Succulents in Mike's Apartment Garden--Part One

In the past, I've not been a huge fan of succulents and it was not until I moved here to Corpus Christi that I began showing any kind of interest in them at all.  Coming from Iowa, my concenration had been to grow big, showy flowers with brilliant colors...especially Lilies.  Stargazer Lilies and Casablanca Lilies were my passions, with other hybridized Oriental Lilies following right on the heels of these larger, more fragrant varieties.  With such spectacular sprays of color in my past, who would have thought that short, fat, spiny succulents would attract my interest. ever?

It truly pays to have an open mind when it comes to plants.  While many succulents are rather homely plants, the CAN produce some of the most intricate and beautiful blossoms.  Take a look on "Google Images" sometime and have a look.  You'll be very surprised with the results.  

We have a couple of Aloe Vera in our arsenal here...just in case

Aloe Vera--Like most people, my new familiarity came from using Aloe Vera..aka Burn Plant.  These grow abundantly all over the US.  People use them by cutting off a leaf and squeezing the green juice out of the leaves.  It soothes all sorts of discomforts from Sunburn to regular burns and even insect bites.  We have a few of these potted up in the garden, as while my Mom was sick, we purchased several of them for in home use to treat her abrasions, bed sores, whatever little injuries that might crop up with a bed bound person.  After she passed away, we had all of these plants left over and I decided to take them in.  When they actually were transplanted into bigger pots and the plants got bigger I realized just what beautiful form and balance they had with their very long, spikey leaves.

Our largest and cleanest specimen.  It's having
pups right now so will have to be repotted soon.

Experience has been a cruel teacher with these.  My first two Aloe Vera (pictured above) both have received nasty sunburns, which are visible on the plants that you see in the pots.  Oddly, the damage created by sunburn never seems to go away.  You can see it on the close ups of these two.  The reddish areas of the plant are the sunburned areas.

Nowadays I do not leave these guys in the full Texas heat without benefit of the shade thrown by larger plants.  While they are a big "sun-lover" I think it's best that they get at least a little shade, especially during the extreme sunny parts of the day.  I don't know if the actual HEAT is a factor, but I think that sun exposure, while important, needs to be regulated to a degree.  Unfortunately, these babies have never bloomed for me, so I'm unable to share that experience with you.  Perhaps it will happen later this season, or next year.  It may wait to happen until I put it in the ground, which is coming soon.

At this same time that I was learning the value of Aloe Vera, A woman who lived across the apartment complex with me who was being evicted.  On the day she left, she gave me her plants. One of those is our next  Feature...The Blue Agave.

Blue Agave--Also known as the "Century Plant" the Blue Agave is a native to Mexico, where the leaves and core of the plant are used to make various drinks like Tequila and a milky white drink known as Pulque.  The nectar of the plant can also be collected and used as a fructose based sugar substitute, but be warned...it's very sweet and prolonged use can cause ones body to quit reacting to the Insulin it produces (Insulin resistance), creating a sort of diabetic state.

To the left of the Nopale Cactus is my original "Mother"
Blue Agave.  She's still a baby, in Agave years.

Lucky for me, it's very very difficult to do ANY of these things with the plant, otherwise I would have vats of Pulque cooking and Barrels of wannabe Tequila aging in the backyard!  Heck...Mexico even has the name "Tequila" locked down and it can NOT be used by any product made outside of the basic tequila making provinces in Mexico, and they HAVE been known to sue people for using any name with a Tequila type reference in it.

Mother's first pup, now doing quite well in his
own right!

There is an ease in growing these plants though.  They require very little or even no care.  VERY drought resistant, they also have a built in defense system to deter Deer, cats, or just about any mammalian pest that might attempt to interfere with them.  They tout long leaves with dangerously spiked tips.  The edges of the leaves are serrated, so just brushing up against the side of a leaf COULD be a life threatening situation depending on where one gets cut!  These plants don't seem to be susceptible to very many bug issues either.  Basically, you just plant them and let them handle the rest themselves.

