Succulents seem to appear everywhere – even fake ones line the shelves of popular stores.
But why pretend to be fake when you can grow live organisms – especially in Bakersfield, where it’s fairly easy due to our climate. Once these low-maintenance plants are out of date, it’s hard to stop collecting them.
“I love succulents because there are so many different varieties, colors, shapes, and sizes,” said Bakersfield resident Bethany Cranville, owner of Life Succs Without Plants in northwest Bakersfield.
Her recent tour of her outdoor spaces featured several creative posters depicting many exotic succulent plants. The names of the plants alone spark the imagination.
In the shade of her covered patio, green strands of string of pearls (Senisio rulianos) spill from atop a tall wrought-iron plant stand. Hanging from a nearby shelving unit, the fatty and purple leaves of a ruby (Othonna Capensis) pendant hang over a light blue bowl. In contrast, beside it, the plump green fingers of a Key Lime pie (Adromischus Cristatus) peek over the top of a sunny yellow flowerpot. Above, bright orange bell-shaped flowers bloom above the swollen, fuzzy leaves of bear’s paw (Cotleydon Tomentosa).
And that’s just part of her personal collection. The rest of her backyard is devoted to her business, where she operates a small greenhouse for growing cuttings and an outdoor workshop for pot plants. While most people were planting flowers and shrubs around the perimeter of their garden, Bethany filled her planting beds with dozens of different succulents that she grows to harvest the cuttings for resale.
Another handy aspect of succulents is the ability to grow your own indoors – just pick up a stem or leaf, stick it shallowly in some soil, and let it take root. It’s really that easy.
For this reason, it’s fun to engage with friends, neighbors, and local gardening groups to exchange cuttings and continue your collection. In Bakersfield, home gardeners often post to the Succulent Sharing Facebook group when they have clippings to share or swap.
One of the members, Cookie Lopez, recently attended a succulent exchange event that the group held at Gastro Park and enjoyed the friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Her children gave many of their primary plants and brought home many more.
On a recent visit to the family’s front garden in Northeast Bakersfield, Ari, 6, wore bright red Wonder Woman gardening gloves and pointed to all her “kids” — tiny plants growing from stems and leaves in various containers.
“They are alive. When the sap separates, it can still grow from the leaves,” she said soberly through the missing upper front teeth.
She and older brother Keelop, 20, got into succulent gardening two years ago when their grandmothers started giving them cuttings from their gardens. Their mom hardly bought any succulent plants—mostly from family, friends, and the Facebook swap group. Their front yard provides a shaded alcove for the family to nurture their growing collection of plants together.
“We’d be here all day and not realize it’s been all day. It’s great because here we don’t really think about all the other things that’s going on,” their mom said.
It’s convenient,” Caleb said.
For Caleb, who has autism, overgrowing plants helped his grief when his aunt passed away. His favorite, Kalanchoe tomentosa, has fuzzy, blue-green leaves with brown edges.
“It is unique compared to the others,” he said. “It’s a fun name too. It’s called the Chocolate Soldier.”
The uniqueness of succulents can be found in leaf shapes, colors, flowers, stems, textures, sizes, and more. Leaves can range from tiny pearls to massive paddles, petite rosettes to long fangs, compact watch chains to undulating fish bones. It can be smooth, spiky, bumpy, or fuzzy. Colors range from dark green to lemon yellow, bright red, and dark purple. The more “sun damage” the plants have, the more red or purple the leaves will appear.
“Morning sun is fine for them. But in the summer, at least here in Bakersfield where it’s really hot, the midday sun is bad for them. They’ll burn,” Cranville warns.
Your best bet for placing succulents outdoors is in areas with diffused light or even shady areas that don’t get a lot of direct sunlight late in the day. To grow succulents indoors, place them in windows facing south for sunlight.
The exotic nature of succulents does not stop at the plant. Containers can be fun to collect.
Cranfill has stacks of plates and mugs that you get from home décor stores, thrift stores, and real estate sales. Any pot can be converted into a vegetable planter as long as there is adequate drainage. It uses special metal and ceramic drill bits to drill holes in the bottoms of containers and turn them into cultivators. Strainers make great planters with their already built-in holes.
A few of the unique farms in Bethany Square include a metal cooking pot, a pig, a bird pigeon, a watering pot, and even a Tonka truck for her husband as a child. They also use coconut fibers to line decorative bird cages, as well as add fantasy garden miniatures to make themed displays.
I once made a beach scene in a planter with a VW minivan, a beach house with rocky paths and a variety of succulents including Aloe, Zebra Plant (Haworthiopsis attenuata), and Silver Dollar Jade (Crassula arborescens).
“I had the intention of selling it. But I loved it so much that I decided to keep it,” said Craneville.
What’s more for the group?
