Mike, I'm pretty sure that's not Delosperma cooperi. I suspect it isn't even a Delosperma. How about Disphyma crassifolium, another naturalised mesemb?

Square pots, you say? Send them this way! Square pots in the UK are pretty much restricted to the BEF pots, only available from Malcolm Pym and only in brown, and various types of black pot ranging from just about acceptable to extremely flimsy. Philip Barker buys the BEF pots in bulk and resells th...

Well Nick, nobody ever accused me of ignoring an interesting sidetrack :) I find it interesting that the Robinson range of greenhouses has some of the least pitched roof panels of the common makes. This naturally produces fairly high eaves without a ridiculously high roof apex. I assume they can get...

Aeonium balsamiferum is available for sale elsewhere in Europe, I imagine this is just a local regulation to prevent habitat stripping. It is listed in the Bern Convention, which requires member states to protect habitat, make wild collection illegal, and to control the posession and sale as necessa...

Hartley Botanic make bubble shaped greenhouses :) I hadn't thought about my Granny's birthday but all the other factors make it impossible to calculate. What is the thermal capacity of a greenhouse full of plants? Do they cool down directly by radiative cooling, through the glass? Or by convection ...

Thanks Vic. I originally thought he wanted many hundreds but then he baulked a bit at the postage, so I thought maybe he only wanted a few dozen. Check down at Wyvales, Julie. If they go down to the 2"/5cm size, you can get me some ;) Never seem to have enough small pots. I bought thirty more b...

I should be there. Maybe you should intercept Gordon Foster on the M62, Chris, just to be sure he has some Lithops left ;) Contrary to popular opinion, I don't madly grab every Lithops that appears on the horizon, mainly because of a shortage of space, but it is sometimes hard to turn them away all ...

There are several native Sedums from the very common to the very rare. Things like S. acre and S. album are probably native but probably also naturalised way beyond their original locations, and are in every garden centre. Things like S. villosum (see BCCSJ June 2006) are extremely rare and almost u...

Why is very simple, Chris: radiative cooling. Surfaces facing the sky cool much much faster than surfaces that don't face the sky, on a clear night anyway. Radiative cooling is up to ten times greater on a clear dry night than on a cloudy one.