I have a feeling they'd grow really well like that. Check out the Sempervivum forum and maybe ask for recommendations of ones that would like it there. I'm just starting to grow some in aZ and NM. So far their growth rate has been fantastic. All of my little ones keep putting on offsets really quickly.

Sempervivums suffers big time in our dry heat here in my area, being alpine succulents, but truly happy during the cool temps late Fall to early Spring. I have to put them in shade during the long dry months.

Echeverias on the other hand can handle it better both ways. Since you are planting in cinder blocks, there is good drainage too.

I haven't had good luck with echeverias, but I'm willing to try again. I agree, shade during summer for the hen and chicks. We are just too sunny and dry like you are, t.

A lot of my succulents go dormant here as we start hitting 90F and higher. I think it is the shade of the city trees that helps them endure, otherwise, they would all be burnt up by the direct sun and heat. I made the mistake before thinking I could just augment watering, then I realized, it is not actively growing either due to the weeks long heat wave we get. I see marked improvement again as soon as mid Fall returns.

Yes, most of my plants in AZ slow down once the heat heats. They just survive, and then start actively growing again when it's Fall. Fall and Spring are the best times for my plants. Sometimes winter is too cold, and summer is always too hot.

I have now learned to move the succulents around as the seasons change. Thankfully I only plant in containers anyways so I can easily do it.

It took me a while to learn the same thing but it has made a huge difference in survival for certain plants in my patio container garden, most of which is on the roof (an intense place in summer). The big advantage of containers is their mobility. I mark the seasons with a great migration on the first day of spring or fall when certain plants move to their respective protected or exposed spots, others shift closer to the walls or the house.

Thanks Karen, Tarev and Baja, I've posted over on the Sempervivum forum looking for some suggestions. At least I don't have a tight timeline on this project.

I'm getting ready soon to put quite a few of my leaf cuttings that are putting out some good sized rosettes into their permanent homes. Right now they're just in tiny 3" pots sitting on Echoscraps potting soil with small perlite for drainage. What is my best option for a good potting mixture for these?

Sounds like everyone is doing the spring shuffle thing. Mine is finally completed. Yes....done. That's of course until I go buy something new

Here's some pics of my completed front yard.

Long view from my street showing whole yard.


More to the left side.


More towards the right side of the yard.


Also need an opinion in regards to my A. potatrum. Is this thing alive? Babied it all winter as I know it is a fuss budget when it comes to the cold. Wondering if I did a good enough job. Opinion and/or advice please.


A. potatrum. Two years old. Has always been up front. Originally in ground. Potted last year. A few weeks ago decided to plant it in its present location.
Lateral spine is kind of a weird dull brown rather then showing the typical burnt umber- reddish brown that indicates growth.




Have a good day all.
AG

It looks very pretty right now, AG, but some of those things are going to be hard to keep from growing too large. In particular, chollas and prickly pear will need to be trimmed back all the time in order to keep them from overtaking the whole yard. I have my cacti messes in the backyard. One prickly pear area is about 15 ft by 15 ft! I leave it as it's the haven for my quail and baby rabbits.

Holy cow on that p.pear! I know many grow tree like. Thankfully p.pears are easy to trim and shape.

As for my Cow's Tongue p. pear that is and will be its permanent home! I have no intention of ever moving that thing. It is vicious and I got stuck by several needles at once. I'll spare you details but I needed my husband's help and a pair of tweezers to remove the 10 or so needles. Left some real nice welts.

This beast will only be allowed to grow a little wider on the left and about a foot or two towards the back. It will stay short on top. This way I can navigate about and avoid those cacti kisses. It is a useful plant though as it throws off some great shade.

No part of that p.pear will go in the back yard. The dog has enough brains to avoid everything but I have a husband that, for some unknown bizarre reason, can stand 4 feet away from any cacti in existence and still manage to get attacked by it. ( )

He is paranoid now and thinks there's a cacti conspiracy against him.

As for the chollas those are two planted together. My grand design is for them to get taller but not 'bushy'. If they get too big I'll lop off 80% and move them to the back yard. They'll get shoved in a corner my husband never ventures towards.

I'll bet you some how and some way he'll still manage to get stuck by this thing!

Perpetual pruning on both. Good advice and just fine with me .

