succulents – sharolyntownsend

Yay Success! A Succulenteur’s Propagation Story Has a Happy Ending!

Hellooo!

So, way back when, I started a little propagation experiment with some cast off succulent leaves I found at the local nursery.

Check out my April post title “Never Go Near A Garden Center a.k.a. Human Magnet” to see where it all began.

This is mostly a success story, but as with all good stories there is also a little bit of bad, so let me get that out of the way:

Back in April when I got some new succulents I bought one that was called Bear Paws. Loved them. Planted them right alongside the other one I’d purchased. I kept them indoors out of the frost, coddled them, kept them in filtered light and spritzed lightly with water. It did great for several months, and then inexplicably, the paws started to drop off. At first I thought it was because the curtain had snagged one and amputated a paw…but over several days they all started to droop and one by one they fell off. Needless to say, another one bites the dust. I don’t even have a picture to show you because it all happened so quickly there is literally nothing left to show.

On a happy note, even though it’s neighbor died a horrible and inexplicable death, this succulent is thriving and starting to form a flower!

But oh how I loved that Bear Claw. I will have to give it a go one more time. I will not be defeated!

Now on to the success story! Remember the cast off leaves and the bed of Perlite and the beginning of growth? Check this out!

This is what I’d been waiting for, the original leaf is now shriveled and discolored which means the new plant forming at its base has used up all the leaves good stuff and needs to be planted. Glad to oblige!

Check out that root action!

I just so happened to have the perfect little planter: a retro, made in Japan, cute as can be, ceramic girl with puppy planter:

Et voila! If I can do it, you can too! All it required was patience waiting for the little bugger to start doing something. It’s really quite enjoyable to watch the process inch along.

So get busy, start scouring for those poor abandoned succulent leaves at your local garden center!

Attempting to be a Successful Succulenteur and Other Garden Hits and Misses

Many posts ago I started on the path of succulent propagation. My biggest experiment was using the “let it sit” method with a few leaves I’d gathered that had fallen from a succulent plant at the garden center – NOT stealing as they would have been considered cast offs and no doubt swept up and tossed.

So, to refresh, the method is to let them lie on a bed of Perlite in filtered light until they push out roots and then begin to form their own little plant. A while ago they put out a few tiny roots, but check it out now! The little plant is starting to form at the base ( you’ll probably need to click on the photo to enlarge it so you can really look closely):

Also, the heads of my Hens and Chicks have robust roots and are more than ready to be planted…if only I had a place to put them…

And, as I may have mentioned before, the art of becoming a succulenteur is really about experimentation. I just made a new observation about one of my succulents. It could almost seem to be a deliberate experiment with two test groups, but in reality it is all just coincidence that I had the same succulent type planted in two very different locations. One is outside in full sun, the other in filtered light. Check out the difference between the two!

The first one is in full light, the second in filtered. Note how in full light and heat they have balled up and tightened. In the filtered light they have opened up and stretched that neat webbing to its max. Both are doing well, but they adjust to their conditions in order to do so. Also, the one in full light popped out a lot of babies ( off shoots) in early spring due to lots of consistent rain…unlike the ones in filtered light which rely on my non-consistent watering patterns!

On the garden front…well, the Bok Choi bolted. This is the third attempt and the third failure. We’ve had really odd changes of temperature. I’m pretty sure the week of scorching heat is what caused them to bolt. But if it weren’t for the heat, I’m sure the pests would have done them in:

Note all the munched leaves.

Our little planter with chard turned into a potty for some nocturnal animal. All the sprouts were dug out and I believe if you look close enough you can even see a turd in the bowl. Boo!

Okay, since we’re on the track of failures at the moment, I may as well tell yo that some of my succulents started looking rather weird in the way they were forming their leaves. Also, I noted aphid-like critters on some of them. It seemed to be spreading, so I uprooted the ones that looked diseased.

Also, because of the funky weather, my living rock succulent’s flowers shriveled up and died without actually blossoming. I thought the whole plant would die, but it seems to be doing okay if you disregard the desiccated flowers at its center.

Onwards to brighter things! The Romain is doing fantastic. We had our first garden salad of the year a few days ago. The roses are in bloom, my Lambs Ear are taking over the entire patch and the bees are loving the flowers that just started blossoming from them. My Lavendula Dilly Dilly ( yes, the actual name of the lavender I planted, of course I chose it for its name!) is getting ready to bloom as well.

Our Purple Iris has run its course

But replacing it is a new kind:

And my established Hens and Chicks are also blooming:

And finally, after three years here, a lovely California Poppy has decided to join our accidental garden!

