Announcing something totally new and awesome for Do It Yourself Crafts – the Summer of Succulents has begun!
We know it’s a thing – we’ve seen in on Insta and all over Pinterest and every where we go, there they are – these beautiful, interesting, cool plants. And, apparently, pretty hardy. Have we found a plant that even Julia can keep alive? Apparently so.
Because, to be honest – I love these. They are so interesting and seem to have personalities. Can a plant have a personality, or just when we make it have an interesting home?
We know this will be an evolution, but we think we’ve got it set up so that creating a fun planting for your home is as easy as one, two, three.
First, you’ll pick out your container. Now, this is pretty fun, because we have some fun shapes – but you can also use pottery that you’ve painted, too. (More on that in a bit.) After you pick out your shape, we’ll start planting.
For the containers with clear sides, where we’re going to decorate with sand and rocks, we’re going to plant down inside a small plastic cup. This makes things MUCH easier and I can’t even tell you how happy I was when one of my friends shared this idea with me. You have No Idea what a hot mess I was making of things before I learned this trick (let’s just say – it was a TOTAL MESS and made me reconsider why anyone would want to plant ANYTHING and this made me a happy woman, truly). You have to put rocks down in the bottom of the cup, because succulents DO NOT like to have wet roots. Looooots of drainage needed, so you want to have at least an inch of rocks. Then, you are going to add the soil – this is a good draining soil, too, perfect for succulents.
After that, you’ll pick out your plant (which to me is the most fun part because did I mention I feel like these have personalities? And that I have a tendency to name them? That’s normal, right?). Now, you don’t just pull the plant from the container and plop it down – you want to work the roots out a little, making them long and strong. And if they have leaves that are brown and not looking good, we’ll pull those off, too. We won’t leave* you hanging here either, if you have questions – ask!
(*see what I did there?)
So, now your plant is planted, and we need to decorate its new home. We’ll secure the cup down in the bottom of the container with a glue dot, and give it a little drink of water to help with the stress of replanting.
Decorating – this is where the fun can really show. We have all sorts of things you can use to decorate – rocks and sand and gravel, and all are cool to put between the glass and the plastic cup holding your plant. Some things don’t work well for layering – flat rocks just sort of disappear and well don’t ask how I know.
Before you start adding the fun stuff, we’ll show you how to use spoons or funnels as needed.
When it’s all finished, you’ll be ready to take it home. Cool thing? Doesn’t need constant attention. Water it once a week, maybe every other week. We will send you home with info to keep your plant happy!