Succulents are plants that usually stand out, both for the ease of their care, and for being plants with very striking and varied shapes, very charming and attractive due to how different they are from other plants. With two such important points in favor, it is not hard to imagine why succulent gardens are so successful, and that is that they are a way to bring the most beautiful thing from the desert to your garden, without even needing too much work. if you want to learn how to make a succulent garden at home, accompany us in this DIYGardens article.
prepare the ground
It is true that succulents are undemanding plants with their care. So much so, that we can practically reduce all your demands to just two: light and good drainage. With this in mind, preparing good soil for them is half the work and also half the success of your succulent garden.
For the soil to offer good drainage to your succulents, you need it not to be clayey soil, which tends to compact and does not allow good aeration. This would cause irrigation or rainwater to accumulate, and the roots of succulents are even more sensitive than those of other plants to rot due to waterlogging.
Prepare the soil yourself by aerating it and stirring it thoroughly and, if it does not have good drainage, consider providing a substrate with materials such as gravel, sand, perlite for plants and clay balls, as well as coconut fiber. All of them are porous materials that help improve drainage and water retention properties, as well as prevent excessive compaction of the soil.
A good way to check soil drainage before planting anything is to make a small hole about 30cm deep and fill it with water. If it takes no more than about 30 minutes to empty, it means that the drainage is good enough for your succulents. If not, you need to improve it with the above described.
In this article we tell you about the care of succulents.
Rockeries are your allies
Rockeries are generally used in alpine-style gardens, but if you have many large stones or rocks in your garden, they can also be very useful when it comes to creating a space for succulents. these plants they really need little land, and some of them are able to grow directly on rocks without any problem. Cover those large rocks in your garden with some cacti and succulents and you will quickly see how their appearance improves a lot just with that.
Regarding the smaller rocks, use them to define spaces or pile them up in some areas as a cover, to sprinkle the space with different succulents of different sizes, which will transform a pile of stones into a beautiful garden.
In this article we teach you how to plant succulents: how to do it.
The sun, the other great need
Succulents, as we have already mentioned, usually need large amounts of direct sun. When designing a succulent garden, do so keeping in mind that the area needs at least, about 4 hours a day of direct insolation. If you have semi-shade spaces, you can reserve them for the more tropical species, which do tend to appreciate indirect light and a little more humidity. In any case, a succulent garden in the shade or with very few hours of daylight will hardly work.
Play with the heights
The most recommended thing for your succulent garden to look like is usually to place the tallest plants in the center and the smaller and lower species to the surroundings, leaving the ground covers and creepers to delimit the soil at the edges.
We recommend you read this article on the Types of succulent plants.
Roof
One of the best ways to finish off a succulent garden is to play around with mulch. Using a thin layer of surface stones, coarse gravel, or some form of organic mulch will go a long way to not only make things look better, but also stop the growth of weeds since the soil better conserves a certain level of humidity without preventing excess water from evaporating.
Succulent garden care
As much as succulents are easy to care for, it is convenient to know what their most basic care is.
- Regarding irrigation, the most common is that in the summer months water biweekly approximately, while in winter it is most likely that it is not necessary to water at all, or at most once a month. In this article we teach you how to water succulent plants.
- If you live in a temperate climate zone, your winters will be too cold for succulents, so you will have to protect them from frost placing padding on the floor to help maintain the temperature.
- In spring you can provide specific fertilizer for succulents so that they do not lack nutrients, always following the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Now that you know how to make a succulent garden, you may also be interested in How to combat pests in succulents.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to make a succulent gardenwe recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.
