Monday slash Tuesday slash Photos du Jour: Aloes budding up, winter 2016

Midwinter lacuna.  Which is not some sort of frosty camelid.  

I'm totally in one right now and that's sort of alright even though I suspect it's only exercise endorphins that are standing between me and a bout of mild depression.  

Should I be concerned?  I can't decide.  Lets look at some aloe photos.  It's been a quite good year for the more difficult species with a long warm autumn inducing some nice flowering.  This is Aloe fievetii from Madagascar, blooming for the second time.  I blogged it a wee while back and it's been chugging along nicely.  Got a branching inflorescence this time.  Yay.

Aloe rupicola, as promised; the spike progresses and I am content.  

​This is an easy species for me, so it should be a doddle for everyone else.  No idea why it's so hard to find.

Below- sassy old Aloe arborescens doing its lurid thing at the end of the driveway.  They're particularly bright and uniform this year, perhaps due to the extra warmth and dearth of frost.

​The Bellbirds love them.

Below left: I have two supposed forms of Aloe cameronii, the waxy shiny sort of plasticky one that colours up deep red when stressed and the more matte jade green one.  They're both flowering at the same time here and this emerging inflorescence belongs to the latter form; the former is thinner and more elongate.  Some people like to split the species but I'm of the opinion that they're just extreme ends of the same plasm yo.  Below right: Aloe conifera, getting there slowly as is its wont.

Above: Aloe Mawii, coming on strongly now and colouring up.  Much excite.

Maybe you're hardened to the sight of good old Aloe x 'Gold Tooth' but it is a fucking spectacular plant despite its vulgar ease of cultivation.  It glows hypnotically in strong afternoon sunlight, its peacock green coruscating against the bright gold of its toothy margins.  And what's not to love about that fat cobby bud?  All killer, no filler. 

Canary Island Foxglove Isoplexis canariensis. 

​Had a couple of poodle-bouncing setbacks so it's a bit straggly but the branches are budding up now.  Flowers sporadically all year round for us here in southern NZ and is very attractive to birds and bees.

I had it in a pot in case we got a hard winter and it's done so well that I'll plant it out in spring.  Nice species.  Try it if you get the chance.

This week will be more photacular than tentextual so you'll just have to reconstruct my spitting and raving from memory.

*   Selected Ravings   *   Photoessays   *   Read the Book   *   Kitchen Bitch   *   Jewellery   *

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