Twenty-two and nursing a gardening addiction in a little apartment while I figure out life. I prefer succulents and other weirdos of the plant world, but all plants are beautiful. Questions and comments are welcome. Suggestions are welcome if you have thought them through.
wrtujn asked: Do you mind sharing where you buy seeds from?
I, unfortunately, don’t buy seeds much because I live in an apartment with no outdoor space. Perhaps this is why I have such a strong desire to guide my father’s choices. Here’s a few recommendations though, since I’ve looked into seeds a lot while building castles in the air:
Renee’s Garden - when I thought I’d be moving somewhere with a south-facing patio this spring, this is where I was thinking about getting my seeds. (Mostly because I really wanted the windowbox basil.)
Botanical Interests - I bought some micro-green seeds there last year, and those were good. They have a variety of heirloom and organic seeds. (I actually ordered my micro-greens through Amazon - Spicy and Mild).
Johnny’s Selected Seeds - An employee-owned seed company with a good selection, including heirloom and organic.
Hope this helps. Happy growing!
(oh also you (or others) might want to read this.)
So, the above is my sole attempt at the art of the succulent terrarium. I have long thought that the idea of planting succulents in a terrarium or other drainage-less container was rather poorly conceived, but when I received these tiny sedums, I could not resist the idea.
The main problem with succulents in terrariums is that succulents like it dry and are prone to suffer when over-watered, and terrariums are pretty much designed to hold in moisture. However, at least in this case I found that the succulent still seemed happy as long as I watered carefully and infrequently.
The downside is that the roots grew down visibly into the drainage rocks and green goop (algae?) grew on the inside of of the glass. Not quite picture-perfect, but most casual observers only notice the cuteness.
How I did it:
- Bought champagne glass from thrift store and disinfected it.
- Used rocks for drainage, putting in the largest rocks (3/4 inch) first, then medium rocks, then small rocks. Layering the rocks in this way preserves the drainage space by keeping the small rocks and dirt from slipping all the way down.
- Finished up the drainage layer by adding a layer of perlite.
- Filled the remaining space with cactus and succulent potting mix and planted the sedum.
Anonymous asked: Hey fuzzy tree. I just read your whole blog and I like it very much! I have space issues too. I have a southwest facing window and it's quite big, but no windowsill, so my plants sit on top of two boxes right under the window. How do you manage to fit more plants into the sunlit area? MOAR PLANTS is all we want but how?
Hello, anon! I am glad you like my blog so much!
I am inclined to assume the following things about you, anon: 1. You are low on cash. 2. You are renting/in a dorm room and cannot make major modifications to your dwelling. That said, it will be difficult to fix this with zero dollars and zero alterations.
So, the main theme to the following solutions is to think vertical.
Solution one: Stack your plants.
This is pretty much the only free solution, but it also turns watering into plant jenga <sarcasm> funtimes </sarcasm>. If you look at the right-hand side of the picture in this post, you’ll see what I mean by stacking.
Solution two: Hang those suckers.
Unless your landlord is really strict, s/he’ll probably be fine with you putting up a few hooks. Obviously this involves some handy skills, like using a drill, and making sure your ceiling isn’t going to fall apart. You can then buy a hanging planter or use your crafty skills to make your own. Here’s instructions for a simple macrame plant hanger. (Note: while I am a great lover of command hooks, I would not entrust my plants to them. Wet soil is heavy.
Solution three: Backless bookcase/wire shelves.
When you say that you have your plants on boxes, I picture them rather below the level of the bottom of the windowsill. For the strongest light, plants should be right in front of the window. Instead of the boxes, you could get something like this shelf and put plants on the top shelf or two, and keep tools/extra pots/whatever you want on the lower shelves (and here’s a smaller version of that shelf). If you wanted to keep going up, you could get some wire cubes to put your plants in. I like that the shelves are white, because they will reflect light best, and the wire cubes let a lot of light through. I would recommend putting the least light-needy plants the lowest on the shelves, and the neediest on top. (Also, make sure your shelves don’t get too top-heavy, especially if you have pets or small children! When I was using the wire shelves, I solved this by storing my potting soil and extra gravel on the bottom shelf.)
Other stuff:
- I like to pick up my plants when I water them, so I have pretty much dispensed with the little saucers for all but my largest plants. Instead I hold them over a wide, shallow dish (well, actually an upside-down frisbee) and let the water drain. I then leave it there, and it evaporates (without growing mold like a tall glass would).
- Tiny plants = more plants. There are plenty of succulents that will be happy for a long period of time in two, three, or four inch pots.
- Square pots are sort of more space efficient, but are probably more expensive/harder to find, too. (Also apparently some caudex plants will grow square caudexes if you put them in square pots. Forgot where I read that, though.) Make sure all your pots have drainage holes!
Well, I hope this was helpful, anon. Have fun, and let me know how it goes!
Why is my succulent wrinkly?
Succulents become wrinkly when water is not reaching the leaves or trunk/caudex.
