Uncommonly beautiful
A hot, dry year calls for cultivating easy-to-grow succulents
The photo in a recent newsletter from Katherine Tracey, a garden designer in Massachusetts, filled me with longing and not a small amount of regret.
Why didn’t I think to fill my pots with succulents as she did — plants such as Echeveria, Senecio, Sempervivum and even certain Sedum that deliver a long show with relatively little care? And especially, why didn’t I do that in what turned out to be a hot, dry year, when petunias and Calibrachoa and other conventional annuals often begged for water more than once a day?
There would have been a bonus round, or several: Although many of the showiest succulents aren’t hardy in the Northeast, I could have brought some indoors to a sunny window in October. And even if they had stretched and sulked there, I would still have had plenty of cuttings to harvest to start again next spring — or to upcycle into centerpieces or repurpose as the starts of new potted plants.
At Avant Gardens in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, the destination retail nursery and landscaping business that Tracey and her husband, Chris, opened more than 30 years ago, succulents are a specialty — a group of signature plants that reflect the couple’s passion for what she describes as “uncommon plants that look good over a long period of time” without high maintenance.
Katherine Tracey defines succulents as “any plants whose leaves, stems or roots can hold water for extended periods of time,” which means they usually have fleshy leaves. After collecting for about 25 years, she has amassed more than 400 kinds. Many are outdoorhardy only in warmer zones such as California, so she has had to use trial and error to make them happy year-round in New
England.
For those getting started, Tracey offered some advice gleaned from her experiments.
Succulents are easy if you go easy on them
Just don’t torture them with regular potting soil.
“I’ve tried growing succulents, but I killed them.” That’s a common refrain in Tracey’s nursery, where in a typical year she teaches workshops on creating succulent wreaths in June and pumpkin arrangements in October.
“What did you use for soil?” she asks, although she knows the answer: a basic bagged potting mix. Ouch.
“These are plants that don’t want soil that stays wet all the time,” said Tracey, who recommends using any commercial cactus or succulent mix instead.
Also, don’t water succulents on the schedule you use for your houseplants or annuals. They shouldn’t be “so dry they are obviously shriveling,” Tracey said, “but not overtending them is the secret — mostly, let them be.”
Also discouraged: fertilizing regularly. Again, go easy.
Tracey repots in spring, mixing a light dose of an organic fertilizer such as Plant-tone in the potting medium. Home gardeners could feed with a dilute seaweed-fish emulsion occasionally — “but really limit that to spring and maybe once in summer,” Tracey said. “They look better when grown lean; otherwise, they get weak and stretch.”
Start from the container up
Looking at Tracey’s succulent pots, it’s no surprise to learn that she trained as a painter and textile designer. Around this time of year, when many succulents color up in rich shades, she refers to the grown-in succulent combinations as “a tapestry within the pot.”
“I usually look at the pot to tell me what size plants to work with,” she said, as well as for palette and thematic inspiration.
If you’re a beginner, though, Tracey advised against overcommitting.
In her own garden, she uses succulent pots as focal points, in key positions — often a very tall container or one on a pedestal.
“I do some big pots because I have large, older plants and the material to work with — but think small-scale to start,”Tracey said. “Build up your collection and gradually learn to propagate while you go.”
Start with a small pot, maybe 6 or 7 inches in diameter, “and stuff it with little plants packed close together, almost like a floral arrangement,” she said.
Succulents don’t usually grow quickly, so gardeners used to leaving space between lusty annual bedding plants should think tighter.
“If one gets too exuberant, you can trim or lift a succulent and move it to where there’s a hole,” she said.
A starter collection
The world of succulents is a wide one, with a taxonomy that’s a bit Wild West, except among botanical gardens and serious specialty nurseries and collectors. When it comes to the non-hardy succulents that are trending in the latest houseplant boom, Tracey said, “many are mislabeled, and even more don’t have any common names, so ‘assorted succulents’ may be all you see on the tag.”
Even which genus a plant belongs to may be confused, she added, “because breeders are crossing them.” (One example: Sedum plus Echeveria yielded Sedeveria.)
A good place to start your collection, she suggested, is with a compact jade plant, or Crassula, like Crosby’s Dwarf, or Portulacaria (often called “mini-jade”). You might also consider string of pearls, or the bolder string of dolphins (Senecio peregrinus), which spill gracefully over container rims.
For rosette shapes, try tender Echeveria (sometimes called “Mexican hens and chicks”) or hardy Sempervivum (hens and chicks), although Sempervivum’s color can dull in summer heat. Varieties with cobweb-like white threads, including Forest Frost, remain visually appealing throughout the season.
Among creeping sedums, both hardy and tender, those that stay evergreen are the best for containers. Sedum album, including Coral Carpet and Red Ice, is a hardy species and remains green in summer, developing reddish tones in cooler weather. Angelina, with yellow or orange tones, is another dramatic, cooperative standby.
Tender Sedum japonicum is finely textured, with needlelike leaves, which makes it a good filler. So are Sedum dasyphyllum, a tiny, pebbly, powder-blue plant, and Sedum clavatum, with little blue-green rosettes.
For bigger container designs, Tracey craves a vertical element that most succulents don’t provide. That explains her affection for exceptions such as Euphorbia tirucalli Sticks on Fire or the upright Senecio cylindricus, as well as non-succulent partners like Phormium that can handle lean, drier conditions.