Easy Pot Succulents: A Trick For Small Containers

Increasing factors: it&#8217s not my robust suit.

BUT, I have been getting far better above the many years, and with a record-breaking amount of 7 plants in this property nonetheless thriving (workplace, laundry space, kitchen, dining area, AND the residing room, BOOM), my abilities with indoor plants are ever-rising. So, I made the decision last week to retry maintaining succulents alive for May&#8217s small DIY venture.

Thinking back on previous succulent casualties, I believe my largest mistake was possibly a blend of above-watering and not possessing great drainage. So this time, I&#8217m employing a new trick to support resolve the two of people problems — and very best of all, it&#8217s stupidly easy (my favored type of remedy).

A single of the most irritating issues about plants is that they can die. I feel they&#8217re beautiful and absolutely essential for the home (sufficient to preserve attempting even following killing them before), but they&#8230 you know&#8230 need factors to keep alive. And as soon as they die, it&#8217s like burning funds to me. So I get plants that are actually low-cost, but I also attempt to get the correct potting resources. The excellent news is that both of these factors can be easily purchased at a home improvement retailer or large box chain.

What you need to have (some hyperlinks include affiliates):

• succulents in plastic containers (with holes in the bottom)
• decorative pots
• cactus potting soil
• tiny pebbles or vase filler

I picked up these genuinely cute tea cups at Goodwill a minor more than a week ago and considered they&#8217d be great for some little plants. I&#8217ve been functioning on a more substantial plant undertaking out on the patio (to reveal at a later on date), so when some of the smaller sized plant bits broke apart from more substantial plants with roots intact, I recognized it would be the perfect time to consider to pot these small guys. But I wondered: how do I get excellent drainage if there are no holes? As small as these pots were, I wasn&#8217t keen on drilling into the bottom.

The reply hit me when I realized that my achievement with indoor plants has genuinely altered ever since I was lazy intelligent adequate to keep them in their existing plastic containers and just plop them inside a lot more decorative pots. I initially chose to do this thinking that they&#8217d probably die like all of my prior indoor plants, so why bother repotting them when merely getting rid of &amp tossing the plastic pot is easier? To my surprise, they all stayed alive, largely in component to the added area &amp drainage they get from staying in the plastic pots (most men and women will tell you to often add pebbles or even packing peanuts to elevate the plastic container from the bottom of the pot, but I&#8217ve still had rather good good results for more than a yr now without this because I&#8217ve been actually careful not to over-water). The best component though is that you can&#8217t even tell which plants are potted and which aren&#8217t unless you look for it!

dining room fiddle leaf fig

I never mentioned I was sensible about this gardening things. I just try out until one thing operates.

Anyway, I wished to take the very same concept with these succulents, but the major concern was that these tea cups had been tiny. That meant that every time I experimented with to use the ol&#8217 plop-the-plastic-container-in-the-pot-and-walk-away technique, the plastic stuck as well far out of the cup to be hidden.

A pair of scissors changed that pretty quick.

I had some tiny decorative pebbles left over from another undertaking (I purchased them at the dollar keep, FYI) and place one particular on the bottom of the cup. I identified that just one flat-ish one worked well to elevate the hacked off container just so (even if it was a tiny wobbly/crooked, the potting soil would stabilize the rest), and utilized that to allow for some drainage at the bottom. This also eliminated the want for me to have to go out and get items like sand, activated charcoal, and other drainage materials I didn&#8217t feel like tracking down.

Next, I stuck in the plant and filled in the surrounding spot with cactus potting soil. Since succulents are a desert plant, it demands soil that drains truly nicely, and this things supposedly does the trick.

Then, just pick a spot that will get loads of filtered/indirect sunlight (my laundry room window ledge seemed best). I&#8217ve study in a couple of distinct plant forums that in contrast to repotting other plants, it&#8217s a very good notion to wait about a week following repotting a succulent ahead of watering due to the fact it enables the roots time to heal prior to exposure to extra moisture (they thrive in arid climates, remember?). The cactus soil was a minor humid in the bag to get started with, so it&#8217s almost certainly adequate till next week.

Time will inform if this works, but I have also bought some succulent plant food that I can distribute with just a pump from the container, so I really feel somewhat prepared to take care of my new green pets.

They seem great at the moment and brighten up the new laundry area shelves, so I&#8217m pretty pleased with how they turned out. Acquired any of your personal suggestions for how I need to care for these guys increasing forward (plant pun, couldn&#8217t support myself)?

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