I was recently reintroduced to the world of succulent growing. Although, I don’t think I was properly “introduced” the first time around. The first succulent I ever owned was a blooming kalanchoe that I bought the spring of my freshman year, when I worked as a cashier at Kroger. I didn’t know that that plant, long dead now, was a succulent until I made the connection two weeks ago. That is probably why it perished, along with my first African violet, mini roses, purple passion plant, air plants…

Wow, I’ve killed a lot of innocent plants.

I made this succulent planter on Tuesday, but he has to stay outside because there’s currently no extra room for his pot inside! I love him.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve been working more at the greenhouse, where I care for the plants that produce the seeds for my boss’s research (I’ll talk more about them in another post). On March 23, I took a couple of my labmates out to the greenhouse so we could continue a project that I’m still not done with involving transplanting little plants in little cones into big cones to become big plants and produce seeds and-

I had mentioned to the caretaker of the large collection of beautiful plants (Kevin “the plant man” Tarner) in an earlier email that I was interested in giving succulent raising a[nother] go, so when we got there, he took us on a fun journey through the greenhouses’ arid and tropical plant rooms. Those are currently my favorite places on planet earth, especially when I’m entrusted with a new and interesting plant that I’ve never seen before. I came home that day with two handfuls of baby succulents, fallen succulent leaves, and a few air plant pups. Worried about instantly killing the poor things, I potted them up as soon as I got home, even though the only dirt I had on hand was regular ol’ potting soil. Shame on me – I went out the next day and grabbed some sand and rocks and repotted all the kiddos in their own little containers. They sure did look cute in their little terrariums for a day, though.

Bella was helping me decide which succulents to sacrifice for the new arrangement(s). I made succulent potting mix by combining roughly 3 parts sand to 1 part old corn plant soil – the best things in life are free!

In the couple of weeks since then, my interest in the little succulovers has exploded, as has my roommate’s baker’s rack, which as of this past weekend has absolutely zero space left on it. But shoot, I’ll just get a bookcase or something – you can never have too many plants!

There is so much more I can (and will) say, but I’ll leave it here for this post.

Until next time!

Amy