Designing with SucculentsHow to incorporate succulents and cacti into your garden design
Although Todd Holloway of British Columbia and Peter Loyola of Southern California are well-nigh 1,400 mi apart and have vastly unlike style , both designer use succulent as living adornment to make their classifiable container gardens .
Todd Holloway drill four big drain holes in a client ’s cast - concrete birdbath , and then transformed it into a garden focal point with white - webbedSempervivum arachnoideum(cobweb houseleek ) , severalSempervivumcultivars , and featherySedum‘Angelina ’ . Photo by : Todd Holloway .
Holloway ’s streamlined , contemporary aesthetic is uniform with the sleek metal pots his company , Pot Incorporated , designs and fabricates . Loyola , who favors a more rustic feel , use repurposed physical object at the Succulent Café — a quaint coffee shop where you may buy succulent system . In Oceanside , near San Diego , the sun is bright but not searing and temperatures are balmy twelvemonth - round . Vancouver is cold and bed wetter , but Holloway ’s exuberance for dry - climate , frost - stamp plants has yet to be dampened . He praises succulents as “ modern and architectural , with bold leaves that offer sharp contrast and brazen textures . ”
Both say succulent are easy to like for , dispirited - water using , ruffianly , diverse , and intriguing . But what is it about the works that they like best ? It seems succulents are a room decorator ’s aspiration ; like fashion models , they tend to “ calculate good in anything . ”
GROWING SUCCULENTS IN CONTAINERS:
succulent are a great way to lop up a patio or porch . See how to replant and houseclean up existing succulent container displays .
Photo by : Todd Holloway .
Rule of Three
It ’s an investment to obtain several of the same or similar containers , but echo build and colors constantly raise outdoor living areas . And when grouped , such pots create a focal point . The mere cable and electroneutral , gunmetal - gray color of this trio by Holloway expose the succulent they contain without upstaging them . In two are hens and doll , which will overwinter out of doors in Vancouver . The middle smoke is replant per annum ; it showcases light-green and variegatedAeoniumcultivars , blueSenecio mandraliscae , Crassula , andSedum . succulent benefit from fondness radiated from the hardscape , and do n’t drop much leaf bedding — a good thing , because these are poolside pots .
Urban Urn
Although another designer might have snapped off the head of this leggyAeonium‘Zwartkop ’ ( syn . Aeonium‘Schwarzkopf ’ ) and replanted them as cutting , Holloway used it to lend elevation to a composition in a client ’s matte black , concrete , Frank Lloyd Wright - plan urn . makeweight flora include : strappy - leavedYucca aloifolia‘Purpurea’,Sedum morganianum , purple - variegatedEcheveria nodulosa , blueSenecio serpens , hopeful - yellowSedum makinoi‘Ogon’,Echeveria‘Powder Blue ’ , andEuphorbia tirucalli‘Sticks on Fire ’ . When designing with blackAeonium , think of them as silhouettes and set them against a white wall . If the background is too busy , their dark color make them disappear .
photograph by : Kole Montross .
Succulent Cascade
When Peter Loyola acquired his out-of-door café ’s alley - like outer space , he saw it not as a characterless rectangle below a loom two - floor paries , but rather a canvass awaiting three - dimensional works of living art . He decided to get over the wall ’s “ screaming cherry-red brick ” with trailingSenecio radicans(fish hooks ) plant in a window loge along withAeoniumrosettes . The jet of the succulent contrast with the brick , and the multiple strands of theSeneciosuggest a waterfall . apparently it fuck this localisation : “ In 10 calendar month , I had to cut it four times , ” Loyola says . “ If you ’re expect for length , fish hooks is the perfect choice . ”
Closet Door Redux
Loyola enjoys the challenge ofplanting succulentsin architectural salvage . To create container for plants in the hollowed - out center discussion section of an old room access , he cut formative rain gutters to fit . After drilling drainage holes , he paint the trough butter sensationalistic , which mask their original function while turn over them prominence and making them integral to the composition . little rose window succulents tucked into the troughs includeAeonium , Sedum , andEcheveria . Growing in 2 to 3 in of soil is adequate , he say , and “ helps them stay on low . ” He softly spray - paint the shutters moss immature and then sand to lend a eat up touch .
Driftwood Design
For this 34 - by-62 - inch vertical garden , Loyola paint a wooden frame pale green , then sandpaper it to reveal its imperfections . He lined it with a 2 - column inch - thick sandwich of potting grime and gunny , held in place ( front and back ) with 18 - gauge chicken telegram . Driftwood both enhances the designing and helps keep the land from slumping . Using a pointed chopstick to make jam in the burlap , Loyola planted the arrangement ( pose flat ) with newspaper clipping ofEcheveria , Sempervivum , Aeonium , smallCrassula , Graptopetalum , andSedum(notably burro tail ) . A few week afterward , when root had anchor the plants , he positioned the planted framing just .
EcheveriaAloft
For a hard - to - water system windowpane box seat , Holloway opt marvelous , tapered terracotta sight . “ Their tallness was right and their rolled rims duplicate the iron curve , ” he says . He promised the householder that succulents would “ spark the interest of passersby ” as much or more than Petunia or geraniums , with significantly less hassle . ( Succulents need infrequent irrigation and seldom require deadheading . ) Holloway chose those that resemble flowers — rosetteEcheveriain dark , pink , and green — plusSedum rubrotinctum(pork and bean ) for demarcation and as a trailer . When sunlit , dramatic lime - greenEcheveria pallidaglows , enhancing the view from indoors .
Dish Gardens
Holloway read he designed these “ hover dish planters ” expressly for succulents : “ There are hang basketful ; why not hanging dishes ? ” Succulents , he adds , are shallow - settle down , so shallow containers make sense . He constitute these with a mix of smallCrassula , Sedum , Sempervivum , andAeonium . Senecio rowleyanus(string - of - pearls ) , fish hooks , andSedum‘Angelina ’ cascade from the get - go , and other succulent will become pendent over prison term . In the carmine sweetheart , adding pinnacle and color , areEuphorbia trigonaf.rubraandEuphorbia tirucalli‘Sticks on Fire ’ . Holloway ’s hover dish plantation owner also face good empty , specially in threes , and could even serve as bird feeders .
DEBRA LEE BALDWIN ’S DESIGN TIPS & SOURCES
DIY : Create your own indoor or outdoor succulent musical arrangement with help from Debra Lee Baldwin . SeeDesert in a Potfor directions .
Books by Debra Lee Baldwin:
Designing with Succulents
succulent Simplified
Succulent Container Gardens
