Last weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to attempt an intermediate planting technique that we learned from somewhere I can't remember, but which was probably one of Debra Lee Baldwin's videos.  The technique?  Mounding!

I won't explain mounding here, except to say that essentially, you put soil in the pot, put one plant in with the root ball basically on top of the soil.  In mine, at left, I started with the tall echeveria decora in the middle (probably too tall for this composition, but whatever).  Then you kinda wedge the root balls of the other plants around the first one.  It feels weird to plant plants at an angle, but it works (and is much harder than you might suspect!).  Fill in the spaces with soil, then when you're done, cover the exposed soil with pebbles, and voila!

I took two shots at mounding, and the one above was my favorite.  My girlfriend's pots turned out awesome as well.  I don't have a picture of her first one on hand, but her second one was this great desert scene, featuring a cool euphorbia obesa that I got her as a present when she was sick a couple weeks ago.  I love how she put it together, especially rocks she chose and how those textures are echoed in some of the plants.

I'm sure we both have a lot to learn about the technique of mounding, but we had a blast trying it for the first time!