Five years ago, after removing the last of our lawn, I planted the area on the east side of our back patio with small succulents, including two 6-packs (12 plugs) of Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi Verde'. The Aeoniums thrived and grew much larger than I'd anticipated based on my prior experience with 'Kiwi Verde's' flashier cousin, 'Kiwi'. In contrast to 'Kiwi', which produces relatively few blooms each year, 'Kiwi Verde' produces a larger number of blooms. This year it produced a profusion of them. As Aeoniums are monocarpic, these can distort the look of the plant clusters.
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| With all those flowers springing from individual succulent rosettes, the succulents lost their neat mounded appearance. However, the bees love the flowers so I left the area alone until the flowers had faded. |
Once the flowers were spent, the plants looked terrible so I decided to start over from scratch.
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| As the Aeoniums' roots spread far and wide, removing the plants meant removing many of the surrounding succulents as well. |
After I tore out the plants, I harvested a mountain of cuttings, most larger than those I'd purchased in those original 6-packs. As I didn't have any better idea what to plant in the area I'd cleared, I decided to replant some of the 'Kiwi Verde' cuttings but add a border of 'Kiwi' cuttings.
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| Two of the flats shown here were filled with 'Kiwi Verde' cuttings and one with 'Kiwi' cuttings, collected from elsewhere in my garden |
'Kiwi' doesn't grow as tall as 'Kiwi Verde' and it works well as an edging plant.
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| Before replanting, I added planting mix in an effort to improve the sandy soil somewhat. In addition to planting the Aeoniums, I removed two offsets from the large Yucca 'Blue Boy' shown in the background and replanted those in bed to echo the three Yuccas that were already there. I considered massing more blue fescue grass (Festuca glauca) here in lieu of the succulents but the fescue doesn't do as well in the sandy soil. |
I tweaked the smaller bed on the other side of the path to roughly mirror the succulent plants in the larger bed.
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| There's already a border of Aeonium 'Kiwi' just beyond the Euphorbia 'Sticks on Fire' so adding more 'Kiwi' here should create greater cohesion |
I like the lower profile of the beds surrounding the path as they don't interfere with the view of the new Ginkgo tree. However, if I come across an interesting groundcover that can tolerate the sandy soil in the area adjacent to the patio, I may change it out again.
I can always use the leftover succulent cuttings elsewhere - or give them away.
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| I used up all the 'Kiwi' cuttings I'd taken but I put the remaining 'Kiwi Verde' and some Aeonium arboreum and Euphorbia 'Sticks on Fire' cuttings out for neighbors to take. The first cuttings went before I'd even finished putting everything out. |
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