As we come to the end of this decade the rain is beating on my window and the fields in the distance are puddled with water – as they have been for the past few months.
It is wet, wet, wet. However, I get great pleasure from one group of plants that have adapted to growing in some of the driest conditions on this planet – and quickly rot and die if they have to sit in wet ground.
These are succulents, which technically include all cacti, many of the euphorbia family and thousands of other weird and wonderful plants that all share the same evolved characteristic of storing water in the cells of their leaves, stems or roots, so they can draw upon this reservoir rather than just extracting water from the soil.
Some giant cacti, like the saguaro that I saw this autumn in the Sonoran desert in the US, can store more than 4,000 litres of water at a time, which they then live off for months in temperatures that rise above 50ºC.
Monty Don (pictured with an aeonium, haworthia and echeveria) shared advice for thriving succulents in UK gardens
But these desert plants have evolved to very precise limitations – they need as big a difference as possible between night and day, and if the night-time temperature rises above 32ºC they start suffocating.
Other succulents, such as sedums, will be quite happy in normal, well-drained garden soil in normal British weather – although my wet clay makes them flop horribly.
At this time of year I like the miniature succulents, which I grow in the greenhouse.
Some are tiny, such as lithops, which – as their common name, living stones, suggests – seem hardly to be plants at all until they suddenly produce large, single flowers.
I have a few of the rather elegant haworthias, which look a bit like miniature aloes but are embellished with bands of white. There are in fact more than 70 species.
If you have not grown succulents before, echeverias are a good place to start as they are fairly forgiving.
They form rosettes from which a tall, curving spike of yellow, orange and scarlet flowers will emerge.
Crassulas come in many forms – I have Crassula nealeana, which has blueish leaves on stems that splay out from the base, and C. plegmatoides, which looks as though it has accumulated in blobs rather than grown, although these are in fact dense stacks of leaves.
Crassula ovata will make a miniature tree with a thick stem bearing little fleshy leaves and a display of tiny white and pink flowers.
Don’t worry if it loses all its leaves – this is a sign it is dry and needs to conserve moisture; once watered it will flourish again.
However, overwatering is by far the biggest cause of ill-health for any succulent, so you should use a very gritty compost mix, adding at least the same volume of grit to a peat-free potting compost.
They should also be allowed to dry out before watering. This will vary from plant to plant, but if in doubt it is always better to water too little than too much.
I encountered succulents in South Africa last year that were only ever watered twice a year.
Many succulents will take from cuttings but they need special treatment. Cut a stem from a plant such as an aeonium, or a leaf with a rosette from an echeveria, and leave it to dry out for a few days so the cut end scars over.
This will prevent fatal water loss. Then bury it 3-5cm deep in a pot of pure grit or perlite and put it somewhere sunny and warm – a greenhouse or windowsill – and leave it to form new roots.
Don’t water until you see new signs of growth and then pot into a very gritty, peat-free compost mix.
MONTY’S PLANT OF THE WEEK: POINSETTIAS
Monty chose poinsettias (pictured) as this week’s plant, he advises giving them plenty of water but ensure that the compost has dried out before giving a soak
I write about poinsettias almost every Christmas but still get lots of letters asking how best to keep them.
They don’t like big fluctuations from their ideal range of 16-22°C, so don’t place near a cold window or in a very bright spot.
They like plenty of water, but let the compost dry out before giving a soak – water the pot with a saucer under it and leave for half an hour before removing the saucer.
To keep it for next Christmas, cut back hard in spring and put in a bright, cool place for a few months, ensuring it’s bone dry.
THIS WEEK’S JOB: PLANT SPRING BULBS
It might seem late, but if you have tulip, daffodil or hyacinth bulbs left over, plant them now.
Ideally plant in a container with lots of drainage and put in a sheltered place.
When new growth appears, put under cover and you’ll get a perfectly good late spring display.