Succulent Container Garden Art

I thought today I'd talk about container art. Specifically, for succulents. It is a new passion of mine and the only thing holding me back is the lack of space in which to keep all these displays!

For a good place to start learning more about succulents and the many ways you can use them to decorate your home and garden, I recommend a book called Succulent Container Gardens: Design Eye-Catching Displays with 350 Easy-Care Plants by Debra Lee Baldwin. It taught me a lot, both about plants themselves and about how to arrange them.

Here I will share with you my current displays:

In this set of barnacles I got from a touristy-shell selling shop by the coast, I have planted sedum (top center), aeonium "Kiwi" (bottom center), and two little graptopetalum Ghost Plants (each end).

In a votive candle holder we have a dark little aeonium "Zwartkop" with bright sedum to help backlight the burgundy leaves of the aeonium. The problem with darker plants such as this is that they create a shadow, a negative space where the eyes are naturally drawn away or gloss over. In order for my aeonium to be the centerpeice, I needed something to highlight it and the sedum does just that.

In a green and orange-ish rectangular dish we have sedum (can you tell yet that I love sedum?) and a little barrel cactus. I think it's been getting too much water as the cactus is starting to grow a bit much. It's hard not to overwater in this Texas weather!

Bear's Paws (I've also heard them called Kitten's Paws) go quite nicely into this rounded brown pot, the shape of which goes with the roundness of the paws, and the colour matches the older stems and the little brown "nails" at the end of each paw. The claws are not quite visible yet, but as this plant gets healthier (new addition to the nursery) it should grow closer to ideal and look marvelous.

In simple bright terracotta we have my split rock. I like the green and red of this one. It needs a topdressing still but I haven't found one I like yet.

The bright greens of the Opuntias here go well with the bright blue and orange of the glazed terracotta I picked for them. The prickly pear is a cutting from my city of birth, and the cholla I gathered from my mother's backyard in the country. I have a lot of emotion viewing this piece.

More cholla in a tall glass vase. The leggy cactus should grow taller and spindly, and I look forward to see what it shall become. I expect this will become top heavy in the future, but in the meanwhile I'm enjoying it ;)

Even plastic pots do well for display, depending on what you pair with them. This old tan pot looks nice and plain which doesn't detract from the Haworthia within.

Another plastic pot, this time bright red, does a gentle Christmas theme with the green and white speckled Gasteria spilling over the edges. My husband called this one the Tongue Depressor plant before I could correct him, and the name has stuck. I tend to call all Gasteria tongue depressors now.

And no one ever said that the container must be a pot! I found this resin turtle at a Marshall's and it had "gardening" written all over it. I have planted (clockwise, top to bottom) two types of kalanchoes, sedum burrito, aptenia, graptopetalum, portulacaria afra, and sedum in the center. The turtle itself is only about a foot long, so this is small yet but I expect the plant inside to fill it in nicely.

There will surely be more art on my porch in the future, and when there is, it will be here. In the meanwhile, I'm going to kickback and enjoy a glass of sweet iced tea in my green heaven amidst this terrible Texas wasteland.