How to Group Potted Succulents Amazing tips

In my new video, How to Group and Display Potted Succulents (9:48), I show you practical as well as aesthetic ways to display a container collection. Find the main points below.

But first, why even grow succulents in pots?

Part of my own collection of succulents in art pots

Ten reasons to grow succulents in containers

1. Who can resist a great pot? Personally, I collect art pots, Talavera, frogs...
2. Pots are great for succulents that, in the garden, might get engulfed or trampled.
3. Containers make it easier to observe and nurture prize plants.
4. Cacti and small agaves are fascinating to look at when safely framed by pots.
5. Pots make it possible to pick up and carry prized succulents.
6. You can move plants that can't handle summer sun but need more sun in winter (like echeverias).
7. If you change residences, you can take your collection with you.
8. Pots make a balcony, rooftop, deck, patio or hardscape a garden.
9. You can tend your collection without having to bend or kneel.
10. Family and guests enjoy looking at them.

There are probably many more (please share yours in the Comments).

The Drawback

Pots multiply. Soon you're tucking containers everywhere. Plant parents---the nurturing kind (you know who)---tend to be more concerned about where succulents will thrive than where they'll look good. But it IS possible to achieve both. In my How to Group and Display Potted Succulents video, I present three main concepts to guide and inspire you.

#1: Go High

If you're going to nail pots to a tree, don't use copper or anything that rusts. (I used stainless steel.) Pots by Marsha Rafter.

Vertical space is easy to overlook, but when floor space is limited, it's a great option for displaying potted plants.

Below: I love this idea by newsletter subscriber John Yeomans of Kent, England. To display his sempervivum collection, John added screws to a small stepladder's wooden steps. He kept the screws elevated so they secure the pots through their drain holes. "I can move the whole thing as a unit," John says.

#2: Group Like with Like

Repetition adds cohesion to an assortment and makes it more pleasing to the eye. In How to Group and Display Potted Succulents, I show you windowsill succulents, a poolside succulent garden, and many others.

Repetitions here include the type of succulent (mostly cacti), a limited palette of glazes, and---importantly---the topdressing.

#3: Create a Display

One secret to an effective display is to have larger, taller plants in the middle or in back, surrounded by medium-sized and lastly smallest pots.

A grouping of colorful potted succulents serves as a focal point on Jim Gardner's patio.

 

Watch my Pot Grouping Video

Succulent Container Design

Succulent Container Design Design ideas and must-dos for beautiful, easy-care potted succulents Here you’ll find info on succulent container design in articles and videos. Scroll down to see what interests you and meets your needs. Also enjoy and find inspiration in my gallery of 150+ floral-style arrangements! Succulent Container Gardens, How-To Discover My Online Design…

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Succulents in Containers

Succulents in Containers Design ideas and must-dos for beautiful, easy-care potted succulents Want to create a lovely, low-maintenance, low-water succulent container garden? This page guides you to helpful info on this site and on my YouTube channel. A must-have to help you select and pair pots and plants—and keep them looking good—is my my bestselling book, Succulent…

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How to Plant Succulents to Ensure They Thrive Great Tips

If you've been wondering how to plant succulents to ensure they grow long and happy lives, this is the post for you! This step-by-step photo tutorial for planting newly purchased succulents will help give you a good foundation for next succulent garden! I'm so glad you're interested in learning how to properly plant succulents! [...]

The post How to Plant Succulents to Ensure They Thrive appeared first on Succulents and Sunshine. Written by Cassidy Tuttle.

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Two 2021 Calendars: Cactus and Succulents Amazing tips

Purchase calendars

I've created two 2021 calendars. Each offers a year's worth of wall art. Here you'll find a bit of backstory, plus all 24 images and plant IDs. Enjoy!

Why Do I Do Calendars?

As a garden photojournalist and succulent book author, I have photos worth sharing for their beauty alone. So every year I'd pick the top 12 for a calendar. They became a handy way of thanking people I'd worked with, as well as PR for my brand. At Zazzle, an online fulfillment company, I upload images into a template and they do the rest. Zazzle keeps 90% of the sales price, so it's hardly a money-maker. But the quality is excellent, and they do have great sales.

Why watercolors?

I wanted to showcase the plants' beauty in a new way. Like photography, watercolor is all about light (it comes from the white of the paper). It's as much about what you don't paint as what you do. When I interviewed watercolor artist Diane Palley-McDonald for a San Diego Union-Tribune profile, I loved her work and later took her classes. I learned how to use a light table to trace a photo onto watercolor paper, mask the "whites," use and select colors, and create washes. And because I need deadlines to get things done, a calendar means I'll do at least 12 paintings a year.

Cactus Calendar cover

New for 2021: Cactus Photo Calendar

A painting takes two days, and if I'm not thrilled with the results, I doesn't make the cut.  Photos, however, need only brightening and cropping (if that), which take mere minutes. I have photos that show how astonishingly beautiful cactus can be.

My new Cactus Calendar is selling so well, I wonder if I should simply do photo calendars of succulents. But then, I might never pick up a brush. A bonus is that painting allows hours of inspirational listening. (A current favorite is a New York pastor known as a modern-day C.S. Lewis: Tim Keller.)

Have you, too, found unexpected benefits to staying home? Started a hobby? Have book or podcast recommendations? Share in the comments!

2021 Calendar Images

Echeveria 'Lola' watercolor

Haworthia atrofusca watercolor

Euphorbia greewayii (blue form) watercolor

Agave parryi watercolor

Agave filifera watercolor

Lophophora williamsii (peyote) watercolor

Aeonium canariense watercolor

Echeveria 'Sahara' watercolor

Tephrocactus articulatus watercolor

Graptosedum, agave watercolor collage

Aloe erinacea watercolor

Graptoveria 'Silver Star' watercolor

Ferocactus with fruit

Opuntia Santa-Rita

Tephrocactus geometricus

Cactus in candleholder

Notocactus scopa v. murielli

Ferocactus sp.

Mammillaria elegans

Opuntia tacinga inamoena

Pilosocereus pachycladus

Echinocereus pectinatus v. rubrispinus

Mammillaria matudae

Pachycereus weberi

The Easy Way to Paint Watercolors

Is there really an easy way to paint watercolors? Yes, if you go straight to painting and don’t spend time laboriously drawing the image first. I learned the technique described here from San Diego watercolor artist Diane Palley McDonald. Step by step: Select a photo that inspires you. Print the photo on 8-1/2 by 11 paper.…

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My Succulents 2020 Calendar

Every year I create a calendar so I have to do a dozen watercolors. Painting is a cherished hobby, but—maybe you can relate?—I need a deadline to do it. In August, I hadn’t picked up a brush for nearly a year and had lots to relearn.

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My Channel Passed 6,000,000+ Views! But… Amazing tips

My YouTube Channel has passed 6,000,000 views! If you've yet to visit it, I encourage you to do so. The content is free and dedicated to enhancing your appreciation and knowledge of succulents.

I've released over 150 videos since How to Stress Succulents and Why (3:46) came out in July, 2011. It's had 100K+ views, despite amateur mistakes like setting up the camera so the image is vertical.

How to Stress Succulents and Why

That first video's content is fine, but I just now noticed neglected comments and questions. That's a no-no. YouTube is a form of social media, which means it's interactive. I suspect it's too late...or is it? What if I answered your question nine years later? LOL

A bit of backstory

The year prior, in 2010, my books' publisher had commissioned a video to accompany the release of Succulent Container Gardens. We set up at Oasis Water Efficient Gardens nursery. In it, I show how to select and combine succulents in a blue pot. How to Plant a Succulent Container Garden (6:13 min., 400K views) is on Timber Press' channel. During filming, it dawned on me: "Hey! I could do this!"

Most popular videos

From one of my Laura Eubanks videos

YouTube is all about showing step-by-step how to do something. Seven years ago, I noticed that San Diego garden designer Laura Eubanks was amazingly good at demonstrating and explaining her methods. She was witty, engaging and fearless, with a distinctive and appealing design style.

I suggested that Laura let me make a video of her creating one of her pocket gardens. Then I edited the footage down to the best bits. The resulting releases: How to Create a Succulent Pocket Garden with Laura Eubanks (12:37 min., 347K views) and Laura Eubanks' Succulent Garden Design Secrets (3:40 min., 323K views) are among my channel's most popular. Since then, Laura has gone on to become a garden celebrity---deservedly so---and to create her own hugely popular YouTube channel.

What makes my channel unique

For years, as a contributor to Sunset and other publications, I focused on beautiful-yet-doable residential gardens. Now, as a succulent expert and author, my goal is to present well researched, useful info that is timely and relevant, that I have personal experience with, and that is consistent with my brand.

Of course it helps I'm in Southern California, the epicenter of all things succulent. We have some of the best designers, plant experts, specialty nurseries and private succulent gardens anywhere in the world. In my own Zone 9b garden, I show you plant-pot pairings, gift and holiday projects, and seasonal garden tasks.

How much time is involved?

It takes about a day to create two or three minutes of finished video. This includes preparation, research, deciding what to include, planning what-happens-when, set-up, coordinating with a helper (if any), actual filming time, shooting or compiling stills, voice-over, editing and splicing clips, adjusting audio, and (grrr) contending with Apple's new Catalina OS (which  my older iMovie program doesn't like).

I do all my own editing. This screenshot is from my Succulents in a Clamshell DIY video.

But what's really frustrating...

No question there's much to be proud of, but also plenty I wish I'd done differently. It's a learning process, and of all my endeavors, videography is the least polished. Once on YouTube, there's no fixing a video without deleting it, which means erasing comments and view count. (I can always modify the description, title, thumbnail, and outbound links.)

If I had time, I'd redo my early videos. I've since ditched the annoying music. I now film only at high resolution, add closed captions [CC] for the hearing-impaired, provide plant names and resources, and respond promptly to viewer questions. Yet while overall channel views continue to rise, newer (better!) releases are being seen less and less.

You can help

Critique my channel. Let me know what you like and don't, especially among my post-2017 releases. What would you like to see more of? Less? Does length matter? And if you have a successful YouTube channel yourself, what would you suggest?

I can't complain

Every so often a comment---like this one---makes it all worthwhile.

A comment on my Agave Essentials video

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

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Bizarre Succulents Amazing tips

Bizarre Succulents for Your Collection, Bwa-ha-ha

To me, a bizarre succulent is one that suggests something it’s not in an eerie way—i.e. a cancerous growth, reptile or body part. When I take a second look and ponder what the heck it is, I experience a deliciously unsettling ah-ha (or bwa-ha-ha) moment. Of course, what’s bizarre is in the eye of the beholder. You might go to a Cactus & Succulent Society show and hear members exclaim how “beautiful” a lumpy plant is and wonder if their eyes need checking. With that in mind, here are some of my own choices.

Btw, the bizarre succulents shown here inspired one of my few forays into fiction: Professor Mordant’s Sea-Sand Succulents. Do enjoy “moonlit” photos and a pleasantly unsettling reinterpretation of collectible-yet-creepy succulents. An excerpt: I was the only one who accepted the professor’s invitation. I calmed my trepidation by anticipating a big story…or at least a small adventure. It turned out to be both. But except for these photos, I’m unable to prove it. I fear that now, after the tsunami, this is the only record that remains…[Continue reading]

Debra’s Gallery of Bizarre Succulents

 

Mammillaria elongata, crested

This is the crested, or monstrose, form of a fairly ordinary cactus that consists of fuzzy cylinders, commonly called “ladyfingers” (after the golden pastry served with afternoon tea). When ladyfingers turn monstrose, they enter an entirely different world…that of horror movies. Anyone need a couple of brains?

Lithops sp.

Lithops, or living stones, is always plural (no such thing as a “lithop,” please). These grow glacially and can be difficult to keep alive because their tap roots are prone to rot if overwatered. In their native habitat of South Africa, lithops go without rain for months, sometimes years. To avoid being eaten by thirsty animals, they’re buried in sand to their tops, which have translucent fissures that enable sunlight to enter.

Lophocereus schottii (totem pole cactus)

Recently at his nursery in Fallbrook, CA, succulent expert Don Newcomer showed me a rare columnar, spineless cactus from Mexico: Lophocereus schottii (totem pole cactus)…[Continue reading]

 

Crassula ‘Baby’s Necklace’

These remind me of eels emerging from an undersea crevice. They look as though they’re swaying in a current, hoping to ingest passing plankton or tiny fish. This is one of the “stacked crassulas”  subsection of a genus best known for jade plants. What makes such different-shaped plants similar are the flowers, which to botanists are THE defining characteristic.

Gasteria hybrid

Doesn’t this look like it’s crawling toward you? I don’t know much about this specimen, which I shot at a nursery, other than it’s a gasteria (related to Haworthia). The color and texture alone makes it bizarre, but its shape takes it over the top.

Medusa euphorbia in flower.

Medusa euphorbias are oddities even when not in bloom. Their stems radiate from a central point in a Fibonacci spiral, forming what looks like scaly snakes. “In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed upon her face would turn to stone.” (From Wikipedia.)

Euphorbia grandicornis

This is a euphorbia that sure looks like a cactus, but its thorns don’t radiate from central points (aureoles), and the flesh has a milky sap. The Latin means “large horn;” the common name is “cow’s horn.” Plants can form thickets 6 feet tall.

Tillandsia sp.

Air plants (Tillandsia species) are not succulents, but often are paired with them. They have a wonderful tentacled look, and some suggest spiders or sea urchins.

Echeveria ‘Mauna Loa’

This is one of many carruncled echeverias hybridized by Dick Wright. The lava-flow leaves doubtless inspired him to name it after a volcano. Such bumpy echeverias polarize collectors, who tend to love or hate them. I think they’re cool in a weird way, and I like how each cancerous-like mass is different. Definitely a plant that makes you look twice!

Pilosocereus sp.

I turned this photo sideways in my fictional story about sea-sand succulents, so the flowers would appear to grow upright. This cactus is truly blue, and its blooms, especially when they turn black, truly bizarre.

Kalanchoe luciae (Flapjack plant)

Comparisons to confections come to mind with this marvelously swirly succulent. Not all members of this species of Kalanchoe have loopy leaves, so perhaps this specimen is a cultivar (I shot it at Roger’s Gardens nursery in Corona del Mar, CA). Regardless, to keep Kalanchoe luciae compact, don’t let it bloom. 

Fenestraria aurantiaca ‘Baby Toes’

I bought my first Baby Toes at the county fair when I was around 20. I put it on the kitchen counter and overwatered it, thereby causing it to stretch, rot and die. During the decades since, I’ve come to realize it wants a few hours of sun daily, and although sensitive, can tolerate more water than most plants in the “living stones” category (like lithops). The name comes from the Latin for “window,” referring to translucent tissue at each tip.

Euphorbia obesa

When the succulent craze took off, these little fatties became so popular that they’ve since become scarce…typical of highly desirable succulents that are extremely slow growing. I hope sometime soon we’ll see marvelous nursery inventories of obesas again, like this one shot in ’07.

Myrtillocactus geometrizans, crested

I associate this with Jeff Moore of Solana Succulents nursery and the undersea garden he designed at the San Diego Botanic Garden. Jeff, a lifelong resident of Solana Beach, CA, is fond of snorkeling. As a nurseryman specializing in succulents, plants like these reminded him of what he saw underwater, and voila: a trend was born.

Boweia volubis (pregnant onion)

Here’s another succulent that polarizes collectors: Do you love pregnant onions or hate them? The bulbs, which sit atop the soil, have peeling skin and a hole at the top from which frizzy stems emerge. These twine around whatever they can find, then die back. Interesting? Definitely. Beautiful? Uh…perhaps not.

Astrophytum ornatum, crested

You may have noticed that many bizarre plants are crested. As I explain on page 199 of Designing with Succulents (2nd ed.), “cresting happens when new growth emerges from a line rather than a point…Odd lumpy forms, sometimes but not always caused by cresting, are monstrose.” The fang-like spines on this crested astrophytum are icing on the cake.

Aloe vanbalenii (Van Balen’s aloe)

Aloe vanbalenii is a fairly common landscape succulent, but it’s seldom this red and compact. As with many succulents that stress to colors of red and orange, this colony has tightened up, creating what looks like a multiheaded squid.

Wooly filaments provide this high-elevation cactus with warmth in winter and sun-protection in summer. And if that weren’t off-putting enough, it’s armed with spines too. Those odd scaly protrusions are flower buds.

 

Related Info on This Site:

Professor Mordant’s Sea-Sand Succulents

 

A Dozen Reasons I Love Cacti

 

 

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