Creating a Succulent Collection: Keeping Records

  I'm not a naturally-organized person. I really do have difficulty with planning and homemaking, and it's something I'm working on daily. There are a few tips and tricks I've picked up or "discovered" myself, and I use these few tools/methods to keep track of my succulent collection.

  Identifying succulents is probably one of the most difficult aspects of cultivating the plants as a pastime. Since my record-keeping skills are limited, one trick I use is taking photos of newly-acquired plants while still in their plastic pots. Now, the labels are not always accurate, and most are rather generic, but at the very least a name on a label gives you a point of reference to base a search on.

  

  This plant is labelled as a "hybrid," which is, in fact, what many store-bought succulents are. Hybrids are usually created by plant fanciers (people who raise show plants like others raise show dogs). Hybrids are a combination of different parent plants to create a new breed (again, like dogs). My favorite hybrids are all echeverias, like the "Lola" in the first photo. Echeveria hybrids can resemble funky rainbow cabbages, delicate roses, or even monstrous mutants from an H.P. Lovecraft story. 

   

  Groundcover is essential. That's it. You need to cover the exposed dirt in your garden. The simplest reason is weeds. If they can't break through the soil to eat the sunshine, weeds can't grow. Another reason to cover the ground around specific plants (like those tarty agaves) is to prevent pups from growing around the plant base. I have seen agave grown so that they are surrounded by offspring like happy Buddha with children, but this will make the plant much harder to prune and eventually remove after it flowers.

  Your groundcover can be plants. Ice plants, which I always have thought of as "freeway plants," are very fast-growing and can cover the bare earth in a matter of months. There are many types of sedum that make excellent groundcover, in fact, a well-stocked nursery should have several different types of ground covering succulents. The problem with plants, however, is that YOU CAN'T WALK ON THEM! Personally, I like being able to move my feet into the small spaces between some plants to prune them, and I've learned plants as groundcover is asking too much if myself as a gardener!  

The black DOES bring out the color, though in these sunny pics are rather washed out. I don't really want sand, so I'm really hoping this stuff will be okay. I'll probably have to invest in decomposed granite someday. Then, no more weeds, ever!

It looks sophisticated, though I think the black color will leech out of the wood like it's leeching under my nails. Maybe I could use a variety of bark colors? Make a pattern like those bottles filled with layers of colored sand made by kids and housewives on Pinterest! To make sure I can get matching cover in the future, I cut out and save the label from the bag the bark came in. The strong plastic folds easily and can be filed in a folder.