Succulents and Curiosities

An easy-to-grow succulent that adds interesting form and colour to any garden setting. Young specimens of this variety have a central acid green rosette with burgundy outer leaves that absorb the summer sun and radiate intense colour. Their growing season is mid-winter to late spring, so in summertime, they stand regally, holding their shape and stature with aplomb.  Rarely troubled by pests and diseases, this aeonium can even stand fairly brisk winds, but it does need full sun to look its best. It is a tender plant and cannot take even a hint of frost, so it will need to come into a greenhouse for winter. If your greenhouse is unheated and frost is forecast, protect your aeonium with fleece or bubblewrap overnight. Do not overwater at any time as the plants cannot abide soggy roots. If you repot your aeonium, ensure that your compost is gritty and offers good drainage. If your plant is thriving, it will grow many more rosettes which can be gently sliced from the main stem and potted up to create new plants. Advice is to leave the cut stem to callous over before potting up, but I've never felt this is necessary. Easing the cutting into well-drained compost and setting it in dappled shade for a few weeks usually does the trick. My aeoniums are slightly more expensive than the other plants I sell because they are quite slow growing, so take more time and nurturing to look their best.

It took me a while to fall in love with succulents but the eagerness to flourish this little beauty exudes eventually persuaded me that they're worth growing. This species of echeveria simply thrives on neglect. Put it in a pot in a sunny place, water it when you remember (but never too often) and it will reward you with numerous offsets – like little clones of the mother plant – that can be separated and potted up, and which gives it one of its common names, 'Hen and Chicks'. It may also reward you with a red flowering spike of inconspicuous yellow-tipped flowers, but will then often die unless you cut the flower spike off. Although it is a succulent and so therefore considered tender, to be brought indoors or into a greenhouse in winter, in can in fact survive fairly low temperatures, but not if the soil it sits in is waterlogged. Wet soil is the surest way to kill-off any succulent, so if yours have gone flacid and translucent, your kindness and pampering is likely to be the culprit. Try putting it in a warm dry place for a few weeks and it should revive. I like to plant succulents en masse, in shallow terracotta dishes. This echeveria also looks lovely planted at the feet of aeoniums, or in an arrangement with other species including cacti where it can be left to do its own thing in the sure and certain knowledge that next time you look at it, it will have grown more, well, more succulent. 

There will be a varied and ever-changing selection of Permaculture Pots on my plant stall, so keep your eye out for different permutations of companion plants that create (part of) the 7-layer permanent agriculture system that offers such elegant gardening solutions. Permaculture is a fascinating concept that mimics the natural growing patterns of a mature forest, which has seven layers of growth. In the Permaculture system, these layers are either edible or useful:

• Canopy/Tall Tree Layer

• Sub-Canopy/Large Shrub Layer

• Shrub Layer

• Herbaceous Layer

• Ground-cover/Creeper Layer

• Underground Layer

• Vertical/Climber Layer

In due course, I will be producing pots that recreate all seven layers, but currently I am offering pots of shrubs, herbaceous and ground cover layers. So, in the photo above, the shrub layer is gooseberries, the herbaceous layer is garlic chives (which could also be considered the underground layer because you can eat the bulbs too, though you would decimate your crop doing this) and the creeper layer is strawberries. The pot will provide enough nutrients for the first growing year, thereafter it is best to plant these in your garden soil.