That's right, you guessed it....This post is about planting small pots with succulents! heehee.

I decided to plant fewer patio pots this year and I also decided that I would go with succulents that are not only adorable, but they can live with less water and thrive on hot sun.

So yesterday was pot day. It's always a messy affair.

TIP #1 Keep some potting soil on hand and mix it with some water to make it moist...not soggy. You can see above in my purple bin, I've mixed in water with my soil knife. My soil knife is priceless! Can't work without it.

Tip #2 a twofer: crinkle up a plastic pot and place in the bottom of your pot. It will a) permit water to drain through without causing a huge amount of dirt to also drain through and b) it adds volume in your pot so that it doesn't have to be weighed down with enormous amounts of soil

crinkled plastic pot in bottom

cover with a bit of potting soil before placing in plants

Tip #3 When placing a plant into your garden or into a pot, ROUGH-UP the roots so they have a chance to grow and spread out. Often its roots are bound and dry from sitting at the plant center for too long, so you want to give it its best shot.

Uh-OH! Where did my trusty soil knife go? And where are my clippers???

heehee.

Tip #4 Okay, I don't really have a Tip #4! But here is my final display!!

I LOVE my new gray metal containers. The secret to these are that I planted the plants in a plastic container that is just sitting inside the boxes :-) Anyway, aren't they pretty?

another view

Here's the pot that I used to demo the plastic crinkled pot secret:

okay, one more view of the gray boxes

So, now I hope you've enjoyed my POT tips :-)

Happy Gardening!

@gardenlady

(all photos from my iphone 6+)