Guide to growing Cacti and Succulents

As a young boy I remember going to the local garden centre with my mother and seeing the strange succulents growing in small pots at the till. It was there that I received my first tiny succulent plant. It was not long before I inevitably managed to overwater it through too much love. Upset by the loss, we made another trip to the garden centre to find a replacement. Eventually, I started to work out what succulents needed, and my plant began to flourish. Needless to say, one plant became two and before I knew it I had caught the bug and had a bit of ‘succulent fever’.

Succulent plants have a wonderful diversity. Succulence can be found in about sixty different plant families and across over 650 genera within those families, but the majority of succulent plants are found within four families: Aizoaceae, Cactaceae, Crassulaceae, Euphorbiaceae. They have an amazing ability to fascinate people – maybe because they are such oddities, being unlike other plants. I suppose you could say they are a little alien. This is true in some way when you consider the arid environments where they grow: they are from another world or at least not one most people are familiar with. They defiantly capture the imagination with their unique forms, colours, textures and ability to adapt and survive the harsh environments they live in. Add all these factors together in a small, decorative terracotta pot and you have the perfect pot plant – interesting, decorative and thriving (for the most part) on neglect. It’s not hard to see how these plants capture our imagination and, for some of us, they become an absorbing hobby.