Caring for Succulents
Post-Summer Succulent Concerns
After a brutal, early-September heat wave, I address ten common, post-summer succulent concerns. You’ll see them in my a new six-minute video: Post-Summer Care for Succulents (6:49). It’s a candid, warts-and-all, behind-the-scenes, damage-control tour.
Read MoreLate Summer Succulent Care
These late-summer care essentials for succulents come from my own experience with growing hundreds of varieties for decades in my inland Southern CA garden. Excessive heat and sun can do as much damage as midwinter frosts. Here’s what I do routinely every year.
Read MoreDon’t Let a Heat Wave Ruin Your Succulents
You have two options for protecting your succulents from heat waves that follow cool weather:
1. Move them. Of course this is only possible if they’re in pots. But don’t forget to do it! When sudden heat and sun hit, succulents that haven’t had time to acclimate may sunburn. There’s no reversing the resulting brown or beige patches.
Succulent Garden Maintenance: Tasks
Do these succulent garden maintenance tasks seasonally to keep your succulent garden healthy and looking good: Trim damaged or excessive growth
Prune succulents to show the beauty of the plants and keep them tidy. Use cuttings to
Succulent Garden Professionals: Referrals
Where to find or recommend a succulent garden designer or maintenance professional. Do you know or need someone skilled in this? Tell us!
Read MoreTen Tips for Establishing a Succulent Garden
These ten tips for establishing a succulent garden are from “Celebrating the Joy of Succulents” newsletter subscriber George Tabora of Riverside, CA (between Los Angeles and Palm Springs). His tips are hard-won, based on trial and error.
Read MoreHow Rain Benefits Succulents
Here’s how rain benefits succulents: It provides dissolved minerals and washes away dust that inhibits photosynthesis; it dilutes and flushes salts and harmful chemicals that have built up in the soil from tap water; and it provides nitrogen essential to growth,
Read MoreWinter Care for Frost-Tender Succulents
Depending on where you live, here’s how to get frost-tender South African succulents—like crassulas (jades), euphorbias, senecios and aloes—through a North American winter.
Read MoreHow to Behead and Replant Echeverias
Fancy ruffled echeverias—those large, flowerlike succulents—eventually need to be beheaded and the rosettes replanted. This is a bother, but it comes with a benefit: New clones will form on old, headless stalks. But not always. Here’s how to ensure success.
Read MoreTen Autumn Succulent Must-Do’s
These seasonal succulent must-do’s are mainly for southern and coastal CA, from the Bay Area south. If you live beyond, please visit my site’s Succulents By Season and Region page.
Read MorePrepare Your Succulents for Rainstorms
How to prepare succulents for rainstorms. Succulents, which come from arid climates, may rot. Stems or trunks turn squishy and collapse. It may be possible
Read MoreTina’s Tips & 16 Things Your Succulents Want You to Know
Expert succulent grower and Cactus & Succulent Society vendor Tina Zucker says “you don’t need to understand the science of plants. It’s all about observation, and anyone can do that.” 16 Things Your Succulents Want You to Know
Read More