I'M REALLY POTTY

As children we often referred to someone as being a "bit potty" if they did a silly thing. Who would have thought that I would be still be potty in my later years. My growing collection of potted plants is to what I am now referring .

Most of these potted plants are tender succulents and cactus and I am finding they cannot tolerate this brutal Texas heat without some protection. That protection turns out to be the hearth of the outside fireplace.

Here they receive just a few hours of sun in the morning. It seems to suit them quite nicely.

A large cactus and succulent bowl with urns of Agave desmettiana and Mangave 'macho mocha' a passalong from Pam, Digging. In fact many of my plants are passalongs; small offsets pups, root cuttings, leaves, even bare stems which, potted up in my favorite media, pumice, root in no time at all. The agaves have just started putting on new and healthy growth after suffering terribly this winter. They were in pots in the greenhouse where temperatures plummeted to the same as outdoors. I trimmed off the black ends of the leaves and new leaves and pups are on the way.

This large agave fared better because it was in the garage for the winter. Strangely, it has made no pups. Agave demettiana does better when it is located in filtered shade or afternoon shade.

Two of my favorites are these rectangular clay pots.

and this strawberry pot which was a gift from one of the boys many years ago. It sits on the center of the dinner table outside. These haworthia are planted in the holes and are currently in bloom. Not an exciting flower but you can't help but love the twisting nature of the stems, along which the flowers are arranged.

Remind me again Diana, Sharing Nature's Garden, the name of this passalong plant. It is on the front gate, receives no sun at all. I think you told me it was an epiphyte of some kind. It struggled for a few weeks because every night a bird came and rooted out the smaller plants so it could roost there for the night. It seems to have weathered that intrusion, although the one at the front is going to win the race.

Another collection of cacti and succulents has replaced the gorgeous agave which is no longer!

Huernia schneideriane, on the green wall. Maybe a little too much sun this year.

Already in flower. This flower does not have an unpleasant smell.

And not all pots have plants. This one holds my collection of beach finds among which are hundreds of fossilized sharks teeth I gleaned from the beaches of Siesta Key in Florida. As the collection followed us from town to town I finally found something to do with them. Put a piece of glass on the top and you have a table.