Annnnd we have a blue bird family in our little bird house. Every time we step into the garden you can hear the little babies chirping from inside, saying “feed me, feed me, feed me!” Our presence in the garden worries the parents who stand around with worms and insects in their beaks flitting to the roof of the house then away again unwilling to reveal to us where their precious babies are. And in accordance the babies fall silent too; until my hubby and I freeze in our actions to the point of shaking with the extended exertion of it until finally the mommy or daddy decide we’re no longer a threat and finally deliver the food to the anxious and voracious babies.

Mommy and…

Daddy!

Also, now that it’s getting hot, we are visited by our friendly neighborhood lizards who love our concrete step leading into the garden.

All in all, we are rather happy with our little backyard. We haven’t invested as much time in it as the previous year, but it is still a delight. Everything seems so alive and so active.

So, despite some failures in the gardening department, on the whole I think it is much more of a success. I’ll leave it at that!

Update on Succulents and a Few Other Things

So last time I wrote about succulents I’d just been to the garden center and picked up a few new wonders of the succulent variety as well as a handful of loose succulent leaves. Well, I laid them out on a bed of perlite and left it outside under filtered light (my covered porch) and waited. It’s been what…two weeks now? Well, I am happy to report that they are now pushing out roots. Check them out!

I’m going to wait a bit longer until it starts to form a new plant, so I will get back to you on that. They still have a lot of juice in them. No watering is required. You know it’s ready to put into the ground when the leaves are desiccated and a new mini plant is formed at the end where the roots are.

I also showed you how you can propagate by just cutting off succulent heads, scabbing them over and putting them directly in soil. Well, I cut too many heads and didn’t have enough planters, so some of the heads I left sitting on the perlite. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they also started to push out roots. These should be placed in soil pronto as the leaves are getting really thin, indicating that it’s using all it’s juice to make those roots and needs water soon.

So that’s the most recent skinny on succulents.

The end of April brought the first BBQ of the year for us. Very exciting. Nice to have the longer days and the warmer evenings.

For our inaugural BBQ we grilled burgers. Not to be forgotten, sweet red onions drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt.

Look at its transition to absolute tastiness heaven:

Add to that my mother in-law’s home-made pizza…and we were so very good to go!

The accidental garden is doing well. Those petunias just keep on flowering!

And my hubby planted a lot of seeds that have been happily germinating on the window sills in our apartment. Look at this happy sprout greeting the vegetation outside our window:

Soon they’ll be ready for the outdoors.

Unfortunately pests have discovered my Bok Choi that was so happily flourishing in our planter boxes. I haven’t the heart to upload a photo. Have been experimenting with sprinkling cayenne pepper on and around them. So far no evidence that this has helped in any way. Does someone out there have advice for me? We think it might be earwigs getting to them. Booooo! Hisss!

That’s the latest. Will upload photos of recent artwork soon.

Spring Garden

I just wanted to share with you what I found in the garden this morning. Usually it’s under my husband’s purview to water the garden before work, but he was running late so I stepped in as pinch hitter. I wasn’t entirely sure why watering was necessary as a little bit of rain had fallen, but he insisted that I do it anyway. I was a bit grudging, but as soon as I got out there, I was loving it. One of my most favorite things is water droplets on leaves, and there was plenty of that, so I headed back in to grab my camera. Photos first, then watering. I didn’t want to disturb the perfect droplets :

This is my lambs ear patch growing in abundance and practically choking everything else in the bed out. But my hens and chicks are putting up a good fight. Check out the flowers it’s pushing out!

Just a side note..more like a note to self: next time I plan on taking close-up shots, refrain from coffee. These shots aren’t as sharp as I’d like, but you get the idea anyway.

I’d mentioned accidental gardening in one of my previous posts. Well, last year we had one mysterious petunia show up in our veggie bed. Check it out now!

They’re a little bit pale, but such fighters! In our three years here, we never actually bought a petunia, so this one sprang up from a random seed and keeps getting bigger. We don’t have the heart to take it out. We’ll enjoy it for a little bit longer and then see about transplanting it when we need the bed for more veggie plantings.

I’m happy to report that the bok choy is happily growing. Last year I put them in way too late and they bolted like crazy in the summer heat. These one’s are liking our spring weather. I am crossing my fingers that we’ll get a good harvest of bok choy. Last week the weather suddenly heated up for two days, so as long as there’s no more of that, the bok choy stand a chance. Looks like some thinning is in order!

Last but not least, my lovely little flowers…like mini carnations. Not sure what they’re called:

It turned out to be quite satisfying watering the garden, feeling needed by all of this lovely nature. The mother bird in our bird house was only slightly alarmed, calling out and flying by me several times to check out the threat. Pretty soon she’ll be used to us, just like last year, we’ll become permanent fixtures of the garden.

My heart skipped a beat as I went to open my front door. Locked? Phew. Not this time; and besides, I know where the spare key is kept now.

Happy Day everyone!