It sounds like you'll keep it all under control and looking great! We had a very nice yard here in AZ, but rented it out for almost 30 years. That's when it all became a cacti jungle. Everything that wasn't a cactus died. We lost all of our citrus and roses. Mesquite trees volunteered, and all we had left was the cacti and mesquite trees we never planted. My excuse for not taming the PP jungles is that they are needed animal habitat,

Yeah...pruning and plucking are a must. The smaller or more crowded the yard, the more imperative.

What a shame about the roses and citrus. It appears you take a lot of pride in your place. Since you put so much effort into making it look nice with all the plants on the outside I'm sure the inside followed suit. I'm hoping they didn't ruin the inside the way they did the outside.

I would have put it in the lease that the plants were to be maintained and if not they are to be replaced with the exact same plant or close to. If not, there will be a monetary compensation paid that is the equivalent to the price of the plant/s.

Oh well....at least the cacti filled in the gaps as did those trees. Not the compensation you were looking for but at least the yard wasn't void of plant life. Hate those trees. Nuisance as they spread everywhere and pop up volunteers like weeds. I'm constantly yanking them out.

Funny about renters and home owners. We don't have a lot of renters here but I the majority take better care of their yards and make more home improvements than the owners do----or did prior to renting the house out! Then there is the flip side. The vast majority of home owners go through great trouble to make their homes look fantastic prior to renting them and then come back to see a real mess.

Kind of random. There is always a 50-50 chance you'll either get bad tenants or lazy home owners. But on the brighter side there's also a 50-50 chance you'll get great owners who have conscientious tenants. I try to be positive.

But why is it regardless of renting or owning, there is that one individual---you know the 'one' that takes an act of Congress and repeated fines from the HOA to get them to do the bare minimum? Makes the whole street look awful before they are forced into action. Gross irony is that you usually have the misfortune of either living across the street or two houses down from them.

Have a good day.
AG

AG..there is always a bad apple..sadly.

plantmanager said:My excuse for not taming the PP jungles is that they are needed animal habitat,

When we first started the public garden across the street, we made a deliberate decision to leave some of the native bushes that were already growing there... not because they were particularly beautiful (quite the opposite) but because they would survive anything with zero care and they would provide the critters a place to hang. In retrospect that was a really wise move, because a young succulent garden takes a good long while (decade maybe?) to provide the kind of density and protection that the animals like. The cactus jungle so to speak.

Look behind the big aloe and you'll see it's basically a big impenetrable deciduous bush.

I agree on renters, AG. We had many great ones and a few really bad ones. The inside looked pretty bad when we returned, but my husband is good at DIY stuff so he got it all fixed up again.

We had a property manager, but I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted to have to decide about the landscaping, and be charging for dead plants. It would be a good idea if you were renting a place out yourself and could watch what was going on. we were out of the country for almost half the time.

We were required to care for the fruit trees at the last house we rented, which was no small feat given the amount of leaf cleanup and pruning the monster fig tree required each winter, or the rather excessive amount of water (by my standards) required to keep the loquat tree going strong. Of course it was also a tremendous amount of work eating all that juicy fruit, too.

I think the fig tree actually ended up better afterwards because I learned pruning from a grand master certified tree surgeon from the apple orchards of the Pacific Northwest.

Aeoniums doing their thing in the park. This group was planted a little over 2 years ago and has filled out nicely. Winter is a fun time to take pictures of these plants.

Aww! So pretty Aeoniums..my Aeoniums are as usual so drenched! One more day of rains!

We still rent, been in the same house for 8.5 years now, every time one of the landlords or their handyman (who is the father of one of the landlords) stops by they comment on how great the yard looks. I warned them that if we ever leave for somewhere within the state that I will leave behind a bugs bunny field: full of holes...

AG: that Potatorum is fine. Not sure what your lows are like right now, but once it stays consistently in the high 40s to low 50s (which may be be another couple of weeks) you should give that some good waterings. Do I remember correctly that you wintered it in a pot? I have two. I put one in the ground last October and aside from some remnant sun scorched leaves from last summer it looks really happy - it is in a somewhat protected area and enjoyed all the rain and probably did not really get very cold. The other one I still have in a pot and it gets quite a bit of sun especially in the winter when the low angle of the sun peeks right under the canopy of the shade tree I keep those pots under. It looks a lot like yours, slightly shriveled curled in leaves, mine even has a purple tinge to some some of the leaves.

However it looks like it is making new fresh leaves, so once spring really starts it will be just fine. A year in the ground and it will be gorgeous.