A few more Agave pups growing in the garden.

When you plant a Blue Agave, make sure you give it a LOT of space and make sure it's a permanent home for them as they get very large and leafy and weigh an awful lot when they get into adulthood.  The decision to move one should not be taken lightly as the roots spread out and you could wind up digging up your yard with the decision of a landscape change.

Like all other plants they're main objective is to breed and die, and they spend their lives building up enough sugar in their cores to sprout a 12 ft or larger flower stalk at the end of their life cycle (sometimes over 20 years!) that produces flowers and seeds to sow future generations.  That's not the only means it has of reproduction though.  All through it's life it will throw out shoots with baby "pups" around it's sides. Each of these pups will become a new plant given enough time to root and become independent from the mother plant.  Right now, Blondmyk's Apartment Garden has 6 Blue Agave in total, and I've sold about three of the pups that the mother plant produced...the original one given to me by my evicted neighbor.

IN FRONT--Haworthia Cooperi set alongside a California Gold
Toothed Aloe--all hoping for a bigger pot soon!

Haworthia--Another backyard succulent, I'll be honest in not knowing the variety.  I believe it to be Haworthia Cooperi, but I could be wrong.  It comes from South African grassy/desert climates and overall it's not terribly difficult to grow.  Don't buy it for it's flowers, as they aren't anything to write home about even though it does bloom in the spring.  Keep the plant for diversity reasons or to fill out a succulent or cacti pot.  Consider it a cool sort of ground cover.  The leaves of this plant are chubby and full of liquid and if viewed in the light they tend to look like little emeralds sticking out of the dirt.  It's a very cool looking plant and very fun to have around.

Crocodile Aloe with pup on side

Crocodile Plant--Also a type of Aloe known as Aloe Brevifolia.  This is a very fat leaved variety of Aloe that grows and reproduces via clumping around the mother plant...much like Agave, but tighter and closer to the mother.  The name is appropriate as each pair of leaves resemble the jaws of a crocodile opening up to grab it's prey.  This plant is INCREDIBLY tempermental when it comes to water, so water it sparingly.  Just this spring I lost a massive specimen when I wasn't paying attention to rainfall and allowed regular waterings continue in addition to the rainfall.  It's painful to watch it die too as it was so large and the death was long and drawn out, much like it's growing cycle.  Luckily, I was able to salvage ONE of the pups from that one and it's now just starting to take off in a pot of it's own.  My hope is to get it into a good sized bowl of other cactus and succulents, a big wide bowl of a cactus garden.  I love this plant.  It ads a variety of fun to the Backyard garden.

Soap Aloe--Love the Geometry, the curves of the leaves.

Soap Aloe--  As you can see, there are Millions of types of Aloe living in today's world.  My final speciman for today is "Soap Aloe".  This one has been a real bear for me to identify, and to be honest I cannot tell you where it came from!  I have acquired a lot of plants over the past five years and I thought I had a pretty good memory of where they all came from, but this one eludes me...lol!  It IS a pretty plant though and in the spring it produces a flower--a six inch stalk sporting about a dozen plus beautiful creme and orange bells that don't really open up a whole lot.  I keep it because I find it beautiful, and I find the geometry of the plant adds character to my cactus area of the garden--even if it IS in a pot.

When growing aloe or any kind of succulent, it's wise to have a sandy, fast draining soil.  I recommend using the "Miracle Grow Cactus and Succulent" soil, but probably any soil would work if mixed with a high concentration of perlite and/or gravel.  The important thing is that the soil drain quickly.  I tend to take my "Miracle Grow" and add pea gravel, or a lot of smaller rocks to the mix in order to provide a rocky, high draining material for the succulents to grow in .  I imagine a high dose of perlite added to the soil would do the same.

While I realize it was a little lengthy, I do hope you enjoyed todays trip through Blondmyk's Apartment Backyard Garden--Succulent portion.  Hopefully you gleaned something from it that you can take and put to use.  Until my next entry--HAPPY GARDENING!!