Have you ever heard of the trend known as "guerilla gardening?" Basically it means that you put plants in places over which you don't technically have "jurisdiction"--that you don't, er, "own," and which you have no legal business messing with.

But you mess with it anyway. Because you're a succ-er. And succ-ers are the badasses of the gardening world.

I tried my hand at guerilla gardening for the first time the other day. There are some unattractive concrete planters near where I work, filled with oft-neglected geraniums. So what did I do about it? I smuggled a wee, hardy little echeveria with me and as I walked by the concrete planter--BAM!--I quickly planted it!

Observe:

Okay, so it's dwarfed within the planter, but you get the idea. I'm totally going to do this some more, because it is AWESOME.

Here's your challenge: do a piece of guerilla gardening yourself, then send me a picture. I'll post them (anonymously, if you wish) on this blog.

My wish list is getting more exotic, folks!  Here are the latest additions.  It's dominated by crassula (crassulas?) these days.  Hm, I might need a trip to South Africa.  Click on a photo to go to the website it's from.  (I try to use only fair use photos... an ongoing challenge.)

I've done so-so on finding the plants that have been on my wish list in the past.  Recent acquisitions include two crassula deceptors (I'm successfully rooting some cuttings from those, too!) and several haworthia truncatas (and variations thereof).  But others have been either impossible to procure or prohibitively expensive, particularly agave excelsior and agave "Joe Hoak."  I found one of the latter at East Bay Nursery in Oakland and it was over $60!  Had a bunch of babies, though.  Maybe I could have sold them off to pay for the mama... 

Oh well.  Not having much excess cash at my disposal certainly heightens the thrill of the hunt!

What's on YOUR wish list?

I was watering my largest succulent planter on Friday and it occurred to me that I've never shown it to you guys, have I? 

Driving home from a friend's house once, I happened by a nursery that was closing(!).  The owner was retiring, and they were getting rid of a bunch of random bits and pieces around the nursery, including this five-or-six-foot-long hollowed out bamboo planter.  All that was in it at the time was a bunch of geraniums on their last legs.  I took it home for $10, removed the geraniums, and planted a huge bunch of succs in it.  My girlfriend then hung it from a picnic table where we keep lots of pots of succulents.  Here it is from one side:

And here it is from the other side:

If you want to do something like this, a few pieces of advice.  One, use larger plants to shade smaller or more finicky plants that will need time to get used to the new placement.  Two, assuming you're mixing lots of different kinds of plants, like I am here, they probably won't all survive.  Most will, but there are bound to be a few casualties.  Third, give your plants time to adjust.  I planted this two or three months ago, and even though it took a little while for some of the plants to take hold, I think it looks better than ever now!

On to the next project.

For quite some time, I've had a shadow box that I picked up somewhere for $5 or so.  It's not particularly sturdy, and I wasn't really sure what to do with it.  Yesterday, I decided to paint it with some exterior paint that's been lying around the garage.  I let it dry, drilled some holes, and tilted it to about a 90º angle against a step.  Then I planted it with succulents.  Keeping it at 90º while I planted meant that I'd be able to display it right away when I finished, which is what I'm doing here:

Cool, huh?  I had fun coordinating the colors.  My girlfriend pointed out that the coloring is sure to change with the sun, and while this is true enough, I can always switch these out for new plants if I want to keep being militant about the rows of color.

And finally, just for fun, here's a picture of the table outside of our house.  Not a great shot of the plantings on the table, sure, but a nice photo of the faithful Succulent Patrol Canine, looking typically wistful.

 

After the fun I had with the first infographic I made, I decided to try one that went into more detail about different types of succulent addiction.  (Also, I hope it's obvious that this is entirely tongue-in-cheek--I have great respect for people who struggle with real addictions, and I certainly do not intend to make light of addiction.) 

I hope you enjoy this wee infographic.  If so, please share it with other succ-ers!  You can click on each part for a larger view: