Bowen Park

Yesterday we took the kids to a local park. When I was a kid, I used to play at the same park. My how time flies! Back then there were aluminium slides down steep hills, and we children would take cardboard boxes for added speed. It has since been renovated, and though I miss those old slides I have to admit they did a wonderful job to spruce up the place.

I am especially happy that they installed "mushrooms" and "flowers" that sprinkle water down for the kids to play in. I'll have to snap a pic of that when we take the kids to frolic in the water!

Sandy wouldn't stay still, so I wasn't able to get a photo of her. Ari managed to stand still for one, though!

There were plenty of beautiful plants as well!

Day lily

Amelanchier alnifolia {Juneberry}

Blooming Hostas

Yesterday we also bought two neat plants from Walmart, discounted 50% at $1.44 each. They are only labelled "Foliage", but I have a good idea as to what they are. More on those another day! 

I repotted a lot of my succulents because I realised the commercial cacti mix I bought is a tad bit peaty and doesn't drain as well as I had hoped it would. I mixed 50/50 with gravel and topped with some gravel. Fingers crossed that the more fragile plants like this. Its very light which is good but the gravel helps anchor the plants and improves drainage, which is extremely important to prevent root rot!

I'm considering getting horticultural grade perlite or vermiculite, but that is dependent on how my plants like or dislike the current mix. Some of my S. rubrotinctum 'Aurora' were getting very leggy and a few were unhappy with the original cacti mix and died. I have one adult one left, and lots of leaves to propagate, as well as some stems. I'm not sure if the remaining one will make it. Alas that is part of learning. I also lost all but one C. perforata and one S. hernandezii which I also hope likes the new mix. Luckily I have many, many S. hernandezii leaves propagating. The adult plants were so resilient but bad drainage gets the best of them. I also was overwatering some of the larger Echeveria sp. leaves, not realising that they have more moisture to leech off of in their mother leaf...so two of those that rooted are gone. And some of the smaller leaves of various succulents shriveled up because I wasn't watering them enough. Watering is a tricky thing sometimes!

I have plenty of adult succulents that are thriving, which makes me feel a bit better about the ones I lost. Anyhow, I will elaborate more {and with pictures} in another post dedicated strictly to plant updates.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!