Succulents: Water-efficient plants for your garden

I ONCE loathed succulents. Detested them. Didn’t want them in my garden at any cost, says TONY FAWCETT.

Super spread: This bath planter is filled with wonderful succulents that can go for long periods without water. Picture: Tony Fawcett

I ONCE loathed succulents. Detested them. Didn’t want them in my garden at any cost.

To be fair, it was cacti — the often spiny and thoroughly unwelcome looking branch of the succulent mob — that sparked my loathing.

I reckon it was because they conjured images of harsh, inhospitable landscapes seen in nearly every second B-grade Hollywood western, and that’s not what I wanted in my lush, inviting dream of a garden.

I mention this now because I was wrong. There, I’ve said it.

I’m still not fussed about cacti, ­although I do love the sight of those round golden barrel cacti (Echinocactus grusonii), sometimes cruelly known as mother-in-law’s cushion, that look like spiked and rolling 10-pin bowling balls when planted down a slope.

But succulents — I kind of love them now.

It was Sedum “Autumn Joy”, with its rusty red broccoli-like heads in autumn and amazing drought resistance, that brought my change of heart.

I figured any plant that could look so magnificent and healthy on a mere sniff of water must have something going for it.

Then I met a fellow called Attila Kapitany, an excitable, passionate and delightfully eccentric promoter of succulents, who opened my mind to the variety of form and use of these fascinating plants.

What Attila, an author and plants guru, doesn’t know about succulents isn’t worth knowing.

I saw him growing colourful, creeping ground covers such as ice plant (Lampranthus) that I had never used, Australian native succulents and even old-fashioned pigface (Carpobrotus) that looked vibrant and so usable all over again.

I confess I still don’t know the names of many of my newly discovered succulent friends, but somehow I don’t really care.

I suspect some garden purists are disdainful of succulents because many are so damn easy to grow and propagate. The mystery on which some “experts” thrive has evaporated.

With so many succulents it’s a case of pluck a leaf or tip, or break away an offset or “baby”, whack it in the ground and voila — a new plant.

Now I’m growing bowls of succulents — echeverias, crassulas, graptopetalums, aeoniums, all crammed together — which I once swore I’d never do.

I even take pride in a shadow-box, knocked up from wood scraps, with tiny terracotta-potted succulents that hangs on a wall.

Being a bit of a lazy gardener, I love how succulents cope with a few missed weeks of watering, so unlike my potted azaleas and clematis that descend into a pitiful tizz if a single day’s worth is missed. And they’re so hard to kill.

When the head of one of my two wonderfully architectural potted foxtail agaves (Agave attenuata) fell off, I pulled out the stem and planted the head back in the pot. Twelve months later you wouldn’t know the difference.

Succulents are good for garden potterers who get off on creating a few cameo corners without spending a heap.

I loathe the overly kitsch, but I do like the simple style so many succulents display.

My latest project is to grow a bowl of the amazing spoon-leaf shaped Senecio amanuensis with its intense pink edgings against cool lime green.

It won my heart when I saw it six months back in a pot in the fascinating Mornington Peninsula coastal garden of designer Fiona Brockhoff.

So smitten was I, on the way home I visited the all-things-succulent store, Collector’s Corner at Gardenworld in Springvale, and demanded a couple of plants.

“Do you have Senecio amaniensis?” I inquired. “Never heard of it,” came the response.

Referred to another, the new response was the same.

“Show me on your iPhone,” she instructed, which I did.

“Ah, you mean Purple Passion,” she exclaimed, quoting its common name.

That’s another thing I like about succulents. Minimal pretence.

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