Hello and welcome to this weeks SOS.

This is my first SOS in 4 weeks. Apologies for the break but work has been busy and I have been trying to avoid using my mobile phone for long periods. I am pleased to say all is good in my life at the moment despite the upheaval of pending lockdowns in the North and current lockdowns in Scotland. Thankfully I am starting 2 weeks holiday on Monday and I will be spending most of it in the garden as unfortunately it has been very neglected in the last few weeks due to work. One of my main jobs will be to plant up the Spring Bulbs something I always look forward to.

Her is my Six on Saturday which mostly features succulents due to the fact that I have had a lazy Saturday morning and these as always are the easiest plants to take photo’s of.

1. Edinburgh Princes Street Gardens

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Mmmm I see that WordPress has updated and seems to be playing silly buggers with photo’s if you are using IOS. Why crop it? Anyways as we all know for the past 20 years we have been living in a media Tsunami and it is just getting worse and their seems to be no end to the 24 hour global news free for all. This has especially been bought to the fore with Mr Trump catching Coronavirus. We all need green spaces to escape to and as some of you know Edinburgh is blessed with some of the best city gardens in the world with let’s face it one of the best views. I spent a rather chilly half an hour there yesterday watching the gardeners give the borders an autumn tidy. Hard to believe that one of the busiest shopping streets is only 50 yards away although unfortunately the decline of High Street shopping is all to apparent on Princes Street. Damn back to politics.

2. Aeonium Sunburst

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This cropping of the photo’s is becoming really annoying, I am going have to check what it looks like when I publish it. I have a soft spot for Aeoniums and I am pleased to say after a disastrous first year of growing them I am starting to get the hang of it. One of the most spectacular ones in my collection is Aeonium Starbusrt. This variegated hybrid always looks pretty but in autumn the ends of the leaves start to blush which gives the plant another dimension.

3. Sedum Rubtrincum

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Also called the Jelly Bean plant for obvious reasons these take on lovely autumnal colours this time of year. Some succulents do most of there growing in the autumn. With this sedum it seems to store as enough sun as it can ready for them to spring into the life at the start of next year. I guess you could describe the leaves as a form of nature litmus paper. The red leaves will drop off over time and will with luck grow as new babies and make the plant look bushier in the new year as well. These are supposed to be pretty hardy so this year I am going to leave them on a mesh shelve for drainage and only cover of it gets really cold.

4. Sedum Lucidium

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Also sometimes known as a Jelly Bean plant at this time of year the ends of they leaves take on a lovely rich mahogany red tint. A native to Mexico I had a bit of an issue growing these last year which I put down to impatience. A valuable lesson when you grow succulents is that you need to wait for them to do there stuff and it makes you look at live a little bit different especially in this Gimme, Gimme, Gimme life we live in. Sometimes patience is a virtue.

5. Sedum Crocodile

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Another slow grower is sedum crocodile. It is called Sedum Crocodile because with age the leaves take on a reptilian texture. I thought I had lost this plant past year because I left it out during the winter in an exposed position and it succulents to the damp. I managed to get six off sets from it and all are doing well at the moment. I will be planting these in a much more grittier mix in the next 2 weeks and I will pop them onto afore mentioned wire shelf to give them a little bit extra drainage.

6. Echeveria Green Gollum

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Taking about slow growers I was on the verge of throwing this plant out last year because it had lost a lot all but 3 leaves. However I decided to keep it and I am glad I did. It is filling out nicely and the leaves are a wonderful classy shape. I will definitely give this more protection this year.

That is my six. If you want to write a SIx on Saturday be it a blog or simply 6 photo’s on Twitter it is not that difficult. To find out how six on Saturday works please follow the following link The Propagator. The don of Six on Saturday.

Until next week goodbye .