so I'm Steve Smith this is Melanie Romero of the cactus center yeah Melanie can you tell us how your cycle hurt take it away alright thank you for coming over um I'm one of the five sisters who works at Cal Pro cactus Center my father started collecting plants as his hobby and then he expanded into a business in 1976 so we've been around like almost 40 years so before actually show you a method how to plant a container garden with cyclones I'm going to show you some of my favorite pieces that I really like to use and I planted this a few days ago and one of the ones I really like is called a circle pot I'm going to show you so it has some that you can hang and you can also sit down on a on a table and so basically this is a very versatile pot that I like using you can drape sucklings you can add succulents anywhere and you can put it indoors your window or you can put it outdoors preferably outdoors for most cyclists this one has a hole so this is what is preferable for most plants is to have a drainage hole so that allows water to come out and not sit in the container this is another one that I made but this is made out of terracotta so this is another type of container that I use at the nursery if you want something very plain but it's very porous which means it will needs more water so this is a cactus garden that I made and that you would water less than something like this which is ceramic and they both have drainage holes which is the key thing you need drainage for a lot of these plans now this one I made is a glass container but it doesn't have a hole but I use this a lot for people who want something a little different and it's glass with rocks on the bottom and a little bit of pumice if you want more drainage so this is a cycling container garden but with made out of glass and then I have this one here this one is actually a rare plant from South Africa this is a huar Thea Zimmy form has variegated but it's in a handmade container and it has a hole in the bottom but we don't water this as much so this is another type of content that we have a lot of handmade containers but with the hole in the bottom okay and then the last thing I'm going to show you is before I start planting my garden is these are tillandsia and this is a type of plant that we sell in our nursery but they're not segments they're actually epiphytes which basically they grow on trees for support but they get nutrients from the air so this doesn't need a container you can just lay like this you know basically this or what I did here was I put a little bit of aux-in bumper decoration and sit in the container and then I just missed it about you just missed it like this a few times a week and then that's all you need so those are some of the plants that I want to show you so right now I'm going to do is show you how to plant a succulent container garden so this is a method that you can use at home and you can use any of your sucklings at home you can use cactus and I'm going to show you how to plant a container garden using all these a variety of succulents now this one has a hole on the bottom what I do is I put a screen to cover the and this is our mix our exclusive mix that we sell at the nursery and it doesn't have any peat moss and why does that peat moss peat moss is not good for succulents it's too acidic and it's too dry it also holds too much water and this one has pumice perlite it has fur bark it has sand it has micro hazel fungi and fertilizer so you can get this at our nursery you can't really get this anywhere else because we make our own man I'm going to here what I do is I put about fat half let that much I might need a little bit more so what I do is I picked a nice container that will fit all these planets it looks like up too many plans from one container but it will fit so when I start off with I started with a tall plant in the back you can put this in the center but I'll do it like the basic one where you put that in the back and this plant and what I do is I try to loosen as much soil but I'm not breaking a lot of the roots even if I do break some of the roots there's still enough roots for it to survive and to grow in okay and this is a very common plant that you see in stores it's called kalanchoe II and they come in variety of colors I just basically picked this color to kind of match the pot you can use any nd color that's right okay so I'm going to bend like this use it for me so you don't want to plant it too low but you want to plant it high enough so that you can see it okay a little more soil let a little more soil it when you're planting it so okay then what I do is then I add something in the center that will be like that's my main plant for the center like this and if you finally if it defense too large you can always trim some of the leaves like this so it doesn't hurt the plant a little more soil just a little bit okay then this one is you might see this in a lot of the yards it's called a blue chalk sticks it's a good ground cover three drought-tolerant and this in the gum pit in the back that it's going to grow tall so that goes back there it's really pretty has like white flowers okay then another plant that I use is um this one it's called a Golden Globe this one has like lonely yellow orange flowers I start off small because this gets kind of big but in a container they stay contained they don't grow as fast so I picked this for height but also the color and they suck loads like to be crowded it doesn't matter if you have a lot of plants in the container if you can always adjust and take out the plants that you want just depending on your needs this one is a collie green rose and they get about 8 inches high but I'm just going to use two of these and I put this right in the the center here kind of give it a little bit of a color okay it's kind of it's easier when I find it's right ok and this is another this is an extra very hybrid and it stays at pink color really tall pink flowers so you see how much soil I'm not taking off to take so it can fit into this pot but there's still a lot of root here you can use them some of that soil that you took out put it back in here it's still good ok and this one here is called extra very Naja Llosa or painted extra birria it's very pretty has orange flowers I just stick that in here can anyone see you okay all right this one is in a chip area as well I use a lot of itchy berries because we notice these are small and compact they stay nice in a nice wide container the one I put in the back is going to get taller but I've gave me enough room so anything that's going to stay low I put them in the front so you can see now this one here is your pie see this alot it's called donkey's tail this is a hanging plant as pink flowers what I do and a lot of my garden I tend to put it at the edge because it's going to hang so this is a good plant if you want something for hanging I'm going to stick this back here see I'm just draping it on the side here and this plant is very fragile you'd notice a lot of the leaves are coming off so what I do instead of throwing these things away I just stick it back in there and that's going to grow so this is one of these plants that falls apart easily but they grow once just by this little cedar this little leaf you're sorry that just goes back in there alright and one more soil and I still have more room for the succulence so what I'm going to add is what I call this one I use a lot I use this a let's call it crash lab buttons on a string and I use this as fillers like when you go over the floor as they fill in with little flowers this is what I use to fill in space I saw like this here so you can really put this anywhere thinking about eight inches tall yeah and they hang so I just stick it like this and they like that I mean it was soil okay more so in here the soil is very dry which is what I want I don't want it too wet because wet soil is very hard for me to plant now to some people this looks very full I can actually add more plants if I want to it will accommodate the pot is big enough and deep enough because I'm looking at the volume and the depth of the container which is perfect for all these plants so I can actually add more I check it actually add another one of these if I want to to make it more full and all these succulents work really well together so this is going to grow tall too but it won't go very fast right it is still big enough for it yes you don't have to worry about transplant like a muse another year yeah and when it gets too big you can always trim it in the container this is going to get long you can always trim it so then let's say this is a this is a completed garden so when I'm done then I add top dressing which is basically good for decoration but it's also good for keeping the soil together when you water so right now I'm going to just use Blackrock you can use any color you want some people prefer not to put any rocks they just want soil but I prefer something because when you water it all the soil is going to splatter out so it's easier to put something sand or anything but you have to put something to keep everything together so this is sort of the finished touch when I put all the rocks then you have a nice completed garden rocks all around here then watering I I can water it now because this was dry and they're fully rooted so you can water it when you someone bought this you can borrow when you get home so you had to put rocks inside here okay no more rocks behind here and then you can just spray this a little bit to keep it together they have nice little container garden here hmm now um I'm going to show you basically or talk to you a little more about the care how to care for this in any of these other Gardens the basic care for this if someone wanted to make a garden they want to figure where to put it I would prefer this outside outside in a patio in a filter light not endorsed this is not an indoor garden this is something that you put outside in a covered patio indoors what happens is if you don't have the right lighting these plants start getting really skinny and tall and then without the right light the plants won't grow so if you don't have enough light or air inside a house then these plants will not live very long maybe six months and then you have to get outside okay so lighting is very important I will put this outside in a filter light and then water once a week okay something like this plant for example can be indoors and you can put this on a shelf or something but this needs more light yes right water yeah this one I was just showing you can freshen up a little bit you want to freshen up but water like actually take some water and pour it in there around it yeah and I water this once a week outside indoors someone actually wants it this indoors you can put it indoors near a window but you have to take it outside like once or twice a month for air yeah air is a key thing if you don't have air these plants start getting really skinny and then the leaves start falling so it's not very good now in terms of fertilizing I have brought two types of fertilizer because you do need to fertilize succulents they do need food because they're living just like us so they need fertilizer but what we recommend this is what I like because sometimes I don't have time to mix this every month with water I use this it's a granular fertilizer and you do this according to the pot size and you just sort of sprinkle it like that and then that will dissolve right into the soil you do this every three months so nutrients are very important for the plants so this when you do every three months during the growing season this one you do once a month you mix this with water okay you can match our season here very important yeah these are all mainly from Mexico and the ones from like South Africa but typically we fertilize during March through October March doctor yes yeah in March October and then what else I want to mention is the watering the key thing is if you notice someone always asks me how do you know when you don't give enough water when the Leafs start getting really shriveled and they fall apart the leaves start stripping up that means you've enough water with cactus the same thing if this starts shriveling up that means not enough water but I always go through this is my general rule of thumb is you always want to under water and then over water because when you overwater you can't take the water out it's easier to add water so that's better for all these plants let me see anything else besides light watering fertilizer and you got the soil any questions or fertilizer this is a slow-release fertilizer that you mix into the soil just we need two months every three months during the growing season and this one I say was once a month yeah that's for allies that we use this has nitrogen phosphorus and and potash so this is very important for all the plants and uses together you only used one or the other yeah I preferred this one because it's easier because it's once every three months instead of having to mix with water if you have a like a lot of plants like in the ground is easier to sprinkle it but some people prefer this because they actually don't mind mixing it a teaspoon to a gallon with water and so and this one we actually sell it or nursery we couldn't get any we have the bulk sizes as well well one thing I do want to mention is I didn't actually add hummus hummus is something that adds drainage and holds doesn't when you water it it's going to evaporate so I didn't add pumice here because at a whole the only way I would add pumice is something like this on the bottom because this will allow the water to evaporate and it won't hold in that extra moisture so pumice is only if you don't have drainage and drainage is very important for all these plans so this is what would add if I don't have drainage that's called pumice yeah is that still the same function as perlite yes we actually have pumice and perlite mix into our soil but perlite a little smaller yeah the first was long so any well soon Amos um another thing someone always asked me is what's the difference between a cacti in a second does anyone