Gardening
HOW TO GROW: SUCCULENTS Gardeners spend a lot of time looking at the overall picture, and by way of a change it’s good to get down and examine plants at really close quarters.
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hen you start playing with plants for your garden you have a refreshing alteration of scale, focusing on individual leaves as opposed to vast sweeps of a border. It is light work, intricate and absorbing, yet it can have equally high-octane impact. Succulent plants, with their plump, water-retaining leaves and stems, are often quite chubby compared to many species, yet close inspection can reveal that they look delicate and exotic. Many are ideal to adorn your garden. Succulents are a large, diverse group and what counts is somewhat debatable. Debatable succulents include halophytes (plants that grow in salt marshes), bulbs (many people consider a few bulbs such as Bowia and Heamanthus to be succulents), Welwitchia (a weird cone baring plant all the other generally accepted succulents are flowering plants) and even some cacti. Even if you exclude all these, you’re left with a huge range: rain forest epiphytes (e.g. Hoya and Schlumbergera), alpines from the mountains of Europe, cacti from Canada and Patagonia, not to
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mention all those succulents from deserts and semi-deserts in fairly warm to very hot climates. For the purposes of this article, we’ll just consider the warmer climate desert plants that are grown as houseplants in cooler climates. Even though this group is quite varied and sometimes plants with very different cultural requirements are included in the same genus (e.g. Euphorbia and Mammillaria). (Most the succulent bulbs will grow well if treated like this.) Light Most plants (including succulents) are basically solar powered and succulents like more light than most. They’ll do best on a south-facing wall (north-facing in the southern hemisphere). Although succulents do well outside all year here you must keep an eye on your plants, as succulents can be burnt by too much light and heat but this rather depends on the type and where you live. Also plants can aclimatetize to some extent. Heat Many succulents will tolerate (if not prefer) to have a
January 2021
