The Mighty Saguaro

The Saguaro cactus is the symbol of the Southwest. With arms that jut out, and a straight tall frame, they are easily personifiable. Reportedly the largest cactus in the U.S., these cacti can reach a height of 12 meters (that's 39.37007874015748 Feet) and live to be over 200 years old. In the Arizona desert, small animals burrow into the cactus and make it their home. In the early 1900's the Saguaro's cactus flower was named Arizona's territorial flower, and thirty years later, named as the state flower.

Grafting: You, Too, Can Be a Mad Scientist

Succulent plants allow a grower to graft two entirely different plants onto each other, to essentially create one.
Grafting is strange, and usually not seamless.
1: Remove one inch off of the top of a healthy succulent.
2: Select a healthy stem or section of another succulent
3: Cut away the outer plant skin from the edges of the second succulent (about a half inch)
4: Cut a slit down the middle of the original succulent
5: Slide the second succulent's exposed end into the slit of the original succulent
6: Secure the two parts by skewering the two sections so they remain intact, and tie a string around the joined section.
7: Leave in a bright and airy place, make sure the temp does not go below 50 degrees and wait about four weeks for growth.
Eventually, the plant will grow as if it were always grafted in such a way. Interesting combinations can be made.

Soil: Essential to a Healthy Plant

Soil is perhaps the most important element in your plant's life. Good succulent soil facilitates drainage and ensures that your plant does not sit in moisture. Moisture is a succulent's worst enemy. Good soil will be made from one third part soil, one third part pumice or gravel and one third part sand. Try to mimic a desert growing environment. The cactus soil on the market contains too much organic material and does not allow for adequate drainage. Buy this, and add your own pebbles and or pumice stones, and sand. Make sure that the water runs quickly through your final mixture before you plant your succulent in it. If you think your plant is on its last legs, and you need some help, better soil may be the answer.

Tequila: Fermented Succulent Juice

Tequila is the final beverage that comes from fermenting juice from the agave succulent. By law, tequila can only be made from one kind of agave plant: the blue agave. For information on how to make tequila, and how to find the blue agave plant, read this. There are blue agave farms in Mexico. The photo below was taken at an agave farm.


The blue agave plant is cut at the root, the spiny leaves are cut off, and the heart of the agave is then used to draw liquid from for the fermentation process. As you can see, the part of the agave used for tequila looks more like a pineapple than its original form.

Euphorbias: Ethiopia's Poison

Euphorbias are extremely enticing. They vary largely from plant to plant, while some look like common shrubs, others look like cacti.

There are over 2,000 species in this plant genera. There are so many variations within this genera that it can be difficult to identify a plant as a euphorbia. The name, euphorbia is analogous with "poison" in Ethiopia due to the poisonous, milky sap that the plant emits if it is cut or broken.

If you are handling a plant from the genus euphorbia, wear gloves, or wash your hands thoroughly after handling the plant. Try not to touch your eyes or skin while handling the plant and for some time after if you want to play it safe. Some people react more to the milky sap than others. At the least, the sap will sting and produce a red rash on the skin.

If you are interested in euphorbias, you can check out the International Euphorbia Society. If you want to read stories about how powerful the sap from these plants is, read this, or this, or this.

Incredible edible cacti: The Prickly Pear

The prickly pear is a wonderful treat and the ingredient in one of my favorite appetizers at Mom Is Cooking in San francisco. They are tricky to eat, but well worth the work. There are a litany of uses for this plant, (including beauty products). If you are looking for recipes for your prickly pears first look up how to harvest the cactus. In many of the instructions I've seen they suggest some drastic measures: either dipping your cactus in bleach (which does not sound like a good idea to me) OR using a blow-torch to burn off the cactus spines before handling the plant. Though they are both tactics not normally applied in the kitchen, the latter sounds like a much more food-friendly solution.

Succulents on the roof?

Green buildings seem to be the latest in development among environmentally-minded folk--and green rooftops are part of the new environmental trend. Hardier plants are recommended for rooftops, and succulents are some of the most resilient and hardy plants around. Succulents are recommended for green roofs.
Weight is the primary issue of concern, so if considering building a succulent rooftop, state this clearly to contractors and builders because they will have to build accordingly. All weight issues aside, their presence can lower both heating and cooling costs, and serve to protect a house from fire and leaks. For more info, read: Crazy About Cacti and Succulents.

What not to buy:

Succulents are highly collected in certain circles and collectors will pay hundreds of dollars for a plant. I've even seen plants that cost in the thousands, but it is hard to find these plant specimens online. This could be, because these plants are taken from the wild, and most avid plant collectors disagree with taking succulent plants from the wild. Many succulent plants, like caudiciforms, come from African countries and from Latin America. Caudiciforms take extremely desireable shapes when grown in the wild, and due to the demand for such specimen plants natives to these countries dig up the wild plants and sell them to succulent dealers in the United States. What to look for if buying a larger specimen plant: Ask the seller where they got this plant, how long they've had it, etc. Look for places on the plant's caudex that looks as though it has been cut (sometimes, when rare plants come into the shop, succulent sellers will cut off parts of the plant in hopes of growing clones). If anything seems fishy about the succulent dealer, the store, or their answers, look to buy your plants elsewhere.

Mesembs, and a plant named "Perfectoe"

"Perfectoe" was small, about the size of a chick pea, and pink. Latin: argyroderma testiculare. For the first few months of its life its name was simply: "Perfect." I couldn't believe that something so smooth, pink and clay-like could be alive and growing. I procured it for a mere four dollars from a man in a tan safari outfit, who said he'd carried the seeds in his pocket from Namibia and propagated the seeds in his greenhouse. (It's name officially became Perfectoe after a few months, when it grew about an inch off of the soil and looked almost like a human toe.)

Perfectoe was probably my most loved little mesemb until it shriveled up about a month ago.

Mesembs in general are fascinating plants. They resemble pebbles or stones and rarely grow more than a few inches in a lifetime. Once a year, the slit on the top of the plant widens and a new set of leaves emerges, and the outer leaves shrivel and die. The new leaves grow from the nutrients and moisture of their shriveling predecessors. The mesemb to the left is in the midst of this growing process.

My natural inclination, upon seeing a shriveling i.e. distressed looking plant, is to water the plant. In mesembs' case, this often means certain death. This sounds dramatic, but for a plant lover, it can be. I noticed that Perfectoe was growing a new "pair" of leaves (I put pair in parentheses because what emerges from a mesemb looks more like a singular entity with a slit down the middle, but among botanists, is considered a pair of leaves). The older leaves were shriveling, as I expected, but then the new set of leaves began to shrivel as well. I let this go for about a week, then gave Perfectoe a little water. The plant proceeded to swell slightly over the next day, and then shriveled quickly beyond the point of rescue. Never water a mesemb when new leaves are emerging. I'd heard this numerous times, but thought that this case was an exception.

Favorite Succulent: the "Turtle Back"

I have a favorite plant, a plant that I fell in love with the second I saw it. It is sometimes called a "Turtle Back" plant or the "Elephant's Foot" plant. Among succulent collectors it is called: dioscorea elephantipes. It is called such names because of its long, symmetrical, polygonal tubercles with cross-hatched lines of both gray and brown.

This plant is a perfect example of the division of labor between a heavily protected storage organ (its trunk) that allows it to go long periods without water or moisture, and a quick-growing branch system that bears both flowers and fruits.


Dioscorea elephantipes is a caudiciform--a succulent tree. However, there is little about it that resembles your standard tree. It has no bark-like branches. It does not grow up towards the sun, but grows... around, in a half-circle. Some specimens of the plant can grow taller than six feet, meaning that the base of the tree would have a twelve foot diameter.

Caudiciforms

There are a variety of succulent plants, and succulent TREES.

Succulent trees are often marked by their large, swollen, trunks. The trunks store moisture for the long dry seasons.