If your succulent hasn’t been watered in a while, wrinkly or hollow-looking leaves or trunk are a sure sign that it is time and past to do so. If you’ve been negligent in your watering (as I often am), you might need to water your succulent several times in one week for it to begin to spring back to life, since utterly dry soil is bad at absorbing water and getting it to the roots of your plants.
But I water my succulent all the time!
If you water your succulents too regularly, the roots of your succulents may succumb to rot. If your succulent has lost its roots, the rest of the plant can’t get water, resulting in the same appearance as under-watered plants.
I am generally reluctant to talk about when my plants go wrong, since I tend to blame it on my mistakes. I have a dislike of discussing my mistakes (as many human beings do). But they happen.
I was looking at my new haworthia truncata earlier, and noticed one of the leaves looked a little funny. I poked at it, and it came off in my hand. Oops.
When I first received the plant, there was a granule of perlite wedged between this leaf and the one next to it, and I took it upon myself to remove the granule. It left a smooth pit in each of the leaves, but it didn’t look rotten at the time. That was two weeks ago, though, and since then its immune system has probably suffered from my room’s lighting situation and my somewhat erratic watering.
Anyway, after the first leaf came off I took the plant outside for a little surgery. After taking the first picture of the damage, I took a couple of q-tips to it to see if there was any excess goopiness to wipe off. (Have I mentioned also that it stank? It stank.) There was goopiness, and in the process of wiping, I discovered that a second leaf was weak, and I ended up taking it off, too.
I ended by sprinkling some rooting powder over the damaged area. The Internet tells me that rooting powder also has anti-fungal stuff in it, so putting it on damaged areas of plants should help with that, even if you’re not particularly interested in roots there. This is my first time trying that, though, so we’ll see.
Hopefully now that the grossness is exposed to the air, it will help it heal. I’m also going to move this to a better spot in terms of light (which I can do because I gave away a cutting last night), though I’m a little worried about moving a diseased plant right to the middle of the rest of them. Hmm.
I think I’ve done the best I can so far, but I’m still worried. Is there anybody out there who’s ever had a similar situation and can make further suggestions?
Rule of thumb for succulents: the further the leaf color is from green, the more sun it wants.
Most succulents are pretty sun-hungry, but anything brightly or palely colored will probably need particularly intense sunlight. If you bring plants like these indoors, they are likely to turn green (as they produce more chlorophyll in an attempt to feed themselves). Many of them will will then continue life happily in this slightly-more-boring state; however, they may also get “leggy,” and if they can’t adjust to the change in light conditions, they may rot.
Likewise, a previously-green plant may develop bright red edges or other nice coloring when moved to a sunnier spot, or as winter moves into spring. This is perfectly healthy. Watch out, however, when new leaves develop brown patches: this could be a sign of “sunburn.”
If you’re short on light and you want to keep a succulent indoors, consider a nice haworthia. Many of them need only a few hours of direct sun a day. To be certain of its needs, check with the seller of any plant.
Edited to add: Not sure if this includes cacti.
This is the plant that generated most of my complaints a few days ago. As you can see, it had gotten rather out of hand. (It used to look like this.) Luckily, someone had these extra skewers laying around, so yesterday I rigged something to prop the damn poor thing up and out of the way, at least temporarily. The skewers were long enough to reach the bottom of the pot, so hopefully they will be fairly stable.
It is spring and my plants are growing!
This is both wonderful and horrible, because I spent the fall and winter buying as many plants as would fit in my space, and now they want more space.
“What are you doing? I thought you were an upright plant? Why are you suddenly spreading horizontally? No, you may NOT put down roots in your neighbor’s pot! Stop it! Ahh, I need to water that other plant, get out of the way!”
Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, in an interview with MrBrownThumb.
THIS. It bothers me with succulents, too.
I re-potted my Echeveria runyonii on 3/20/2012. It came out slightly off-center and I rather like it. I also love the way pale succulents look in terracotta pots.
I’ve been adding extra perlite to the “Cactus, Palm, and Succulent Mix” I bought (though only for some of my plants). Perlite is the white crunchy stuff that comes in potting soil. It helps with drainage, which is important for most succulents, to various extents. I started adding it with my Euphorbia suzannae, a plant particularly inclined to rot. When I remember add it, I put anywhere from one part succulent soil and one part perlite, to two parts soil and one part perlite. (I suspect also that there is less perlite already in the bottom of the bag of succulent mix than in the top.)
You should be able to pick up some perlite at your local hardware store or big box store, depending on the season. In the middle of January, I ended up getting it from a local greenhouse owner by bringing him an empty container and a few dollars. And, like most things, it’s also available online (though it’s a little expensive to ship).
Don’t let the people at the hardware store convince you that perlite and vermiculite are the same product—they’re not. They can be used for some of the same purposes, but but vermiculite actually retains water, which isn’t so great for succulents. (And I believe that vermiculite is used for rooting cuttings of some plants, for which perlite would not be as useful.)
Be careful when opening your container of perlite: in large quantities, rubbing against itself, it can make some nasty, sharp-particle dust. It should be fine as long as you don’t stick your face in it and there’s not a strong breeze.
