Lately I’ve been having so much fun spray painting some of my hens and chicks. Succulents are so amazing, they continue to grow even painted. They will eventually grow the paint out and you may need to touch up the re-growth but it will not kill the plant. I have been using Krylon in matte colors, their glitter spray I love too! I use oil based paints so water doesn’t wash it away. Next I need to master master making containers for all these babies.
When we first bought our house there was one project I was dreading, the huge rock wall. It had been neglected for years and was overgrown, and we’ll just a total mess. One weekend I just set my mind to getting it cleaned out and weeded and got about half of it done. I finished up the next weekend and was feeling so much better about it but it was still just a huge blah rock wall.
We thought about what we could do with it and decided to just fill it up with different succulents. I am so happy we did that. One of my least favorite features of our house is now possibly my favorite. I think we have planted one of every succulent we could find at our local nurseries. There is nothing better to me than seeing all of our plants grow and bloom.
I know there are a lot of places that will say to only water your succulents once a month and to never fertilize. Although it is important to keep the soil fairly dry so they don’t get root rot, I find that I need to spray my succulents about once per week in the summer here in Utah. I also use a cactus fertilizer I found from Miracle Grow {link below} twice a year.
When I plant my succulents I mix half of the native soil with half of a potting mix for tropical plants {link below}
When I plant them I’m very careful to not plant them too deep, just barely covering the roots and mounding the soil. I water any newly planted succulent every day for 2 weeks so the root system can develop really well and then reduce watering to once per week.
If you are planting hen and chick plants you will have plenty of chicks to replant by the end of the year, they reproduce like crazy! When the chicks start to get big enough or if the space is starting to get crowded I pull the chicks off gently and re plant them just about anywhere. You only need to pant to root just barely under the soil, you will be amazed at how quickly they root and start producing chicks of their own. We harvested hundreds last year and stuck them in any open spot we had. Succulents are really amazing and do not need a lot of space, you can plug them in anywhere you have a crack with just a small amount of soil and a large amount of sun!
I was happy to learn I could even have a cactus in our climate. I planted this prickly pear cactus last year and it survived the winter and is thriving!
I planted sheets of succulents around my cactus that I found at Lowes. This stuff is great, it’s about 10 types of mini succulents all planted together. You can plant the entire sheet or you can cut it and fit it in spaces, I fit it in around big rocks also.
I have planted about 200 plants in my rock wall now and will keep going. Let me know if you have any questions, I would love to answer any I can. I really hope you plant some too, they make great indoor arrangements too.
Happy succulent planting!
Kacey Tess 