Worry-free summer pots: Succulents and yuccas make ideal container plants

Sunset, May, 2002 by Steven R. Lorton

Have you ever gone out of town for a fun summer weekend and then worried that your container plants would fry in the meantime? To avoid that scenario, we devised plantings that need little irrigation or any other care. In fact, the plantings shown here have lived happily for a decade. They feature specimens from three unthirsty groups of plants--sedums, sempervivums, and yuccas--all of which display handsome foliage year-round, with a bonus of seasonal bloom.

The cast-concrete containers were filled with a mixture of 2 to 3 parts potting soil to 1 part turkey grit, a material for raising poultry (sold at feed stores; if unavailable, substitute finely crushed gravel). Located on a sunny walkway in a Pacific Northwest garden, the plants get by mainly on rainfall, but during summer hot spells, they appreciate a good drink weekly.

After blooms fade, cut back the stems that bore flowers. Then, to promote dense, robust growth, fertilize with a balanced liquid plant food. Feed a second and even a third time in mid- and late summer.

RELATED ARTICLE: Sedums. West Coast native Sedum spathulifolium has spoon-shaped silvery gray to bluish green leaves blushed with deep rose, and it bears light yellow flowers in spring and summer. Hardy in Sunset climate zones 2-9, 14-24. Cousin S. sieboldii has blue green leaves with red edges and bears dusty pink flowers in autumn. Zones 2-9, 12, 14-24.

Sempervivums. These form rosettes of waxy evergreen leaves and star-shaped summer flowers. Sempervivum tectorum, commonly called hens and chickens, comes in dozens of named varieties that bear 2- to 5-inch-wide rosettes in colors ranging from gray green to purplish red; reddish flowers are borne on 2-foot-tall stems, Cousin S. arachnoideum has gray green rosettes crisscrossed with filaments resembling cobwebs (the plants common name is cobweb houseleek); bright red flowers are borne on 4- to 6-inch stems. Both species grow in zones 2-24.