I don’t know about you, but I love succulents! I am always looking at books and magazines, lusting after some of the gardens full of succulents and cactus in California and other points further west and south than Red Wing, Minnesota. Summer is a great time to have fun with these beautiful and often unusual looking plants. Succulents are drought tolerant, require little care, aren’t a big fan of bugs and usually can be overwintered indoors.
If you are looking for succulents that survive our Minnesota winters look for plants like Hens and Chicks and low growing or upright sedums. These plants also have the same drought tolerance of their warm climate cousins and upright varieties like ‘Autumn Joy’ and ‘Mr. Goodbud’ attract butterflies with their late summer blooms.
My latest project involved an old cement chimney block we dug up in the backyard. I dug out my Hens and Chicks, made a spot to slightly sink in the chimney block, filled it with soil and had fun with my many different plant varieties. The plants I didn’t use got stuck back in the ground. We will see if it survives the winter, but I figure anything that doesn’t survive in the cement block can be replaced with divisions from the remaining plants next spring.