My Hens And Chicks Give A Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation)

The beautiful, sweet flowers seen in the images posted above are from my wonderful succulent known as Hens and Chicks. I have spoken about succulents in prior posts discussing how folks use them in indoor gardens which you may read by clicking here as well as here to read about them. As for my Hens and Chicks, they live outside (although they make fine houseplants too), and they are a plant whose leaves "form around each other forming a rosette and propagate by offsets".

The "hen" is the main plant and the "chicks" are the offspring, which start as tiny buds on the main plant and soon sprout their roots, taking up residence next to the mother plant." (For source and other information, please click on this link.)

As you may recall, dear reader, my Hens and Chicks  were "serving" as a center-piece on top of my marble table which is located in the mid-southeast area of my urban terrace garden. In that spot, they had been thrivin' and high-fivin' (as you may recall from a previous blog entry that included the photograph posted below which may read by clicking here).

However, several days ago, I put my my Hens and Chicks on top of my bamboo shelves (that I use as one of my urban hedges as described in this previous post). I mostly use the shelves for my smaller plants. These shelves are in the southwest corner of my terrace garden, hence what sits on the top of the shelves, faces east, where they can watch the sun come up. The wonderful thing about a container garden is that one can move things around from time to time to give things that are grown in the garden a new perspective, which is exactly what I wanted my Hens and Chicks to have as they began to flower. The Hens and Chicks readily adapted to its new location, and they even seemed to participate in a yoga pose, a Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation), as evidenced in the photograph below. 

In any event, I am happy to see them enjoying their location and to give them some peace the last days of their life. Yes, you read that correctly, it is the last days of their life. For when the Hens and Chicks's striking and lovely flowers finally appear, it means that the plant will die. After the Hens and Chicks's stretches out to the sky and it bursts forth its splendid flowers, it soon dies. There is no remedy to save them from this fate. One cannot dead-head the flowers in hopes that the plant will spring back, but instead give them the best send off possible and also enjoy their beauty as they leave this world.

As it is, seeing a Hens and Chicks plant flower is rare, they often don't flower at all, and if they do, it will be sometime when they around three years old, which is the age of my sweet Hens and Chicks. It is sad to see them go, but it has been thrilling to know that they lived the good life in my terrace garden; high fivin' the things that they enjoyed, and, most recently, participating in the Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation).