What Is the Best Way to Plant Succulents?
Plant your succulent in a simple terracotta pot equipped with a drainage hole. This keeps succulents safe from excess moisture, which is one of the few things that can truly do harm to these hardy plants.
How Do You Lay Out a Succulent Garden?
Many gardeners like blending their succulent garden layouts with eye-catching rocks, which add visual interest to the plant display. Mulch should also be used with multi-functionality. Mulch can absorb water, retain heat and add visual appeal to your succulent garden. Pebbles, stones, glass and gravel are all options for mulch.
Can You Plant Succulents in Just Rocks?
Unfortunately, no, succulents will not grow in rocks alone — in the long term, they'll also need soil to survive. While succulents should be planted in soil, rocks can be included as aesthetically pleasing visual ornamentation to enhance a succulent arrangement.
No-Stress Plant Decor
Great things do indeed come in small packages, as these repurposed household items prove. Used as tabletop planters, they’re filled with handsome plants that require only occasional watering.
Porch Plants
Some succulents tolerate planting beneath porches and other areas that receive little or no direct sunlight. This makes them perfect candidates for containers near entryways with overhangs, where it can be difficult to grow flowering plants. Mix different shapes and colors to take advantage of the variety succulents offer. Plants such as elephant food, Gasteria and Senecio species are good choices.
Strawberry Pot Planter
Succulents are a great choice for a large strawberry pot. Fill the pot with potting soil and plant a different succulent in each pocket. Push each plant deep, tamp down the soil with your fingers and mulch with gravel. Water generously to help your succulents settle in, and place the pot in a sunny spot. Water them once a week for the first month, but don’t worry if you forget a time or two. These tough little plants thrive when others may not.
Serve Them Up in Style
A silver-plated tea set makes an intriguing and unique succulent display. Find small clay pots that slip inside the teapot and the sugar and cream bowls and hang from the rims. If you can’t find the perfect size pots, add gravel or corks to the bottom of the teapot and bowls to support the pots. Fill the pots with a quick-draining potting soil for cacti and succulents or make your own by adding 1/3 perlite or sand to 2/3 of regular potting soil. Poke a hole in the soil and insert the stem from a succulent. Sempervivum (hens and chicks) is shown here but any slow-growing succulent will do.
The Grow (Almost) Anywhere Plant
Sempervivum is a succulent that goes by many names: hen and chicks, cat and kittens or houseleeks. The fun thing about Sempervivum is that it grows just about anywhere. Shallow roots make it able to thrive in makeshift containers. Sempervivum can even grow in old boots. Simply put the plants in small pots and insert them into the boots. Or, fill the boots themselves with a quick-draining soil mix.
Suspended Succulents
Chandeliers in trees create a lot of unexpected garden interest, especially if you decorate them with plants. This example has small clay flowerpots glued where lightbulbs would normally be. Because succulents last so long without water, you fill the pots with succulents of any kind. They often last for months without special care.
Landscaping with Succulents
Succulents often are overlooked as outside landscaping choices. But in areas where the heat runs high in the summer, the fleshy plants make sense. Succulents, which include cacti, love hot and dry conditions. While many people have one or two succulents as houseplants, they can be stunning in creative containers, in a rock garden or intermingled with other water-wise plants. Many succulents cannot tolerate temperatures below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, however, so if you're thinking about leaving them outside during the winter, it's important to pay attention to their hardiness zones.
Succulent Planting Projects
There's a lot more you can do with these versatile plants. Take a look at these step-by-step succulent projects:
- Creating a succulent bowl is a quick and simple way to display the variety and beauty of these plants.
Need help choosing plants? Check out our Succulent Buying Guide.