Succulents are a popular, beautiful and unique plant to include in your gardens! We'll go over their care and needs so you can feel confident about incorporating them into your space!
Gardening with Succulents
A lot of people have succulents that they keep inside as houseplants, but there are a lot of questions on if they can be grown outdoors. In short, the answer is yes! Succulents need sunlight and dry soil. If you have a place in your yard that gets a lot of sunlight, succulents may be a great choice for you!
A great way to use succulents in your garden is to plant them in a container together. Succulents need generally the same care, so planting a combination of different kinds together is a fun way to bring color and texture in! Below are some examples of succulent gardens that could be placed outside on a front porch, or incorporated into a garden!
Planting them in the ground is a bit more challenging. There are some varieties of sedums and hens and chicks that are cold hardy here in Minnesota, but most succulents won't survive the winter here.
The varieties that ARE hardy here are an awesome choice for gardens. Hens and chicks make a wonderful border of a garden, as they stay very low-growing. Sedums can be used in all sorts of situations since they have such a variety of leaf color and flower! Make sure when you're planting these that they are in a spot that won't get overwatered. For example, don't plant these at the bottom of a downspout from your gutters.
If you want to use non-hardy succulents in your garden, I would treat them as you would an annual. You can use them as borders or in beds, as well as containers like discussed above. Keep in mind succulents are pretty slow-growing, so they won't fill in a space as much as some flowering annuals would. You'll want to plant them a bit closer together than you would annuals. Similarly to planting hardy perennials, make sure these succulents are in a dry, sunny spot.
If you want to bring your succulents inside for the winter and keep them as houseplants again, bring them inside once low temperatures reach about 45 degrees Fahrenheit. See our other blog post about treating your plants as you bring them in for more information!
In summary, remember that succulents like to be dry and bathed in sunlight! Stick to watering once a week unless it rains. Keep an eye on your plants (not just succulents, but all your plants!) for signs of too much water, or not enough. Every garden is different, so sometimes you may need to up the amount of water or back off, depending on your conditions or the weather.
Good luck, and feel free to reach out with questions. We love to talk plants!
Keep going and keep growing
Chantel
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