Spotted in Rancho Santa Fe, CA

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days with Debra Lee Baldwin, author of two excellent books about gardening with succulents, including a wonderful guide to using succulents in container gardens. Perhaps best of all, I got to spend the night in Debra’s guest bedroom, which looks out onto her gardens. I’m trying not to brag, but I also got to tour Debra’s gardens twice, once with Jean Ann Van Krevlen, and the second time with three talented landscapers in tow. Lucky for you, I took a lot of photos…

Of course a succulent aficionado like Debra fills even her window boxes with succulents. Whether she is looking to highlight the color or shape of a plant, or to frame a view, everything in Debra’s garden is done with intention. Here, she has combined three types of succulents, all with colors reminiscent of a sunset. It’s also a balanced composition in the sense that there are large, medium, and finely cut leaves, with the tallest plant (Firesticks – Euphorbia tirucalli ‘rosea’) in the center, flanked by Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives,’ and graptopetalum paraguayense ‘pinky’ spilling over the side.

Another thing I noticed in Debra’s garden was her affection for one of a kind pottery. She is slowly amassing a collection of hand thrown pots created by ceramic artists and sold at succulent and cactus shows. Debra feels that these pots reflect the natural habitat of succulents and better show off their innate beauty. I have to say, I agree. Also notice that Debra top dressed the soil of those container with small, rounded pebbles.

This is another unique pot. Debra drilled small holes in pieces of broken pottery and created a “necklace” by stringing them on a long piece of wire. There’s also another necklace with beads on it. What a great way to dress up a terra cotta pot!

I’ll finish my tour of Debra’s succulents with this interesting contrast. A water feature surrounded by drought tolerant plants. I hope the birds that use this bath enjoy the view of Debra’s garden as much as I did!

Unlike most of the country, some of the hottest days of the year are still yet to come for Southern California and the rest of the Southwest. Hot, dry winds are brutal on plants, but especially those growing in containers. They dry out plants faster than the plant can draw up water through its roots, so no amount of extra watering will help. That’s what got me thinking that colorful succulents could be a great, low-maintenance choice for Fall.

Read the rest of the article on Fiskars >>>

• Mike has a pretty neat idea to make about how to make a self-watering pot out of a soda bottle and t-shirt.
• Interested in vermicomposting (composting with worms)? Genevieve has got you covered.
• Take out your iPod and load it up with the latest Nest in Style podcast with hosts Jayme and Theresa chatting it up about lettuce and living walls. You’ll also enjoy the interview with succulent goddess Debra Lee Baldwin.
• Kerry is not a fan of upside down tomato planters. Find out why.
• I especially like the first of Jenny’s flower photos of a planter she created for a client’s deck railing.
• If you like succulents, check out Megan’s photos of her backyard. So many great ideas to take in!

Winner of the Botanical Interests Basil and Poppyseed Soap

There were a lot of great photos submitted to win a bar of Botanical Interests wonderful-smelling new soap, but only one person could win. I used Random.org to select a number, and it corresponded with Erin Neu’s photo. Erin, I will be sending you an email shortly to find out where the send your bar of soap and seed packets. Congrats!

If you’d like to look through the entries, you’ll find some pretty creating photo ideas:

Container Gardening In The News

• Lots of great container gardening ideas in this Chicago Sun Times article.
• Tomatoes, potatoes and rhubarb in the Pittsburgh Sun Times, oh my!
• According to the Edmonton Journal, you should view your containers as pots of gold. Sounds good to me.

I am thrilled to share this guest review of the Auto-Water Nozzle by Charles McKnight. Charles grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas (where he didn’t quite fit in) and now lives in Santa Monica, California (where he fits in much better). He is an actor, college student, and balcony gardener. Charles was looking for a way to water his garden without making a watery mess on the floor of his balcony, hence the search that ultimately led him to the Auto-Water Nozzle.

A budding container garden basks under the radiant Californian sun on my apartment balcony.  Although I do enjoy watering and caring for my botanical oasis, the occasional runoff water from the containers would make a mess on the cramped floor. While rummaging the internet for solutions, I became enlightened reading articles on Drip Irrigation. Drip irrigation, or micro-irrigation, is a watering system that delivers water droplets into the soil through small holes in a plastic pipe. As a result, a wholesome portion of water gradually saturates thirsty roots. My interests were sparked as I was visualizing this method for my garden. Eventually, I stumbled upon and purchased a six pack of the “Auto-Water Nozzles” for $4.99 on Amazon.com. The product is a simple, clear plastic nozzle that is compatible with most soft drink and wine bottles.

Instructions:

1. Drill a center hole on a bottle cap. A drill is best, but if you don’t have one most bottle caps can be punctured with a knife or hammer and nail. Please, be careful! The hole must be centered on the cap.
2. Insert the Auto-Water Nozzle through the hole from inside the cap. The opening must be large enough for the Auto-Water Nozzle.
3. Fill the bottle with water and screw the cap with Auto-Water Nozzle on the bottle. Make certain all connections are secured and sealed.
4. Flip the bottle and insert Auto-Water Nozzle into soil. As soil becomes dry, it releases oxygen into the bottle, which in turn releases the exact amount of water the plant needs. If water does not cascade out of the bottle when flipped over, inspect the connections of the bottle, nozzle, and cap to make sure they are fully sealed.

