Balcony update and winter casualties.

Some days ago I started to do the springtime cleaning on the balcony. There is a bunch of dry leaves, old stems to be removed. Some brought by the wind, some from my own plant. This is also the time to select plants need to be repotted this year, or divided. All the fun stuff :)

And of course, with the rising temperature the cacti are slowly starting to wake up. I don't see any buds yet, but I do see they want to grow.

Except this Mammillaria Bombycina - she is always the first one to bloom!





I try not to move her much, the hooks (thought very pretty) will attach to the skin and clothes and will not let go without ripping something.

From other plants - one of my black Aeoniums decided to bloom too. But since it only has one stem, it will die soon after its done with the flowers. Silly thing.
It is the second time I have this type, from two difference places an they both behaved the same way. Did not grow any side branches. Just one long stick that bloomed. Other Aeoniums I have grow in more normal way and they stay bushy and nice even after the rosette that blooms dies and I chop it off.
Oh well :(

It got some aphids during the winter an you can probably see the dead bodies still attacked to the leaves and flowers.

In the largest pot I planted two types of Sedum Spectabile. The leaves and stems died back and they had to be cleaned. But the plant started to grow already and is just waiting for higher temps to speed up. I am hoping it will spread all over the pot eventually. It creates really nice, green bush during the summer and then later it's full of little flowers.





Below is an old stem from Echeveria Mandala I was showing in this post. The rosette did eventually died and I was going to just throw the whole thing away, but I saw some tiny nubbin on the stem so decided to just cut the dead top off and see what happens.





Weeks later this happened :)
Two new little plants. Yay!





At this point Your Highness Suzi showed up. The whole pot was thoroughly inspected and sniffed and the process has been documented by moi :)

And now for not so good news.
Every spring I find some dead cacti that did not survive the winter. And I still don't know if it's because I keep them too dry for the temps we get, or they get too wet during the rainy days. It is not many this time, but it is still a sad view.

I am especially sad about this first one:





It was one of my first cacti I ever grew from seed - a 6 year old one with giant spines and I had only one like that. It had gorgeous, huge, yellow flowers. You can see it blooming in this post and it was th only time it bloomed for me.
Shit...





The remaining ones are either way cuttings that didn't root, or... something I don't even remember what it was :p

One of the tiny square pots was with mammillaria I also grew from seed, but I have mature mother plant with many offshoots, so it's not a biggie.

But the yellow one.. aaaaaa

Time to wash the pots an prepare them for new plants.

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_{Shot with Nikon D5500 + Sigma 105mm lens
All photos and text are my own.}



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