is called the string of pearls or Curio rowleyanus

I ended up paying R89.00 for this little baby, which is quite a lot for a pot plant in my opinion, however on the upside, this plant will serve as one of our mothers, and from her I will make cuttings and re-bagging them, that way I will have numerous string of pearl plants to add to my sales collection at the Nursery, and hopefully it I will be able to re-generate over and above the money that I spent on getting her. So money well spent I hope.

Some lost treasures on the farm:

In the nursery that I started on the farm before I had to move away, I was at a point of starting to have a decent collection of plants, nothing on the scale that I have now at the new nursery, but none the less, my collection here was growing.

However when I moved, I tried selling off as many as I could, and sadly due to the drought as well as neglect the majority of whatever plants were left died. But there was a tiny bit that managed to survive the odds, and they will be joining me on my journey back as well.

I found one lone moringa oleifera or drumstick tree that seems to be quite happily flourishing against all odds, and I was elated to see this, I also managed to get a decent amount of seeds from the bigger trees that I planted out on the farm a few years back, and I am exited to start growing them for my nursery.

They are a great seller due to their array of medicinal and nutritional qualities.

I also found two lost little Adenium multiflorum: impala lilies or Sabie star, that I can not wait to re-home.

These gorgeous winter flowering succulents thrive in water tight conditions, but still need a decent amount of care as seedlings in order to reach a point of establishment, which is why I am surprised that these two pulled through.

I also managed to get some seeds to take back, not only of the winter, but also the Adenium swazicum: summer impala lilies as well as some Pachypodium: half humans.

Quite a few of the other potted young succulents also managed to survive, but was in dire need of weeding.

At first it thought the pots had nothing but weeds in them, and only when I stuck my finger right into the first cushion of thorns did I realize that the pots still had some life beyond the weeds. I cleaned up all the pots and managed to salvage quite a few succulents from this.

I am exited to take all these plants back as nursery stock - and I look forward to expanding the nursery horizons in this new year.

Happy Growing!