Never Go Near A Garden Center a.k.a. Human Magnet

I did it folks, I was led into temptation. I knew well in advance, as my legs took on a life of their own and carried me towards the alluring gates, that I should not enter the garden of Eden, because I would partake of the fruit. For a few moments I put on a convincing act of ‘just looking’.

These were my finds:

Graptoveria Amethorum

Bear’s Paws

I couldn’t resist. They were $1.98 at Home Depot. I could say that it was out of the goodness of my heart – because though they look great on their abundant flats of succulents, they are not in the proper soil. Large stores like HD are all about the easy and express, so they just put these little guys in potting soil which is not prime for a succulent.

These two succulents are the juicy type, so they will not survive frost ( I learned that with last seasons juicy succulents, may they rest in peace. Juicy= high water content=freezes like water in an ice cube tray). These are definitely indoor guys.

As exciting as these acquisitions were, the most exciting were the freebies:

I did not unscrupulously take them off a plant, I happened to find them at the bottom of the flat between the potted plants where they had naturally fallen on their own. This is a fantastic development as I now have the subjects for my experiments with this method of propagation:

1. Take leaves from succulent and lay them on a bed of perlite or gritty soil

2. Leave in area of filtered light indoors or out. Do not water

3.Wait for new growth to form at base along with tiny roots

4.Place in gritty soil and water lightly

Now I’m at step 3: the waiting. I will let you know how things develop.

In the meantime, here are a few shots of me transplanting my lovely succulents to a good-sized pot full of 1:1:1 potting soil/ Perlite / Gritty soil ( lava rock is apparently best but hard to find. Sand is too fine)

You must not be afraid to manhandle the succulent to open up the root ball – often they’ve been confined to a pot for too long and they are quite dense. Remember you are showing them tough love and they will appreciate it in the end.

Lightly spritz them with water and place in the sun.

Cheers!

the Skinny on Succulents

I’m not an authority figure on this, so let me just get that out of the way.

If you read my previous blog about gardening, you’d know that I struggle with certain flora and fauna, often send them to plant heaven and on occasion succeed in sustaining life.

Succulents are by far the most forgiving and thus my best friends in the plant department.

About a year ago I was fortunate to be able to attend a free seminar on propagating succulents. Since then it’s been a grand experiment with varying success, but I’d love to share what I do know. When you are successful with propagation, it is the most satisfying thing in the world.

Alright, say you have just purchased a beautiful succulent in a pot, it’s geometrically perfect, fits the vessel just right, requires little attention. 6 months later, you’ve got this on your hands:

Congratulations, your succulents have outgrown their pot. Now what.

When succulents are under stress (too much sun, too much cold, not enough water, too little space) they start turning lovely colors, so you might like to enjoy it in this state for a while. But there will come a time when it starts to look mangy and you take pity. You’re going to have to do something with that puppy. It is helpful if you have a plethora of small pots – trust me, pretty soon you can open your own succulent nursery.

At all times, remind yourself that succulents can take a lot. Don’t be too gentle, you’re going to need to do some tugging and cutting and really get your fingers around each head.

Find some of the babies that the plant is putting out:

Pull out and up from the rest of the plant

With clean, sterilized sheers, cut the stem, don’t be queasy it’s actually really neat once you realize how much they can take. You can also do this to the larger heads, but will need to scab them over (more on that later).

Trim really close to the bud, peel away any dead leaves.

Then simply push the stem in to gritty soil (needs to have good drainage). Over the course of a week or so, the succulent will push out new roots and grip the soil on its own. It does not need a lot of water. In fact, for the first little while, to spur on the root development, hold back on any water. When you do water, use a spray bottle and gently mist them, they don’t need much!

If you are cutting the head of a larger succulent like that of my Hens and Chicks, do not immediately place in soil. Instead, leave it out to scab over (approximately a week) then place in soil. Plants, like all living things, are susceptible to bacteria. By allowing the stem to scab over the succulent is protected from whatever organisms it might encounter in the soil.

You know it’s scabbed over because it’s not wet and juicy looking but dry and shriveled at the stem. Then you can press it into soil. Hens and Chicks are very forgiving and can thrive in regular soil or gritty soil.

Another neato way to propagate some types of succulents is to take just a few of their leaves (pull from the plant rather than cutting as the DNA required for its propagation is in the thin membrane where the leaf separates from the stem – or so I’ve been told!), place them on gritty soil or perlite and leave them (no water!) until they push out roots. They use the moisture up in their own leaf, shriveling as the roots take all the life force. Once roots are visible, push into gritty soil and watch to see how it roots in a few days and starts growing a full plant. I haven’t been as successful with this method. All succulents have their propagation season, some like cool weather, others warmer. When I’m better at this I’ll let you know.

The artistry comes in how you arrange your succulents. At the moment, I’m focused on learning how to propagate and keep plants happy. Eventually the artistry will sneak in.

Hope you give succulents a try, I think you’ll really enjoy them.