Succulent Foliage and Plant Forms

Good ground cover: Echeveria, Ice Plant, Sedum, Senecio

Large/decorative: Aeonium, Agave, Aloe, Cotyledon, Crassula, Dudleya, Echeveria, Kalanchoe, Portulacaria

Small, odd form to flowers: Aloe, some Crassula, Hoya, Ice Plants, Kalanchoe

Don't use too many kinds in one planting. Mass a few species instead of putting in one of each. Can combine with other plants that look right with them. Not all succulents like hot sun, and some do not thrive in summer heat even with some shade.

Distinctive foliage and plant forms:

Cotyledon undulata = looks like a pale green, delicately-carved porcelain

some Euphorbias = appear to have exploded to produce their contorted shapes

many Kalanchoes/Gasterias = handsome, mottled foliage

Aloes/Agave = sculptural quality of sword-shaped provides material of striking interest indoors and out

Echeveria = wide, various sizes and shapes. Miniatures to low-branched shrubs to plants with a single rosette of leaves atop a stem. Colors/textures of leaves (every shade of green dusted with red or purple or frosty white with tinges of pink or blue) make for a nice indoor decoration.

Crassula argentea (Jade) = bright green, rubbery leaves

C. aboresans = silvery foliage blotted with margined red

C. treibneri = pale yellow-green leaves that arrange themselves in a perfect cross

C. teres = carries its leaves in a tightly packed column

Dudleya pulverulenta = white leaves (D. candida, D. farinosa are smaller)

Kalanchoes = panda plant (K. tomentosa) = silvery plush leaves stained red at margins

K. marmorata (pen wiper plant) = heavily spotted gray-green leaves

Sedums = cockscomb, donkey tail, dragon blood sedum

Semperviviums= brilliantly colored with leaves tinted crimson or purple or edged in red

Some Aeoniums = have nearly black foliage tinted coppery or bronze-red

Velvet leaved kinds (like Echeverias) = powdery coating on leaves = is easily bruised

Succulents do not have harmful spines (except some euphorbias and a few aloes)

Flowers

Fig marigolds or ice plants are stunning in flowering season and make sheets of color

Agave/aloe = bright flowers on tall spikes

Wax plant (Hoya carrosa) = gracefully displays exotic waxy-white blooms in clusters on a vine-like plant

Euphorbia = usually inconspicuous, become showy when surrounded by colorful bracts as in the pointsetta (E. pulcherrine)

The diversified forms and colorings of succulents are beautiful, sometimes bizarre, but always interesting.

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