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Easy growing
Short on time? Potted succulents need little care to produce a
spectacular show.
MARGE HOLS
Oh, oh. The urge to collect has
struck again. This time, it's succulents beckoning with their enchanting
shapes, exotic textures and subtle colors. Who could resist? Not this
gardener.
Not Mary Stanley, either.
Stanley, well-known for her spacious woodland garden in Dellwood, began
collecting succulents in the 1980s, long before they became trendy.
Stanley considers succulents
ideal houseplants because they tolerate neglect, particularly in
wintertime. She travels a fair amount as a director and horticultural judge
of the Garden Club of America. Succulents store water in their tissues and
require watering less frequently than most plants. In fact, too much water
kills them.
Grown under high-intensity
lights in a quasi-greenhouse attached to her garage, Stanley's collection
includes unusual species of agave, euphorbia, Gasteria, Haworthia and
kalanchoe. Most have won their share of blue ribbons at flower shows over
the years.
Stanley says she doesn't grow
cacti, although they also are succulents. Cacti need hot summer sunlight,
which her wooded lot doesn't offer. I don't grow cacti, either, but it's
because I don't like tending thorny plants.
"Some succulents are
thorny, too," says Stanley, a member of the St. Paul Garden Club.
"Agaves are lethal. Some have spines along the edges of their leaves
and most have big spines at the leaf tip."
VARIED SPECIES
I was surprised at how varied
agave species can be. Besides those with rosettes of broad, flat bluish
leaves, there are agaves with narrow wiry leaves and pointed strap-like
leaves. Stanley's favorite is Agave patonii, a dwarf form with bluish
leaves that grows about 12 inches tall and wide. She cautions against
buying Agave americana, the century plant, unless you have room for a spiny
plant more than 3 feet wide.
Learning about succulents took
me to a class offered last week by the Minnesota State Horticultural
Society. It was taught by Brett Davies, a horticulturist at the big Hermes
Floral growing range in Hudson, Wis.
"I personally do love
succulents and collect them," says Davies, an Australian who has been
working with plants since he was a teenager. "They look good as a
collection. With so many different textures and colors, you can do a lot of
mixing and matching, both in containers and in the garden."
Davies says succulents are
becoming trendy here, several years after they were embraced by East and
West Coast gardeners. New varieties are coming into the market as breeders
create intergeneric hybrids.
"What makes them succulents
is they can hold water extremely well in their leaves, stems or
roots," Davies says. "They are native to arid climates. Cacti
technically are also succulents, but their leaves have evolved into spines
so they don't lose water. The green part on a cactus is actually stem
tissue that makes food for the plant."
CARE AND FEEDING
Succulents are easy to grow and
most require similar care. They need high light and can take full sun if
you acclimatize them slowly when moving them outdoors in spring. Most
succulents will tolerate a temperature as low as 40 degrees, but few other
than stonecrop and hens and chicks will survive a sub-zero Minnesota
winter. Plants must be moved indoors and grown under fluorescent lights or
in a sunny window. Forget about fertilizing in wintertime, but feed plants
a slow-release fertilizer such as Osmocote in spring.
Grow succulents in well-drained
soil. The hardest part about watering them is accepting that when the soil
feels dry, they don't necessarily need water. Indoors, water most
succulents once a month in winter and bi-weekly in summer. Outdoors, a
large container of succulents might need water only once a week during hot
summer weather. Succulents are relatively disease free. If they do develop
a fungal or bacterial problem, it's usually from being kept too moist.
Sucking insects sometimes attack
cacti and succulents, particularly mealy bugs, aphids and scale. Stanley
sprays plants with SunSpray Ultra-Fine horticultural oil. Davies mixes
insecticidal granules into the top soil as a deterrent. He kills insects by
spritzing with a mix of 1 teaspoon dishwashing detergent to 1 gallon water.
Propagating succulents from stem
cuttings is easy. The secret is to let the cut form a callus by waiting for
five to seven days before sticking the cutting in dry, well-drained soil.
Once roots begin to form in a few weeks, water the soil.
You're already growing
succulents if you have an aloe vera, Christmas cactus, jade plant or
mother-in-law's tongue. These old-fashioned plants are popular again,
according to Lisa Birkeland, a plant buyer and production manager at
Bachman's Minneapolis. So are cute, tiny cacti.
"Kids love the small cacti
with a grafted red, orange or yellow top," says Birkeland, who
estimates the store sells 200 to 300 small cacti every week. "Kids
want to have them in their rooms. Other kids' favorites are old man bearded
cactus and brain cactus.
"When you start a child
young and they're successful with a plant like this," Birkeland says,
"they're likely to enjoy plants for the rest of their life."
Marge Hols can be reached at dmhols@comcast.net. Garden Path
appears the first Saturday of the month through the winter.
Editor's Note: Marge Hols, who has been writing Garden Path since
1998, was one of 19 people honored by the Minnesota State Horticultural Society
in February. Hols received a Governor's Certificate of Commendation for her
volunteer gardening efforts in St. Paul, including those at the Minnesota
Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden on the Capitol Mall and the Minnesota
Woman's Building at Rice and Charles streets. Hols also received two Golden
Bloom Awards in January from the St. Paul Division of Parks and Recreation
and the St. Paul Garden Club. One was for "being an outstanding
advocate for gardening in St. Paul." The other, awarded to Hols and
Jeanne Weigum of St. Paul, was for "creating an outstanding city
property garden in St. Paul." As volunteers, Hols and Weigum
redesigned and tend the Summit Monument Garden at Mississippi River
Boulevard and Summit Avenue.
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