Starting a Succulent Garden | Photos by Stevie Dee Photography

How to start a succulent garden...

As most of you know, I live in sunny Southern California. Currently the state of California is in a drought, so I thought it was the perfect time to a succulent garden.

Succulents are water resistant plants that thrive off the heat, what better place than Cali right?

STEP 1 & 2: Fill the bottom of your planter with pebbles. This is important as the pebbles will help drain the water from the soil, and keep your succulents looking fresh!

Once the pebbles are in place, cover it with potting soil.

STEP 3: Choose your succulent. Break off a little bit of the root and plant into the dirt. By breaking the root it will encourage the succulent to grow it's roots into the new soil.

STEP 4 & 5: Arrange your succulents with varying texture and color. Once your succulents are firmly planted, cover the soil with pebbles. This will help maintain moisture in the soil and give your new succulent garden a polished look.

STEP 6: Enjoy your new succulent garden!

I thought about painting this planter black to give it a shabby chic look (it would also match perfectly with my front porch furniture!) BUT that's another project for another time :)

I did a little bit of research on propagating succulents so I thought I would give it a try.

BREAKDOWN: Propagating is a technique used to clean up your overgrown succulents and grow new ones. Basically you take the leaves off the lower part of the stem and lay them flat on top of the soil to "scab" over.

Scabbing is where the ends of the leave harden and eventually sprout new roots.