Succulent bed renovation - progress report

I'm nowhere near done renovating the succulent bed in front of our garage but I've made significant progress.  This post will serve as an update.

The first task was to bring in a cactus soil mix to both visually raise the soil level and improve drainage in the area.

We had one cubic yard of a cactus and succulent friendly soil mix trucked in and dropped in our driveway.  It may not look like much but it took a good deal of time and effort to move it.

I moved about one-third of it myself but thankfully my husband moved the rest (in less than half the time it took me to move my share)

I then tackled mixing the new soil in with the existing soil.  I did that at periodic intervals over 2 days.  I was exhausted afterwards.

The next step was laying out the rocks, both old and new.

I dug the rocks into place, trying to cover the bottom third of each individual rock.  Proving my argument that one can never have enough rock, I came up short but made do with what I had.  I included some rocks that the plumbers dug up last year when they changed out our water pipes.  Most of those are gradually disintegrating but they'll hold up for awhile yet.

Once the rocks were in place, I made my first stab at laying out the plants I'd saved when I dug the area up.

I'd potted up all the plants I wanted to save when I dug up the area in February.  I also pulled out a few potted plants I've been holding in reserve for possible use here.

I didn't follow the layout I'd originally tried in all respects but I'm fairly comfortable with it; however, a lot of holes remain to be filled.

This is the area as it looked yesterday afternoon

Closer look at the east side of the bed (nearest the garage)

Closer look at the west side of the bed (nearest to the street)

Here's a peek at the individual specimens I've already planted:

Clockwise from the upper left: Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi' (clumps dug out of my north-side garden), Agave attenuata 'Raea's Gold' (the mother plant I removed from the back garden last November and re-rooted), Agave bracteosa 'Monterey Frost' (a gift from Hoover Boo of Piece of Eden), Aloe arborescens 'Variegata', Aloe cameronii 'Red' (another gift from Hoover Boo), Aloe nobilis, and multiple pups of Aloe 'Rooikappie'

More, clockwise from the upper left: Crassula ovata (a rooted cutting), Curio x peregrinus, Echeveria agavoides, and Senecio serpens (cuttings from my south-side garden)

Plants I'm still committed to replanting include: Aeonium nobilis, Aloe maculata, and Curio ficoides 'Mount Everest' (the only one of 5 that looked healthy enough to keep)

On standby are 2 small 'Blue Glow' Agaves I purchased from Annie's Annuals last year and potted up to gain size and 2 silver-blue Cotyledon orbiculata I love

We dug up the ever-leaning Kumara plicatilis (aka fan aloe) a close friend gave me sometime soon after we moved here.  I never got it properly straightened out and it was never happy.  Its leaves were half the size they should've been and some were damaged by insects.  Rather than replant it as is, I cut off 2 of the best looking branches, which I've potted up in hope of getting them to develop roots.  

Now I get to go shopping!  In addition to at least two or three larger succulents plus smaller ones to serve as fillers, I'm thinking of adding a few softer plants, including a small Leucadendron (as if I need more!) and drought-tolerant flowering groundcovers.  I'll provide an updated report when I'm closer to being done.

Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party