Joyce's Diary

April 2002

The plants are certainly appreciating the recent lovely weather. I have moved all my Mesembs and many of my other plants to the new greenhouse and they are very happy there. The mature Lithops are rapidly drying up their old bodies and the new bright bodies are emergmg. How I envy them. Why have we not developed a similar way of renewing ourselves?? The Lithops seedlings are growing well. Apart from keeping them from drying out, I also spray them on warm days, with water to which a small amount of fertiliser has been added. In the brighter light of their new position, I give them some light shading on sunny days.

With a very few exceptions, all of my plants have now had their first watering and some have had their second.. I will add some Chempack No.8 when I next water. Once growth had been established I feed at every watering. Now that the. plants are. plumping up I realise how many need repotting - I am going to have a busy time.

The early Mammillarias are opening their flowers, as are many of the Gasteria, Aloes and Haworthia. I have tended to under-rate the Gasteria flowers as a small cluster of blooms at the end of a long stem. Gasteria Bicolour has proved me wrong. It has three strong multi-branching flower stems, which are a real joy.