Fairy Crassula

My Crassula multicava (Fairy Crassula) is in full bloom. It is a neatly-growing evergreen low-growing plant that rarely exceeds a foot tall in the landscape and is even lower when grown in dry shade.

Indigenous to South Africa, this Crassula occurs naturally along forest margins, riparian areas and within coastal vegetation from Mpumulanga (Eastern Transvaal), Natal to the Eastern and southern Cape provinces.

The beautiful petite flowers, which are pink in bud and then open to charming little white stars that are very showy as a spray above the foliage on reddish stems, appear in Winter. 

Read more HERE. 

Crassula multicava

Crassula multicava (pics taken in Sheffield, Ballito, KwaZulu Natal

For months I've been passing this Crassula on my walks and then, suddenly this week, a pink mist of blooms greeted me as I rounded a bend. I knew all along that it was a Crassula, but the flowers finally allowed me to do a full identification.

Pronunciation - KRASS-yoo-la mul-tee-KAH-vuh
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English: Fairy crassula
Afrikaans: Skaduplakkie
IsiXhosa: intelezi; phewula
IsiZulu: umadinsane

    •    Canopy Shade
    •    Deep / Full Shade
    •    Dry Shade
    •    Light or Dappled Shade
    •    Partial Shade
    •    Sun
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Crassula multicava is particularly useful for dry shade and to cover unsightly spots. It is tender to frost. There is a distinct difference in appearance depending on the position in which the fairy crassula is planted: in deep shade the leaves are larger and dark green and the plant has fewer flowers while in full sun the leaves are smaller and light green and flowering is profuse.
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The flowers are tiny stars on thin stems held above the leaves

And just look at all the benefits of this gorgeous ground-cover!

    •    Attracts bees, butterflies or other insects
    •    Border
    •    Container
    •    Edging
    •    Filler
    •    Ground Cover
    •    Mass Planting
    •    Pioneer for new gardens
    •    Rock Garden
    •    Stabilize Banks
    •    Suitable for coastal gardens
    •    Wild Garden

Indigenous to South Africa, it is found from the southern part of the Western Cape, through the Eastern Cape to Natal and Mpumalanga, in thickets, along river and stream banks and in forest margins. Spreads easily, but it  responds well to pruning: use hedge cutters to remove as much of the foliage as you wish - recovery time is short and the reward is a dense carpet from which a pink mist of blooms will arise. Prune after flowering and seeding have taken place and again in early to mid- winter. Although very vigorous in well-composted, deep soils, this tough little crassula will thrive in clay or sandy soils. Give them a good start with some compost and mulch, and water until established. They propagate easily from seed, from stems and leaves that root and from tiny plants that grow on the tips of the flower stalks.

(Info from Khumbula Nursery)

Crassula muscosa (Rattail crassula)

Crassula muscosa

Crassula muscosa (also known as Rattail crassula) - is a succulent plant native to South Africa and Namibia, belonging to the family of Crassulaceae and to the genus Crassula. It has very small, light green leaves that are densely packed around a thin stem, and the arrangement of the leaves around the stems gives them a square shape. It grows as an intricate bush with very small yellow-green flowers, with a maximum height of 15–20 cm. It loves environments with a moderate degree of humidity, in which the soil is well drained and composed of fertile soil and sand.

As the plant gets older, it drops many of those small little leaves and can spread to an area covering meters, which is ideal for any open sunny spots in the garden. (I have found that it actually also grows quite well in the shade.)

In bright sunlight

In a shady spot

Also known as the Watch Chain Plant, if planting it indoors, place in a room that gets a lot of sunlight, such as near a north-facing window. Best color maintained with a little shade, even on the coast.

The garden whispered, "Spring is here!"

The weather has warmed up nicely and all the birds in the garden announced that winter is at an end! The Weavers started building nests and the Red-billed Wood Hoopoos lured their two babies out of their nest in my old Peach tree and took them off to greener pastures. I do hope they'll be back to spend more time in my garden...

Red-billed Wood Hoopoo (Phoeniculus purpureus)

I've been lax checking on my succulents (the few I have left in the garden after giving everything away, thinking that we were moving to the coast), firstly because I was really ill with pneumonia at the end of May and then with Chronic Bronchitis virtually the whole of June and July and secondly because of the cold, but now that I've recovered and with the warmer weather I ventured into the succulent garden to assess the winter damage. 

  
To my surprise I found that everything had survived and, in fact, the succulent area has been over-taken by the Crassula imperialis (or possibly muscosa...?) and are none the worse for wear after the cold. I now have thousands of little plants and could probably fill a thousand pots and still have plenty left! A new business opportunity, perhaps...? lol!

There are a few Echinopsis cacti somewhere under all that Crassula imperialis - need to get them out and transplanted before they make any flowers, which would have trouble showing up through all this!

With such an abundance of Crassula, I took the chance of filling a pot with some of it as well as some (rather leggy) Echeverias to put in a sunny spot on the patio.

