Friday, April 7, 2017: Succulents in Bed

Today I went out to get more pea gravel and to look at succulents I might want to start in my new garden. I went to a different store (Home Depot instead of Lowe's). They did not have pea gravel but they did have pea pebbles. Probably the same, right? Nope, the pea pebbles are a little courser than the pea gravel. I really liked the particle size of the gravel I put in yesterday, but I mixed it a bit and it will be fine. In the future, I want to stick to the pea gravel as my top layer. I added one additional cubic foot of the pea pebbles to the garden. So to recap, I have two cubic feet of River Rock and three cubic feet of smaller (two pea gravel and one pea pebbles). This final cubic foot allowed me to mound a little.

The succulents at Home Depot were not extremely inspiring, but I did get four. I don't think they are hardy in this area, so I will need to bring them in next fall if I want to keep them at all. As an inexpensive starter, they will be fine.

The Desert Gems cacti are small indoor plants perfect for decorating desks and tabletops. They do recommend growing them in a "bright" spot and say that over watering is the easiest way to "do them in". They suggest watering every 10-14 days.

The Kosmik Kaktus is a Haworthia species from South Africa. It is not hardy here either and I see they recommend not putting it in direct sunlight. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

The Golden Sedum (Sedum aldolphii) is hardy in USDA Zones 8-11. It is a spreader and supposedly will have star shaped flowers.

The Snow Pole Cactus is native to mountainous Peru at elevations of 4000 to 7000 feet. In time, will form a branched, tree-like columnar to 6' in height. Not sure how fast it grows. It says it has a minimum temperature of 32 F. Must not get very cold in mountainous Peru. I decided to put it at the center of the bed.

As I was leaving the Depot, I remembered that the Mobot also has a collection of cacti and succulents at their gift shop. Being just down the street, I decided to stop by and have a look. I ended up getting two plants. I was very disappointed they were not labeled any better than they were.

A cactus. No other information.

A sedum. No other information. Several of the pedals fell off while I was planting. I may see if they will propagate.