Contents of the Summer 2008 Northants News

             Top hat - top cat          Colin C Walker

 

I’ve just lost one of my ablest assistants in some of my succulent activities because our female cat, Fortune, has just passed away. She was purring on my lap just before tea, and then four hours later we found her dead on the patio. There had been absolutely no indication that there had been anything wrong with her. I hope you’ll all forgive this indulgence with a short photographic tribute to her. She was only five and three quarters, young for our pets who have a reputation for being long lived. Our previous cat, Euston, for instance, lived to be 19 years old. Our male cat, Symba, who is still with us, has appeared in NN in an article entitled Symba’s Ceropegia, so it also seems fair for Fortune to feature too. They’ve both been an inspiration to me with some of my plant work and have appeared in my lectures and on the BCSS Forum.

The first pic (above) shows preparation for a digital presentation on Succulent Monocots I was working on for a convention in New Zealand, so this is from 2004. The talk looked at the range of diversity in agaves, aloes, haworthias, etc. For one pic I planned to gather together all my gasterias for a group shot. In preparation I was using Ernst van Jaarsveld's Gasteria monograph to check out a few IDs. As ever Fortune was helping me out here, whilst her brother Symba, just peeks in on the right.

Usually when I’ve got plants out to photograph one or other or both of the cats have got in on the action. A few years back there was a BCSS event at the RHS garden at Wisley. Amy took a liking to an Epiphyllum or Epicactus hybrid called 'Flamingo', so I bought it for her and on return I took a pic of the plant in flower, again with assistance from Fortune.

Fortune checking out Epicactus ‘Flamingo’

 

More recently I returned from the Zone 6 show in 2006 and had help unpacking the entries, but the cats soon got bored with that and crashed.

Last summer I did a large amount of repotting and tidying up in the greenhouse. During the repotting phase I acquired a glazed pot from work in the shape of a top hat, into which I drilled holes in the base. A small Agave macroacantha seemed an appropriate plant for the pot, with its chalky-grey leaves complementing the shiny black pot. Having done the repotting I was very pleased with the result and thought it was well worth a photo or two. I arranged a stand with a sheet as the back drop and took a series of pics. As ever I was assisted by Fortune who was very keen to be in on the act, so I have a whole series of her with the plant: in some she’s interested in the plant, but eventually she got bored and actually fell asleep next to the pot. I’ve included just one pic from the series that I call Top Hat - Top Cat. And she was, for Fortune was quite a character and is sadly missed.

Colin

Above: Fortune (on the grass) and Symba helping with unpacking plants. The three agaves are: A. shawii (front left); A. lophantha (front right), and A. titanota (in the tray). Incidentally, none of these plants were show winners, but who knows what the future may hold for them!

Top hat - top cat

 

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