Succulentamentality

Succulentamentality

Succulence is said to be tender, juicy and tasty. But succor is about help when in distress, of military reinforcements and of giving aid especially to those who need it the most. The help it represents came from Latin, through French and into Middle English. Succulent plants are those which are engorged with water to last them for long periods of time in arid climates. They are by their very nature, drought resistant plants, which is probably why they often get lumped with cacti by non-horticulturalists like me. I would have said that not all succulents are cacti, but that most cacti are succulents, but that is not really so. Botanists distinguish clearly between succulents and cacti even though they both store water in their leaves, stems, branches and roots and they are both draught-resistant. It turns out that succulents are everywhere in nature though cacti are not necessarily so. The reason is that all plants store water in their leaves, stems, branches and roots, but it occurs in different degrees. If you go looking for succulents you will find things that look and feel (ouch!) like cacti, others that look more or less like any other plant, just a little more corpulent and those which look surprisingly other-worldly and as though they belong only in a Dr. Seuss book.

I was aware of succulents before I moved out here to San Diego, but I have gained a whole new appreciation for them since living out here for six months. Everywhere I look in our two plus acre garden landscape I see succulents in every corner. They never seem overgrown or out of place, but always look so artistic, delicate in an almost Fischer-Price sort of way. It is easy to see how Ted Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss), who lived in nearby Rancho Santa Fe thought that succulents looked child-like and artistic at the same time. He glorified the strangest of the succulent plants around him and gave them an air of fantasy through his drawings of odd little people and creatures surrounded by odd little curious plants. The funny thing is that the people and creatures were indeed fantasies of exaggeration, but the plants were pretty much as they appear in nature. Such is the strange and unusual look of many succulents, that seem to almost be made of plastic.

Succulents look very robust compared to most seedling plants in little three-inch-square starter plastic pots jammed cheek to jowl in plastic trays in hothouses. It looks like you could knock them around and they would be just fine. In reality, those thick and robust-looking parts are actually quite delicate and one is warned not to handle the leaves as any scratches or marks last the life of the plant and never go away. Wow, that does seem touchy. But these guys are so damn cute, I will now think of them like little chubby babies with a big soft spot on top of their skull. They are also all different colors ranging from every shade of green and light blue to purple, red and orange.

I have become so enamored with succulents and river stones that I have decided that every bare spot I see in our garden needs to be filled with one or the other. My back is aching from installing another 800 pounds of Arizona river stone around and about the garden this weekend. These stones if bought at retail, come in 75-pound plastic bags. That seems like no big deal to lift, but do it all day and tell me that. When I was in college I spent two summers doing landscape work at the Cornell Plantations arboretum and one of our big Spring activities was hauling 75-pound logs from fallen trees out of the gorges (200-300 feet down) and we did it all day long for 8-12 hours. Time is the great leveler or all manly pursuits. On the subject of river stones, I am so enamored with them that I bought three big plastic bins into which I emptied one bag each of 1/4-1/2”, 1-3” and 3-5” stones. Don’t ask me why I feel I need a fresh supply of each at the ready, but I now do and can rush in for any emergency river stone needs I have. Being stone-tired, I turned to succulents today.

Kim and I went to Vista Succulents, one of many succulent specialty nurseries in the area. I liked their specialization and the note on their website that said I could get up to a 75% discount for picking these plants up in person. Mailing succulents must be very involved. We went to a remote set of hothouses and found table after table of $1, $2 and $3 succulents and a few specialty items like a Starfish Succulent that cost a few bucks more. We kind of overdid it and bought about 100 succulent plants, so many that Kim needed to keep one tray on her lap since Cecil refused to hold a tray. That should have been enough for one outing, but Kim needed me to drive to the local feed store where she bought a very large bag of Quail food. Yep, we have a quail family here on Quail View Drive. Imagine that. This family just gave birth to 10 little confused baby quail, which at about 1.5” are a good match for our baby succulents. I say they are confused because they are so young that following mama quail is still a challenge as they run around by little bumper cars on the driveway. So now they have enough Quail Chow to take them to adult Quailhood.

Once we got our 100 succulents home to acclimate to our hilltop before we pop them into the ground tomorrow, we set them in the shade. Normally I would give baby plants a nice drink while they waited for planting but the succulent breeders specifically told us not to water them for another week or so since she said they do not like “wet feet.” We had too much planting energy at that point in the day, so we went to the big nursery at the base of our hill to get Kim something she wanted for her upcoming birthday, which is an Ocotillo. I know what you’re thinking, what a great guy I am to buy my wife an Ocotillo for her birthday. While Ocotillo shopping we also looked at a massive succulent called a Dracaena Draco or Dragon plant that was in a six-foot square planter and fetched $6,000. I had succulents on the brain and somehow thinking I might have the biggest and most elaborate succulent on the block was very tempting to me. Then we saw a Crepe Myrtle tree in vibrant red. We were hooked. Those red flowers adorn that evergreen tree for at least four months or all summer. We couldn’t stand it. I asked if it could be classified as a succulent and was told I could call it whatever I wanted once I bought it.

So, we walked out with a big old Ocotillo (native to the Sonoran desert) and a big old Crepe Myrtle tree (native to the Indian subcontinent) for either side of our entry area. Let’s be clear, we needed neither, but when you get into that succulentamentality you can’t help yourself and you want all the succulents you can reasonably afford. I left the Dragon plant, but I suspect that when the nursery gal comes to survey the landing zones for the two purchases, she will tell me that she has found a smaller cheaper Dragon plant that will look perfect over there in the garden. I’m expecting her to be impressed by our cactus and succulent garden, but can’t be sure that her succulentamentality is as aesthetic as it is commercial. We shall see. If I need to I’ll saunter up to our massive Madagascar Bottle Tree. That’s sure to impress her.