It’s quite surprising what you can find in a shed. I don’t know about you, but I think my family are part-womble. With lockdown dragging on, I found myself particularly craving some creativity, so I decided to dive into our shed for some treasures I might turn into a succulent planter. I didn’t have a plan but when I got to a pile of old kitchen tat I realised i’d gold! Would you believe I found 3 matching tea strainers and this fabulous metal funnel!
With a bit of drilling, sawing and a hot glue gun, I created a structure I just knew was going to look fabulous when filled with little succulent babies. I filled the up-turned colander with a mix of soil and shell to aid in drainage and wedged a glass bowl onto before flipping it upside down.
I chose 2 different Echeveria to sit in two of the tea strainers and a Pachyphytum Compactum for the third. I knew that these wouldn’t mind a lack of soil or moisture (and I am little Echeveria obsessed at the moment).
For the funnel, I wanted to have some trailing succulents that would grow over the edge in time so went for the Sedum Dasyphylium and some Burro’s tail. I picked a variagated Crassula Ovata ‘Tri Colour’ for the centrepiece (a new succulent I want to watch develop and learn about). I’m sure it will grow tall and make a beautiful pink statement in time.
For the colander holes, I went a bit rogue! I picked succulents that had long enough stems to bury into the soil beneath including Sedum ‘Jellybean’ and Aeonium Arnoldii and tried giving them some room to spread and grow. I included lots of Echeveria in there too.
I’m looking forward to watching this develop over the next 12 months. It’s taken centre stage on my bedside cabinet near a South facing windowsill. I will post an update in a few months time!
Love it but…when the plants grow in the colander how are you going to remove them for potting on. Decapitation seems so cruel! PS love your website too, wish I had found it before <3
Hi Kim! Thank you so much for your lovely messaging. In all honesty, I don’t have plans to pot any of these plants on… I intend to keep them in here and watch them grow and mature and see how they develop; how they battle for space etc. and how some might bonsai a little. It’s a bit of a self indulgent experiment. You should see how it’s grown in just 3 or 4 weeks already! I plan to do an update blog post in a few months time. (this was our first blog post- hoping to keep them coming!)