What are Succulents and Which Ones are Popular?
Our Introduction: The most common question we get is “What are succulents?” It is easy to answer that question but it is not always easy to identify which plants are succulents. These two videos answer the question and show some beautiful examples of families of succulents.
OK, first we should start by defining succulents. Succulents refer to a wide family and genre of plants with a common characteristics of having stems, roots, and/or leaves consisting of fleshy, water storing tissue. You can see how nice and fat all of these leaves are. Most of them are native to warm climates so this is a way to hold on to moisture when you most need it, if you are in the desert.All cactus are succulents but not all succulents are cactus. The cactus differ in that they have no leaves and the stem contains chlorophyll and functions in place of the leaves. Some of the spines, they consider to be modified leaves.
We can tell the types of succulents we have here vary a lot. We have this nice big blue one. They come in a range of colors and shapes. This one is fuzzy, the cactus. Again, we have this red one. We have this one that looks like prickly pear. This one has very small thorns on it. This one has even bigger thorns. All different shapes and sizes of plants that we have.
Our Summary: Cactus and other succulents are easy to grow and take care of which makes them a wonderful houseplant. Succulents can be grown indoors and out in a wide variety of growing conditions. Please enjoy the next video which is even better and shows some beautiful succulents.
Hey it’s Nicole here talking to you about sedums today. Sedums and succulents also known as Stone Crops come in a variety of hardiness as well as body shapes. We find the most commonly grown is our Hen and Chick variety which is also referred to as a Sempervivum. Known as everlasting they are evergreen drought tolerant and sun-loving.The echeveria is an example of one of the tropical or non-hardy sedums. They do great outdoors during the spring and summer but should be brought into the house or greenhouse by a Halloween to protect them from frost. They have a fleshy leaf that provides them with the ability to endure drought as well as harsh conditions. Often, they flower in various forms of whites, yellows, pinks. The flowers are attractive to butterflies as well as bees. And they have many uses in the garden.
Sedums and succulents can be problem solvers in the garden. They serve you well in areas where other plants fail to grow or fail to thrive. Usually shallow soil dry rocky conditions can be challenging for many plants. This is where these plants take center stage.
The mat forming rosettes of the Hens and Chicks or the low ground cover style of something such as the Orange Ice Sedum make a perfect ground cover or cascade over a rock wall fit into pockets in walls and rock gardens as well as other challenging situations.
There’s also upright growing sedum such as the Autumn Joy types this is a dark purple variety called Matrona, which will get larger than the ground hugging varieties and end up about two feet tall with a late summer bloom that is highly attractive to butterflies.
Our Summary: So what is a succulent plant? There are hundreds of types of succulents in many shapes, sizes and colors. Many of them are great houseplants or grow well in outdoor landscaping.
