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.

Alien Plants

The other day my mother-in-law and I took a bit of a drive out to a promising place called Paul's Desert. I found it online looking for more places to feed my cactus needs, and I was pretty worked up and excited to get out there and see what was available. I was not disappointed!

A man whom I can only assume was Paul himself walked us around and talked to us about different succulents, and things that were toxic, or things that were good in full sun or that would burn - the man was a crazy encyclopedia of cactus knowledge, and it was fantastic. The nursery had both tender succulents and dangerously-spined traditional cactus, over a small but well-utilized lot. If you are looking for succulents and are near Schertz TX someday, do pay him a visit! You will not be disappointed.

My catch of the day was a gorgeous pot of Lithops, or living stones. I previously only had a Pleiospilos nelii, a split stone, and wanted to add to my alien plant collection.

I enjoy this plant's fat weird leaves, and the commentary I get on it. So bringing home my Lithops was probably the most exciting thing that has happened in my garden in a long time! They are even more unique!

Current comments on Lithops from friends:
"It says bad things about my diet that those look delicious."
"BRAAIINS!"
"It looks like a mold plant."
"Looks like some sort of flavored marshmallows - very pretty."
"These are NOT plants."
"This kind of reminds me of little gummy candies shaped like brains."

How does Lithops make you feel?

Cuttings and Cleaning

Today I organized my stock for the plants I'm trying to sell and realized I had a lot more work to do in the cuttings and repotting department. With the new trays I had acquired from Lowe's for free (yay for recycling), I set soil in all the little spaces and watered them thoroughly. Once drained, I sorted all the broken leaves and assorted cuttings I had previously thrown into a bucket of sphagnum moss and placed each into its own little space. If all goes well, I should have a lot of new plants: Kalanchoes, sedum, graptopetalum, and cotyledons. I also planted the pieces of cactus I received a few weeks ago so they can get started.

Mmm, cuttings!

After finally completing all the projects I had in mind to date, I organized all leftover pots and tools and put everything away in the garage. Thirty minutes of sweeping and moving pots and sweeping some more, and the back porch is finally clean and pretty.

The only mess is that of The Toad, who insists on sleeping in a four inch pot instead of the big aloe vera I repotted just for him. I found him sitting on the smaller pot last night, moved him into the big one to show him it was even better than the open air of the previous, and went to bed. Today, he had kicked some dirt out of the larger pot but was fully submerged in the four inch, with spilled soil all around. I guess that's that!

New Growth

Well, finally after years of photos,  poorly designed personal websites, and a multitude of Facebook posts, I have decided (with a little help from a certain family member) to make a blog. This one will detail my gardening adventures, of which I have many.

What prompted this creation was the design and building of my second flowerbed. I had wanted a second bed to accommodate my growing number of plants for quite some time, and in spite of the grueling Texas heat I worked on it all afternoon and completed it in about four and a half hours. However, I did spend an additional five hours beforehand gathering the needed soils and mulches, attending various stores and encountering a lot of mosquitoes. My mother-in-law suggested the blog after all we went through to get to the point of even starting the bed, and how it might be interesting to other gardeners, and non-gardeners alike.

So here we are! I hope I don't bore anyone :)