My balcony floor has been completely dry ever since I started using the Auto-Water Nozzles. So far, my bottle collection includes those that have housed sparkling mineral water and balsamic vinegar.  My sun-drenched plants demand a lot of water, so I have been refilling the bottles every two days. Occasionally, the Auto-Water Nozzle gets clogged with soil and it slows or even stops the water flow. I take notice of the obstruction if water in a bottle stays at the same level for a long period of time. To prevent buildup from occurring, remove the nozzle from the soil and shake the bottle vigorously to clear the debris. I hope the nozzles do not get clogged if I am on a weekend getaway! Despite the soil traffic jams of the Auto-Water Nozzles, my plants have a healthier glow. I highly recommend this product to anyone with a container garden. Not only do they conserve water and ease watering duty stress, Auto-Water Nozzles keep a balcony floor nice and dry.

The Benefits of the Auto-Water Nozzle Are:

• Reuse your soft drink bottle or wine bottle and save our environment.
• High efficiency, low cost automatic water solution for indoor and outdoor plants. Provide exact amount of water every time without the risk of overwatering or dehydration.
• Great for watering plants that are far away from a garden hose.
• Directly deliver water or fertilizer into root zone of plants.
• Much easier to fill water.
• No spills to clean up and no more over-watering. Dispenses water as plants need it, every time.
• Fits in most soda or wine bottles with a cap.

Photos from this succulent container idea.

Lots of good news in my neck of the woods. For starters, I’m graduating from the Master Gardener training program this weekend, so on Saturday I will officially be a certified Master Gardener. I should be able to share more details about some other good news soon. This week was also good in that there were tons of great garden blog posts to share. You can really tell that Spring is getting into full swing!

Great Blog Reading

• Jayme over at aHa Modern Living has some creative ideas for gardening in small spaces.
• Kerry has an idea for creating a living flower arrangement for $10, sounds like a much better idea than dropping $40 this Sunday on a bouquet of flowers for mom.
• A talented container gardeners, Kimberly has some new pots to show off in shades of silver, red and orange.
• Garden designer Jenny Peterson interviewed the staff at her local nursery to find out their favorite plants.
• Adriana reviewed Womanswork gloves. Check out the video of her husband using the gloves, guess they’re tough enough for men too.
• Newly minted Angeleno, Mike is already hard at work planting up his balcony and making good use of self-watering containers. Smart move in a hot climate like ours.

Don’t Forget!

This month’s blog carnival topic is container gardens as wildlife habitats. This is such an important thing for us to consider, I hope to be flooded with great posts from you guys!

Also, Timber Press is giving away a garden center gift card and signed copies of Debra Lee Baldwin’s books on succulent gardens and succulent container gardens. Y’all know how highly I think of Debra’s books. To enter, simply upload a photo of a succulent container that you created and share the link in the comments of this Timber Press blog post.

Umzugsgesellschaft

Photo by Knoten-Susi

I admit that this photo first caught my attention in the LOTB Flickr group because of the really long German title. What is a Umzugsgesellschaft, I thought? Well, with the help of Google Translator, I think it means “moving company.” I wonder what a moving company has to do with these little seedlings? Any guesses?

Container Gardening News

• In unfortunate news, Scotts-Miracle Gro reported that it’s second quarter profits rose 53%
• Pretty thorough overview of growing fruits, vegetables and herbs in containers from Berks-Mont News.
• Check out this container idea published in the Lincoln Journal Star featuring a climbing nasturtium. Might have to thry this one out too.

Next to edible plants, succulents are probably one of the hottest topics in the gardening world. They’re sculptural, and modern looking, and are much easier to care for than vegetables. I know whenever I (re)read Debra Lee Baldwin’s book on succulent container gardening, I want to run outside and combine my succulents in new ways.

The other day, I went into a garden center during my lunch break looking for tomato stakes (I have a vegetable garden growing at my office). They were all out of stakes in the size I wanted, but while there I noticed that they had a bunch of succulents on sale for 15% off. Lemon, meet lemonade! I am sure I am a garden center owner’s dream customer. “Hi Fern, no, sorry, we don’t have the $3 worth of stakes you’d like to buy, but here, why don’t you spend $15 on some succulents!”

Anyway, I snatched up two of the plants they had on sale (A and B) and combined them with the Burro’s Tail sedum and a pot I already had.

• A – Aenoium ‘Plum Purdy’
• B – Echeveria ‘Doris Taylor’
• C – Sedum morganianum also called ‘Burro’s Tail’

Potting up succulents can be kind of tricky because it’s easy to accidentally knock off their fleshy leaves. But basically, I follow the same method I use for potting regular plants. I placed the aeonium first, because it was the flashiest part of the combo and I wanted to make sure I oriented it just right. Then I squeezed in the echeveria because it was the next largest plant. If a plant doesn’t quite fit in your pot, you can gently tease the roots and knock off some of the dirt to reduce the size of the rootball. Finally, I put the sedum in front. If anyone knows of a trick for potting those guys without squishing a ton of leaves or causing them to pop off left and right, I’m all ears.

Something I learned from Debra’s book is that a lot of succulents do better in part sun or filtered light. Since moving my other succulents into a spot with less direct sun, they’re looking even better than they did before. This pot will go near my front door that gets a bit of direct morning sun, then light filtered through a tree, and no direct afternoon sun. Hopefully it will be happy there. I’ve killed the last two plants to reside in that spot (I rarely go through the front door and I forget to water that pot).

Another thing you’ll notice is that I put gravel down to cover the exposed dirt. This is also something I picked up from Debra, she’s a big fan of top dressing. It does make the pot look finished, and has the added benefit of reducing the frequency of watering and gravel prevents soil from washing out of the pot during rain storms.

Related Posts

• Review of Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin
• Plants for Windy, Scorching Hot Balconies
• Drought Tolerant Plants for Container Gardens