July 22 Column: Succulents

Are you as crazy about succulents as I am? I love all of the amazing leaf types and colors, the different sizes and how easy they are to grow. That’s the topic of this week’s column. Here is a link to it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Versatile succulents gaining in popularity.

(you can also find this week’s video at the bottom of this post)

The other thing I love about succulents these days is how easy they are to find! In addition to garden centers and home centers, even our local grocery store carries them. And have you see all of the cool containers you can plant them in?! Oh my.

I went to Northland Rosarium the other day and they have all sorts of fun containers such as moss-covered handbags, cowboy boots (!), along with more traditional style pots.

As I mentioned in my column, the two hardy types of succulents that will grow in this region (zones 5-6): Sedums and Sempervivums. And they are very cool-looking, however, I guess it’s in my nature to want what I can’t have, right? So I recently purchased several of the more “exotic” genera, with the plan to move the container indoors before it frosts this falls. This means I”ll need to give them a lot of light, of course, so hopefully I can keep them happy all winter long!

Below left, there’s a photo of my newest succulent container: as you can see, it’s filled with a little of this and a little of that. And on the right is a close-up of the flowers on one of my hens-and-chicks. Aren’t they stunning?

   

I also wanted to share this week’s “Everyone Can Grow a Garden” video with you. The topic is preserving the harvest, which came about because I get a lot of questions about how we keep our produce through the winter months: