Hello New Year! After a nice long break it was back to the happiest grind – finding plants and packing boxes. For January the theme was ‘Haworthia’. In South Africa, various African cultures believe that certain Haworthia species have cleansing properties and will ward off unfavourable circumstances. I thought that after the last two years, it was very fitting and symbolic for all of us to enter the new year on a clean slate.
The plants
Classic subscribers got some ‘classic’ Haworthia in their boxes. Haworthia attenuata (Zebra Haworthia) and Haworthia mutica were the name of the game. The Zebra Haworthia is a popular plant that you’ve probably seen around before. Its zebra like pins are quirky and it makes for a great plant on an outdoor table or on a bright windowsill. Haworthia mutica is slightly less known but is a firm favourite of mine. I love the way the leaves are jewel like and have a bright glimmer to them. These guys are pretty easy to propagate and you might have received one with loads of babies attached to it.
We potted these plants in November in terracotta pots so that if you overwater your plants, the clay will pull out the excess water and keep your succulent alive.
For the Collector’s plants we had a whole mix of goodies. I wanted one of the plants to also have a jewel like quality (similar to the mutica) and so we selected Haworthia Green Flame to hold the crown. Then the Collector’s received a mix of two of the following three variegated Haworthia: cuspidata variegata, cymbiformis variegata and mutica variegata. Because of course you can’t be a collector if you don’t have some variegation in your collection.
The gift
This month we had an amazing collaboration come to life. Artist Louisa Gerryts provided her beautiful illustration of a Haworthia attenuata for Valencia from Customised SA to pop onto some mugs. I drink out of my mug every morning. And I love the fact that I have intimate knowledge of the plant on the mug because it’s sitting in my garden. We had the same design put onto scatter cushion covers for the Collector Plant Club members just for that extra decorative pizzazz.
