Succulents perfect for container gardens: No water, no sweat

Posted May 28, 2010 11:00 pm

WASHINGTON - Container plantings bring color and joy to every patio. For city dwellers with small patios and balconies, or renters with no need to invest in the landscape, they may be the only garden to have.

But the watering needs are a burden. In the sapping heat of July and August, pots may require a soak twice a day to prevent annuals and tropicals from wilting. And what happens when you go on vacation, or have to travel for work?

As we toss the pansies for seasonal pots over the next two or three weeks, we are drawn to the wisdom and foresight of that great showman and gardener, P.T. Barnum, who famously uttered: "There's a succulent born every minute." Or something like that.

In container gardens, succulents are a class of plants that come to the rescue in strangely beautiful forms. A few have been around for years, notably hardy hens-and-chicks or tender portulacas. Others have occupied only the arcane world of the rock garden hobbyist.

But a resurgent interest in succulents has spawned breeding and marketing programs that have produced an expanding palette of contrasting shapes, sizes and colors. Agaves, echeverias, aloes, stonecrops and aeoniums are now part of the savvy gardener's vocabulary. They share a key common trait: no need to be watered.

Once popular in arid states, "the craze has gone all over now," says Chris Berg, spokesman for EuroAmerican Propagators, a major grower in Bonsall, Calif. "They're stylish plants."

You can make a handsome combination of hardy succulents that will survive the winter outdoors, though you have to use a container that is frost-proof. Most terra cotta pots are not. If you expand the plantings to include tender succulents, the range of plants becomes broader, more colorful and wonderfully weirder. You can treat them as you would other annuals and discard them in November, and replant them afresh the following spring. Or they can be wintered indoors.

Once initially watered, they can live without the gardener's hand. Indeed, irrigation is the quickest way to kill them. "They're happier when you get back from vacation than when you left," says Berg.

Tip Top aconitum's rosettes,have green centersand purple extremities.

A parade of succulents

Agave

These spiky rosettes are most popularly known for the large century plant, with steel blue leaves or in its variegated form. Agaves for containers are much smaller and slow-growing.

Agave attenuate. Coarse, broad leaves make this an imposing succulent with soft-green leaves.

A. victoriae-reginae. A small agave, reminiscent of an artichoke, but with striking white margins to its green leaves.

A. chiapensis. Another dainty agave with broad gray-green leaves with black teeth.

A. gigantensis. Large in size and texture, this agave has broad silver-blue leaves with wavy edges.

A. Blue Flame. A hybrid with dusky blue-green leaves that form a rosette about 18 inches high.

A. Blue Glow. The leaves are smooth, pointed and upright, with a distinct blue cast and red-orange margins.

Aeonium

Aeoniums are valued for their flowerlike leaf rosettes: large, colorful and presented on stems that vary in length by variety and age.

Aeonium Kiwi. This variety forms striking rosettes that are lime green edged in red.

A. Tip Top. This was developed for its unusual profusion of rosettes, which are dark purple with green centers.

A. Pinwheel. Tight, upright clusters of gray-green foliage tinged red at the tips.

Echeveria

Echeverias form distinctive low-growing rosettes, beautifully plump and symmetrically patterned, and in unusual colors.

Echeveria Perle Von Nurnburg. Gray leaves with mauve highlights.

E. Deranosa. Tightly clustered, short leaves form a silver-gray rosette with pink tips.

E. Metallica. Leaves are a velvety silver with rose highlights.

E. Fire and Ice. Large, unusually open light-silver leaves edged in red.

E. Topsy Turvy. Silver-green leaves, curled at the tips.

Kalanchoe

Kalanchoes for most people summon the image of the supermarket kalanchoe sold as brightly flowered houseplants, but other species have showy, fleshy leaves perfect as accents in the succulent garden.

Kalanchoe thyrsiflora or K. luciae. Clusters of enormous, paddle-like leaves make this an accent for large containers. Lime green with rose-pink edges.

Sedum

Sedums, or stonecrops, provide some of the most varied and useful succulents for the container garden. Don't use Sedum Autumn Joy or other common garden varieties, which are too large and floppy for containers.

Sedum Angelina. Striking yellow-green upright foliage plumes.

S. nussbaumerianum. Large clusters of buff-colored leaves. The clusters elongate with age, elevating the show.

S. burrito. This is the gray-green ropelike donkey tail sedum, valuable as an unusual trailing succulent.

S. Cape Blanco. Abundant elongated rosettes. The upper leaves are silver, the lower ones purple.

S. rubrotinctum. This sedum grows bizarre, berrylike red leaves in clusters. Pink and dwarf forms are available.

S. pluricaule Rose Carpet. This diminutive, hardy and low-growing sedum produces soft gray-green whorls with pink tinges.

Sempervivum

This is the classic and hardy hens-and-chicks, named for its trait of producing offsets at the base of mature rosettes.

Sempervivum tectorum. This species is the old-fashioned hens-and-chicks that your grandmother grew, and still a great plant.

S. arachnoideum. The cobwebbed species, named for the fine white hairs that span the tightly clustered rosettes.

Varieties and hybrids: Birchmeier is green with red points. Sparkle has dark red foliage. Bronco has smaller rosettes, making it more versatile in the container. Cobweb Buttons is gray-green and strikingly webbed. Green Wheel is a light, lush green.

Delosperma

Delospermas or ice plants are low-growing, mat-forming succulents with bright daisylike flowers from April until October, depending on the variety. They make ideal filler plants for succulent containers. Flowers are small but profuse and come in a broad array of bright colors, including strong pinks, magenta, chrome, yellow, salmon and white.

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