Top Ten Styling Tips for Collectors

(If you are one of those that collect something other than succulents, replace the word “pad” with the word “branch” and jump on in there.)

1. Give it a trim: Your opuntias and other hardy cacti may suffer damage as they shrink from winter water loss. Larger varieties tend to droop and shred at their joints; smaller ones recover better with smaller strings of pads, you can also more easily prune out damaged or dead pads at this time. Prune pad-type plants back to 2 to 3 pads maximum length. If you choose, you can pick the healthiest of these pads for propagation.

2. Top it off: If you use top dressing on your hardy beds, fill in any voids or thin spots to reduce erosion, strengthen the anchor points of your plants, and improve the barrier to invasive weeds and nuisance “droppings” of the smaller cholla type plants.

3. Step back and give it a look-over: Judge the performance of your garden layouts; did the overall shape, elevation, concentration and mix of plants, and their surroundings, live up to expectations? Maybe a little off the side or a few more highlights would give you the flair it needs.

4. Do the clothes make the look? Empty all pots of plants that didn’t make it. These pots are now available for dressing up any new or maturing plants. Do you recycle used cactus soil mix or discard all? I tend to recycle used mix from disease free plants, pouring off the top dressing for the gravel component in the next batch, removing vegetative matter from the remainder. This is blended with new mix at something less than 50/50.

5. Maybe a little bleach job? Clean and sterilize used pots with a 1 to 10 bleach and water solution to keep problems from popping up with new residents.

6. Get “In the Know”: Use those long winter nights to seek out new specimens, new ways to present plants; perhaps, go against the grain, study training your specimen in a new direction.

7. How about a new ensemble? Mentally sift through your smaller specimens; plan new dish gardens or to rework your existing dishes. Take time to pull plants together in different arrangements, document the arrangement that best fits the dish, sizes, and elevations of a good dish garden. Photograph the layout if you are unable to assemble the dish before spring.

8. Part it on the side? How would paring the plant back or shearing sections off improve your specimen? Eliminate standard growth from your monstrose or crestate specimens, with cuttings to be discarded or potted up after curing a while.

9. Take care of those split ends: Keep close watch on your plants throughout the winter, prepare to take care of, at the proper time, any damage from wind, ice or other calamities.

10. Plan to work on that tan: As winter wanes, plan out your exposure to sun for plants wintered over in low light areas. Stage plants in locations with incrementally more sun exposure. Nothing is as unsightly as those brown spots caused by too much sun, too soon. This process may take up to 3 weeks.