After three months of planning and mentally preparing for it, I gave home-made succulent arrangements to a few people last December. What I learned makes me now look at every box store arrangement and think, that’s a beautiful decoration that will be dead in two months. Son and mother - or neighbor and neighbor - will have an awkward conversation next time they visit. It takes about a month to figure out that succulent arrangements are untenable if you didn’t start sorting by (surprise) light and water needs; with water, I’ve built little retaining walls or kept the plant inside its own pot and planted the whole thing underground. Experiments. Here is an arrangement I made for myself at the time. Note that is last month, and it kind of looks rough because I knew I would be repotting it - because of all the reasons mentioned. The plants were a gift, and I was going through a “I want plants rooting over rocks” moment. I was at the point of watering according to one plant’s needs, though there used to be four diff species. This is better. That stretchy one can finally get some light. I also couldn’t pass up that little shiny Haworthia where I got the smaller pot. Also, the amount of effort involved in fitting that white box on my shelf was ridiculous ha.
