Five Great Succulents for the Garden
Succulent plants are wonderful plants with lots of character, especially for a Southwestern garden. They do well in hot, dry climates, and they fit into the look of many Southwestern-style buildings that have stucco walls and Spanish Mission-style tiles. Although succulent plants are hardy and easy to care for. Five great succulent plants for container gardens are Crassula 'Morgan's Beauty,' tree aeonium, Echeveria spp., jelly bean plant and string of beads plant.
1. Crassula ‘Morgan’s Beauty.’ Crassula ‘Morgan’s Beauty’ is a hybrid container plant created with C. falcata and C. mesembryanthemopsis. In summer this low-growing plant blooms with orange or red flower clusters. It has silvery-green leaves covered in a white powder. Crassula ‘Morgan’s Beauty’ is a compact succulent perfect for small plant containers, fitting in perfectly with a southwest desert garden theme. Crassula species are native to South Africa. Read more>>
2. Tree Aeonium. Tree aeonium plants are interesting succulents that come in green or purple (the purple color comes out more intensely in the sun and less so when kept in shady balcony gardens). The tree aeonium has yellow flowers, but the branch that flowers will always die after the flowering event. The tree aeonium plant can grow to 3 feet in the balcony container garden. Read more>>
3. Echeveria. Echeveria, often called “hens and chicks,” are smaller succulents (less than a foot across), and they are easy container plants to care for in balcony gardens. The leaves grow in rosettes and have different colors and flowers. Some popular Echeveria species that do well in containers are E. glauca and E. laui (called blue Echeveria), E. setosa (firecracker plant), E. derenbergii (painted lady) and E. agavoides. Read more>>
4. Jelly Bean Plant. The jelly bean plant, also called pork and beans, is an interesting succulent plant that displays jelly bean-like leaves. In the summertime its leaves change from green to bright red, and it bears yellow flowers in the springtime. This colorful succulent does best in hot, sunny apartment balcony gardens and will look best as a “ground cover” in plant containers underneath tall plants with a small footprint, such as a jade plant pruned to look like a tree. The jelly bean plant will also look stunning in a short, squat container set on a table or in a hanging window frame-like plant container. Read more>>
5. String of Beads Plant. The string of beads plant, aka string of pearls or gooseberry plant, is perfect succulent plant for hanging plant containers or for use as ground cover. It has interesting cylindrical leaves and blooms with white flowers. There are two popular string of beads plant species, Senecio herreanus and S. roleyanus. Senecio herreanus has larger leaves. The string of beads plant cannot always be found at your local garden shop, so you may have to do some searching to find it. Read more>>
See 10 gorgeous succulent plants>>
