All Hail!

[bil]

Yesterday there was a massive hailstorm. and I ended up trapped in the greenhouse for half an hour. I had just popped in there to repot something when a few drops of rain fell. No probs, I just shut the doors etc and settled down to repot. The rain was getting heavier, but who cares? I was in the dry. I climbed up the step ladder to hang the pot and that's when the lightning struck something very, very close. I nearly soiled myself as the thunder came a spilt second after the flash that left my retinas overloaded and smoking. I had been lookig straight up as the flash came, which isn't the best thing to do unless you are into white sticks.

As I fought for control of the relevant sphincters, I finished hanging the plant, and then the hail came down. Nothing huge, just 1/4 inch or so but the noise on the roof was so bad I had to stick my fingers in my ears.
Meanwhile, the hail was blocking the outside drain, so pretty soon there was 6 inches of water backing up to the North side and starting to come in under the door. I cracked the drain in the floor that leads to the cesspit so at least I didn't end up standing in a couple of inches of water.
After half an hour of this the rain was finally down enough for me to escape via the south door and get into the house where the dogs were going frantic.
I shudder to think what the rain will have done to the already washed out road, so once it is dry enough I will go down and see.
I bet it has done the garden plants no good. Just have to hope that it hasn't killed anything important.
Sole good point, I won't have to water the garden this week.
So today I'm back in there to see how everything is faring. Yesterday's storm was so bad that the water was forcing inself over and under the roof panels and coming thru the roof. What I hadn't noticed was, some of the ice cold water had dripped onto the succulent I keep in there, and today the centre of the plant has just gone to pulp.
It's infuriating, bevause it is a delightful little plant with unusual pink flowers on long stems, almost orchid like, and I had just about worked out what it likes after having it alive and barely growing for about 5 years.

So, as only a deranged plant person would, I spent a good hour on it carefully drying out the water still trapped between the 'leaves' and removing all the dying pulpy leaves before they spread rot. Plus it had shed a whole lot of good leaves which had to be removed and put out to dry. I'll use them as starters in another bowl so I have a backup colony in future.

This had also been the year that I finally worked out why the damn thing ever set a single seed. I had carefully harvested them as there were plenty this year and put them into another pot, meaning to overwinter them with the orchids in the woodshed, and when I came back I caught some of the local birdlife red handed. Apparantly they are mad for those seeds and that's why they never germinate. They all get eaten.

So I harvested the last three seed heads, and put wire over the pots, and I do have about 40 seedlings, but they are so slow in developing. They put out the first two seed leaves OK, but since they did that early on, only two have developed a third leaf. Still, at least I have backup.

The best bit is that only the original centre plant seems to have been blitzed. Surrounding it are a dozen nice small plants that are from the bits I pruned off and replanted in the Autumn.