Succulent trees are called: Caudiciforms, or among collectors, "fat plants." The large, swollen, trunks are called: Caudexes.
Here is a picture of a small adenium obesum from Africa. There are a few varieties of this plant that all flower and have similar waxy-green leaves.

Caudiciforms are extremely resilient in general, and can lie dormant, without water, for an extremely long time. I personally have a bombax ellipticum caudiciform that I did not water for two years. I only watered it two months ago, at the beginning of the summer, when it showed subtle signs of growth. Caudiciforms should be watered when they look like they are entering a growth cycle. At the sight of small leaf buds or new stems, water your caudiciform thoroughly. Here is that bombax elipticum that did not have leaves or any growth or water at all for two years:

"Grow it Hard"

"Grow it hard" was a saying heard often in San Francisco's Succulent Society meetings. What the members are referring to, is the ideal growing conditions for succulent plants. Succulent plants seem to grow best when they are ignored. It sounds horrible but it is true. Over-watering is the fastest way to kill your plants. Keep in mind that these plants evolved in arid deserts.

"Grow it hard" is what they say when they mean: give your plant a lot of sun, let the soil get completely dry before watering the plant again, and when in doubt, do not water the plant.

Succulents have different growth cycles, meaning that for half of the year the plant may be dormant. When the plant's leaves yellow and/or fall off, that is a good indicator that your plant is entering a dormant cycle. There may be no rhyme or reason for this, just be aware of your plants. When a plant becomes dormant you should slow down the watering schedule and let the plant hibernate.

Always remember that the best times to water a succulent are early in the day, especially if you think that the sun will be out and the temperature may be warmer than usual.

Succulents are a friendly kind of plant

What made my first venture into the succulent realm possible, was the nature of the succulent plant: they can be completely regenerated from a single leaf or stem, making propagation quite easy.

This feature reminded me of "friendship bread," a delicious, sugary, cinnamon-bread that my mother and her friends used to make. One had to get a cup of the starter dough from a friend to start making the bread... (but I digress).

This is true with succulents: friends can share the same plant.

Succulent leaves will regenerate into full grown plants over time. Many succulent collectors end up sharing their favorite plants with their friends without doing significant damage to their own.
If you are going to acquire a leaf of a succulent or a small plant with the root intact, make sure you keep the cut on the plant, or the roots, DRY. Succulents are averse to persistent moisture, and new cuts on plants and sensitive roots can rot if they are watered before they've developed a tougher outer layer.

* If you get a succulent leaf, lay it on top of a bed of cactus soil and wait a week for small, thread-like, roots to grow toward the soil. After about
a week, you can lightly water the soil.

* If you get a small plant with roots intact, plant the roots in the soil and
wait about a week before watering the plant. After two to three
weeks, water the plants as normal. (Put the plants in a sink or bathtub
and water thoroughly.)

So, keep leaves and new plants dry and in cactus soil for the first one to two weeks, and share your plants with your friends!

What got me started:

It all started in a recently-deceased-woman's backyard:

I arrived at an estate sale without any cash once, something that'd never happened before. I decided to go in with a friend of mine and look around, regardless. We walked through the house. There was something neat about it; many of the plates and tea sets matched each other, and it only took a moment to realize that this woman loved her plants, and her backyard. The backyard was beautiful and well cared for. At least before the estate sale it was. People were trampling through the plants, to get to the items that were actually for sale.

My friend and I started picking up the plants parts that were lying broken in the path of the bargain hunters. I'd seen these plants before. There was a variety, but they all had fleshy bulbous leaves. I'd heard that these kinds of plants were hardy and could grow even after they'd been broken. These plants were succulent plants, though I didn't know the word "succulent" at the time.

We took the pieces of the plants home and, in an effort to ensure their survival, bet that each of us could grow our pieces best--into healthy, rooted, plants. We talked-up our abilities, knowing that we both knew nothing about the specific plant cuttings we'd just acquired.

Thus began my relationship with succulent plants.