Succulent Love

When we moved to the west coast, one of the things I wanted to experiment with was a succulent garden. I have always loved the way these plants looked with so much of diversity in their texture, shapes and shades. Being a first time gardener, I knew nothing about them and had to read and watch a ton of videos to get an idea of how to do a succulent garden installation from start to finish.

For those who don’t have a green thumb or are sure they have a brown thumb, these succulent plants are a great place to start if you want to try your hand at gardening. These plants are resilient and if you take a little care of them in the beginning, they will thrive in any place you plant them. I cannot say that they need no care at all, because I did care for them a bit in the beginning and a month later they are doing so well on their own. Also, gaining a little understanding on the kind of succulent you have will go a long way for you and your new babies.

There are so many ways in which you can choose to set a succulent garden up. Most people here do a succulent landscape in their front or back yard. You can also grow them in pots or raised beds in your apartment balcony. My vision for my succulent garden started out small but took a life of its own once I started working on it.

Like they say, “All cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti” , I wanted to do a garden where the succulents would look like they were just a variety of beautiful flowering plants. I did not want an arid desert look, but rather an assortment of beautiful greens of various shapes and sizes, and I loved the ones I was finally able to find. I love all things pastel and subtle, so all the plants I picked were mainly frost blue, mauve, lavender, dusty rose and so on. Succulents, surprisingly, have so much to offer in these shades!

I watched videos and read up on succulent gardening tips pertaining to California. I particularly loved watching Laura Eubanks who is an award winning Succulent garden designer. It helps to get information in general, but it's always best to learn from those who have local knowledge and experience, which will ensure we have a better understanding of the weather, soil requirements or any other attention to detail that the locality necessitates.

Here are a few interesting things that I learnt and applied while designing the garden:-

• Like all plants even succulents need to acclimate to their new surroundings. So, if you are picking them up from a nursery or any kind of gardening store, keep a note of whether they were in full sun, in part shade, or in full shade. Depending on where you plan to put your succulents, gradually acclimate them to the necessary sun exposure.

• Succulent gardens can be designed with different varieties of plants right besides each other because they will always accommodate each other and grow. Since it was my first time, I didn’t plant them as closely as I probably could have (I love how Laura Eubanks packs them tight together), but I did mix and match different succulents to see how they would look next to each other and then planted them together in clusters, leaving enough room for growth. It was fun to see what colors and shapes complemented each other.

• I went to stores like Home Depot, well-established nurseries and low profile local nurseries to compare costs and see if there is a huge difference in the quality of plants. I found that the plants in the well established places had better soil quality and overall looked much cleaner and healthier, and the quality of the ones in the nursery right from presentation to the soil wasn't that great at first glance. But I still bought majority of my plants from the local nursery because they were less than half the price compared to the other stores. Once I planted them in good soil and gave them a happy home, they flourished as well as the few ones I picked from the stores.

Here are some pictures of plants that were kind of similar, one picked up from the local nursery and the other from a fancier store.

3$ v/s 7$

3$ v/s 8$

• The best way to plant them is by creating mounds in your container or garden bed so that they don’t lie flat on the ground. Creating mounds, tilting and planting them not only creates dimension and gives more visual appeal to the succulents, but also help maintain a well drained soil.

Succulent Garden starter pack

• Soil - People think that succulents grow anywhere but that’s far from true. Succulents need well draining soil, they don’t do well in clayey soil whereas sandy soil works well. You can easily look up the ingredients and make your own soil mix or even buy it in bags. I used a Cactus, Palm and Citrus Mix because it was readily available in my area.

• Tools - These were so essential and truly life savers. Having a good tool-set made my work so much easier. My highlights were the thick kneeling pad that helped me work without any knee pain and the trowel that was so easy to use in the rocky soil we have here. A good pair of cheap sneakers which you plan to use only in the garden is a must too.

• Irrigation - Succulents need water once a week or maybe twice if it gets as hot as it did in California (120F/48C) this summer. Once a month will also work if you have more fleshy plants which store water. The key is, when you water them they should be thoroughly soaked and having that well drained soil will help take out excess water even if you happen to over water occasionally.

• Staging stones - These are stones you can either buy or dig up from the yard like I did. We have really rocky soil which hinders plant growth, so while we were digging up different parts of the backyard we came across some huge stones. I kept these stones aside and scrubbed some of the dirt off them and used them as staging stones that you set in the mounds of soil to create “an always been there look”.

• Earth Cover - You can use mulch but stones look so much better in a succulent pot or garden. It adds so much character and does the same work that mulch would do for the plants. I went with red lava stones, because I wanted it to look rich and earthy.

• Design - As the project progressed, I decided to add a waterfall effect as the start of my garden. I picked Mexican river pebbles which were slightly larger in grey tones. I bought a plain matt brown pot and planted it part way into the soil and filled it with the river pebbles so it would look like the pebbles were springing forth like water and flowing down, weaving a stream around the different clusters of plants. I also planted a couple of agapanthus behind it to get a seamless look for the pot.

• Types - The plants I picked were all so beautiful and diverse that it's hard to choose a favorite. However, to name a few on the top of my list :- The Hens and chicks: as the name goes this one is gorgeous and looks like a mama with her babies. Everyone loves Echeverias, these come in a lot of beautiful varieties. Another favorite would be the Senecio blue chalk sticks. The Crassula Gollum Jade is another one I really like and I will stop with that because I really do love so many of them and seeing them everyday makes my heart happy.

I have learnt so much and am still continuing to learn about these ever so interesting plants. And though installing a succulent garden from start to finish was a lot of work, it was oh so rewarding! By the time I was done I could see what Laura Eubanks meant when she said "Succulent gardening is like the work of an artist where we get to paint with plants and in the end it’s a little piece of living art"

"You pour out rain in buckets, O God; thorn and cactus become an oasis.

For your people to camp in and enjoy." - Psalm 68: 9

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