12 Beautiful Succulents to Grow Inside or Outside

[Transcription] Well, Ron, what an introduction!  Thank you, Ron.  Succulents by definition are plants that withstand periods of drought by storing water in fleshy leaves or stems.  So, they’re very good plants for your dry garden.  Now when I was a child growing up in southern California, my father did not want to pay extra money to water his plants.  And he wanted easy care plants that looked good.  So we had a lot of succulents, but we didn’t have anywhere near the variety that we have today.In my father’s garden was a plant very similar to this, Aeonium haworthii. Have you seen it, have you grown it?  It’s just plain green.  Aeonium ‘Kiwi’ has all the merits of haworthii, in that it forms a bowl-shaped shrub, but it also gives you this great color.  And it’s good in projects, too, like wreaths.Agave ‘Blue Glow’ should have been named ‘Red Glow’ instead of ‘Blue Glow’ because the edges do glow red.  It’s a cultivar, and it has these wonderful stiff leaves that almost look watercolor brushed.  A little bit striated.  So it’s a terrific small agave for your garden.  It does have very pointy tips, so I’m putting it down carefully.  But it doesn’t get honking’ big like Agave americana, which is big enough to eat your small children and dogs.  It’s a great pot plant, and it stays small in the garden, too.  Maybe to 2 feet, 2-1/2 feet at the most in diameter.

This is Aloe brevifolia, the short-leaved aloe.  It stresses to shades of lavender and pink.  It’s a colony forming aloe.  I have it in My own garden in just regular lousy garden soil.  This might be a hybrid of brevifolia, because those of you who grow it know that it has wedge-shaped leaves that are pretty much equilateral triangles, and this has longer leaves.  But this is pretty much what it looks like.  And we know there’s at least one, so Those of you who are keen to have it, I’m putting it up here.

Crassula ‘Campfire’ which is not looking very much like a campfire today because Roger’s is way too nice to their plants.  Roger’s is this fantasy place where everything grows a little bit, oh, more beautifully, lushly, and perfectly than in our own gardens.

So, our gardens are a better environment for stressing your succulents. Give them a little bit more sun, a little bit less water, don’t give them super rich soil, you know, rich in humus, you know.  I have to be so careful I don’t say hummus?  They love humus rich soil, but if you want to pull color from them, don’t give them rich soil and certainly don’t fertilize them, and a little bit of cold sometimes will pull the color.

So, you can just see how this little one over on the end, which maybe hasn’t grown as vigorously as the others is turning more red, isn’t it?  OK?  So, it’s a little more stressed than the other plants.  I don’t have a problem with this plant in its green form.  This is probably grown in dappled shade, in rich soil, with ample water, because I love the chartreuse color of it.  But after all, the name is Crassula ‘Campfire’, and that’s why we buy it, because it’s orange-red when stressed.

Euphorbia flanaganii, a Medusa-form Euphorbia. In the center it forms this Fibonacci spiral that you see in the center of a sunflower.  So any time you have a circular succulent, you’re going to have a great plant for a circular pot.  It would look great in an undersea themed composition, wouldn’t it?  I have this growing in dappled shade in my succulent sitting area underneath my oaks, and it’s just spectacular.  And isn’t that what you want in a sitting area?  A plant that spurs conversation when you have guests.

Echeveria imbricata is from Mexico, and it’s blue, truly blue.  It’s as blue as the sky.  It is just this gorgeous plant.  And those of you who love echeverias and love blue plants that look like flowers, and produce them, too, must have Echeveria imbricata or its hybrids.

I consider echeverias pot plants.  I do not put them in the open garden, although Echeveria imbricata is one of the tougher ones.  And it does the hen-and-chicks thing, where you get all these great offsets.

Graptopetalum paraguayense, I don’t think we managed to scrounge one up.  How many of you grow Graptopetalum?  You don’t know what I’m talking about.  Well, darn, I could have brought enough cuttings practically to give you all one.  So common that it’s not even sold in nurseries.  It’s more of a pass-along plant.

Kalanchoe tomentosa, tomentose, meaning fuzzy.  And this is a plant that has really great texture.  So, when you’re doing a composition you want to have contrast and repetition.  You want to repeat the colors and shapes, maybe pick up some element of a patterned pot or a textured pot, in the plants that you select for it.

Texture is a great way to introduce an element of contrast.  It’s my go-to succulent when I am making container compositions.  It’s one of those succulents that looks darn good with everything.  It pulls that blue-gray tone, gives you upright interest, doesn’t get unmanageably large, is an easy-grow plant, is tipped interestingly with little dots of rust brown.  So, when you’re doing a blue-green composition, this is perfect for repetition.  And if you’re doing a yellow-green, ‘Chocolate Soldier’, a cultivar of this, is golden yellow, and you want that repetition, ‘Chocolate Soldier’ sparkles.

Not a plant for the open garden, OK, Sedum nussbaumerianum.  I can usually pronounce it but generally I can’t spell it.  Do you see how fine-leaved that sedum is?  And how much thicker leaved this sedum is?  This is from Mexico, this is from colder, wetter, more northern climates, possibly Europe.  So very different in its cultivation and what it can withstand in the garden.

I don’t grow this, but I do grow this because I trust plants from Mexico more than I do plants from northern Europe.  But I’d love to try it, in fact, maybe I’ll tuck this one in my bag and leave with it today, without Ron noticing.

So, anyway, just keep that in mind.  The finer leaved the sedum, chances are the more it is from a northern, wetter, colder climate, and it’s going to struggle through our hot, dry summers.  However, the Mexican sedums generally do pretty well.  And I show it because it just has this great color.  And we just love color, don’t we?

Senecio mandraliscae, a great ground cover plant, and you can plant it so that you get swaths of blue.  Just imagine a river of this.  It only gets to about the height of your fingers.  I grow it extensively in my garden.  I’ve given cuttings to all my neighbors.  Over time, the oldest leaves will wither and fall off, leaving you with a denuded stem.  You just want to take a cutting, like that.  You’re laughing because now this flat cannot be sold.

A cutting, which you’re going to plug back in the ground, where you have any gaps.  It’s going to branch from that cut end.  So, in order to keep this plant short, compact, non-rangy, full, and beautiful, you want to do this about once a year. Otherwise, it’s just going to get so long, you’re going to end up pulling the whole thing out, maybe taking cuttings from the tips and replanting them. Does that make sense?  OK.  Very easy plant to grow, extremely easy to maintain, but it is a once a year garden chore.   And she will be here a few minutes after to do some signing.  Her books are wildly popular.  [End transcript]