Aloe ferox seeds randomly dispersed by birds or the wind ended up growing tightly together next to my garden path, making it impassable! This position is in dappled shade and gets quite a lot of water, I think that aided in the germination process. Need to transplant some of these babies now. And check out all the Crassula also covering the pathway!

Chores for the next couple of days will consist of transplanting some of the "unwanted" aloes to sunny spots and spreading some of that lovely Crassula to other parts of the garden so that I can have my pathway back!

 

I discovered a pot Echinopsis cactus (makes pink flowers) with new pups somewhere under some red Hot Pokers. Want to try and separate the pups today.... The other succulents in the pot (Crassula and Kalanchoe) were put in the pot either by birds or the wind!

For my friends in the Northern Hemisphere now heading into cold weather, I hope your winter is mild and that all your succulents thrive!

Crassula Perfoliata ssp. falcata Up-date

Since I acquired my Crassula falcata in January this year, I've been patiently waiting for it to flower. I was told that a young plant takes ages to flower, but just two months later, in the first week of March I was blessed with the first bud!

Endemic to South Africa, from the Cape Province, they grow to approx. 2 feet (0.61m) tall. The blossom started off with a light pink but soon turned into a sparkling, striking red.

12th March 2015

16th March 2015

By the 4th May I was rewarded with this beautiful flower!

The flower is actually quite heavy and soon leaned horizontal and I was scared it might break off. But turning it to face the sun solved the problem as the plant reacted quite well and started to get up straight again.

Over the past two weeks of June, the bloom has started fading and this summer I'm looking forward to some more lovely flowers!

Crassula falcata plants grow to 2 feet tall. Their small scarlet red flowers grow in a large cluster, rising dramatically above the plants' leaves in summer, giving a beautiful showing for 6-8 weeks. They flower smells like cinnamon and can bloom twice per year, attracting birds and other pollinators.

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Crassula Perfoliata ssp falcata

A new addition to my collection, Crassula falcata, known by the common names airplane plant and propeller plant, is a succulent plant endemic to South Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope. The foliage is gray-green with striking texture, on plants that grow to 2 feet (0.61 m) tall. The flowers are tiny and scarlet red, that rise in dense clusters above the foliage for a month in summer. The flower smells like cinnamon and can bloom twice per year, attracting birds and other pollinators. Crassula falcata is cultivated for use in drought tolerant and succulent gardens.

Afrikaans: Sekelblaarplakkie; Heuningbossie

Family: Crassulaceae (krass-yoo-LAY-see-ee) 
Genus: Crassula (KRASS-oo-la)

There is good news and there is bad news : The bad news first: this plant is not hardy in my cold climate. Not by a long shot. This means that I will be relegated to growing it in a pot and shifting it between the indoors and out depending on the season. We get terrible frost here in Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa) and I spend half my life carting my succulents in and out! The good news is that it propagates fairly easily from leaf cuttings. Simply break one off and place it on top of the soil. If you’re in a warm zone, you will have no trouble growing the plant outside in the ground as long as the soil is dry and exceptionally gritty/well-draining. You may even find yourself graced with blooms of scarlet red flowers.

 

Pic from the internet

Pice from the internet

I've been told that they take long to start flowering and I'm just wondering how long before mine produces beautiful blooms like this...

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Winterizing succulents

Every Autumn I get most of my succulents ready to come indoors by gradually decreasing the amount of water they receive and as it gets colder, when temperatures reach about 5℃, I bring them inside. Even though both the Crassula and Aeoniums in this pot can withstand a fair amount of cold, I’d hate to lose them, so rather safe than sorry!

Crassula imperialis (the spidery one on the left) prefer very porous soil, and it is preferable to drench them well and allow the soil to dry somewhat between waterings. They enjoy cool summer conditions, good light, and good air circulation. High heat in the summer, when they are dormant, will often cause lower leaves (those tiny little dots are leaves!) to drop. Crassula need winter warmth and will sit and sulk if kept damp and cold. Crassula is easily propagated by just breaking off a piece and sticking it into the soil and before long you will be rewarded by a lovely, spreading little plant.

Aeonium (tree houseleek – (on the right) is a genus of about 35 species of succulent, subtropical plants of the family Crassulaceae. The name comes from the ancient Greek “aionos” (ageless). While most of them are native to the Canary Islands, some are found in Madeira, Morocco, and in East Africa (for example in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia).

The rosette leaves are on a basal stem. Low-growing Aeonium species are A. tabuliforme and A. smithii; large species include A. arboreum, A. valverdense and A. holochrysum.
Aeonium are not frost-resistant. They are related to the genera Sempervivum, Aichryson and Monanthes, which is easy to see from their similar flower and inflorescences. Recently, the genus Greenovia has been placed within Aeonium.

 These Aeoniums in a pot spend the summer outside and then also come inside for the winter

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