know the difference yes they're prickly they're nasty they have spines but always so I'm going to ask me this well say well cactus cacti have these little aerials they have specialized areas which have the spines and the leaves and where the kak the little baby can to come out of and succulents they don't have that they don't have these little areas where the spines come on up they just have these leaves and basically the leaves is where they store the water and within the cactus the water is stored in these little and in their roots so that's one difference between a cactus in the segment besides not one has spine cinnamon doesn't so that's an one of the common things I always ask me what's the difference panic cactus in this size um any other questions yes uh as I was coming over there was a gardener at house down the street he was cutting out your blue chalk a blue chalk sticks yes and I was almost felt like stopping and getting a couple could I then route those plants from those yeah yes let me show you a cutting that we this is a fresh cutting until I don't have a blue chopsticks here but like these are cuttings they're fresh so that someone the gardener gave you at one of the cuttings you can't plan it right away you have to wait for it to callus on the bottom and then you can plan it into a cactus mix it just dries outside yeah you don't want to add water to it you just want to lay it on the piece of paper like this outside not in full Sun and right now it's fresh but we'll have a little dry skin on the bottom and then you stick it right into the soil not too deep and don't water it right away so this is something that I'm you can take when we finish the talk you can have one or two and then you could take any rise you want and you can plant them like in preferably going to pot like this a plastic pot is easy and stick it right in there yeah usually a day about a day yeah the ones that take a long time to come callous is if I took a cutting like this and I cut it for you the stem is too thick the stem in here is a lot thinner like this see that the thinner under stem it's easier to dry to root actually takes a couple weeks yeah it takes a couple weeks you don't want to water it right away so if I missed anything else okay another thing I wanted to mention some people always ask me what's a good indoor plant because I've given you options for outdoors so if you have a place inside you can actually pick succulents that would do well indoors I don't have any examples there I should Russia sands of areas and how worthiest this is how were Thea this will be a family that's called a war Thea this will be okay indoors as long as you put it in your window but it can survive longer than something like this another plant is this little plant here I'll show you inside here this one here it's another hvar Thea which can do well indoors but I mixed it with other cyclin this is one plant it's called a war Thea Sam this one they can do well indoors and other cyclones that have to show you but that's another option and another one is this one if you really needed something for indoors cacti actually survived longer than succulents that's what I heard and that's what I've seen a lot is they seem to last longer but when they don't get enough sunlight this will get skinny so that's another option they're saying you had a question on this one that it does best with filtered light in to attack it would you well for example I got a Western exposure shade so what did you okay an afternoon sunlight it should be okay it should be okay in western but not the northern not a northern facing window but if you have a western facing window actually I'm sorry okay yeah no oh no covering if it gets folder exon then you have to add more water just watering more yeah the only thing you might see it might start burning a little bit the leaves oh yeah they might burn a little bit because the this holes the only thing that's really a drought tolerant and frost tolerant is this plant right here the blue chalk sticks that one is drought tolerant and more frost tolerant but these well actually these are more fragile okay more direct Sun they could tolerate more direct Sun and they can be indoors a little bit longer than cyclones but they also will get too skinny beds in full Sun right but their eye those kind of I think there's some cacti that can take more full Sun out there I don't have been Huntington Library in a long time but some of the barrels and Faro cactus and taller different type of variety that can take and they adapt it to that environment where they can live out there in full Sun the roots are getting water this is more of a sort of a tames kind of garden that they made from the nursery which basically they are more fragile yeah they won't be able to last that long in full Sun especially this plant here which I didn't really talk about it's called the moon cactus this will only last about maybe 3 4 years yeah his lifespan is about 3 or 4 years but it's pretty sorry I said yeah any other question yeah I live in the Northeast so they'll do for me but what if they stay indoors under ideal conditions mm-hmm and you put them outside in the summer would that do or yes so it during the wintertime you can bring it indoors yes that's fine and if you can't open the windows a little bit and then doing that gets warmer take it outdoors yes if it's good now that one I would keep it in Torrance I would keep it indoors yeah yeah but I could do it you could do it you have any covered patio at all it's covered up okay it's still outdoors it's still too cold yeah oh no it cannot believe no no we have to bring it these grow in a covered fish glass fish tank on the cover allowing for condensation to water the plant so it's it's a fish tank is there any air ole it um yes it can but I won't last that long it's something similar to this right but it's yes right water's right I would just water it less and it would be fine inside that glass container and then you don't have drainage right so you would add rocks or pumice that will help yes I have people actually bring in their little glass fish tanks and they want to plant something in it so we've done that before from them but they realize they might have to change the planet they had to make replacements with the succulents that drainage is a big yeah problem you don't have drainage that's when they start getting over water it's Jenna and a lot of people bringing in over water so actually before we leave I want to make sure that you pick up a free succulent cutting or true and remember before you take it home let it dry on a piece of paper or something and then plant it in cactus mix don't use potting mix potting mix is really bad for succulents they will rot and then eventually die so that's why someone says to me why go to Home Depot and I can get like ten dollars or 20 pounds worth of cactus mix but they have peat moss in it which is very acidic so our mix is really good for all the succulents and they'll live longer okay and you pick up a care sheet and one of our cards and come visit us at our nursery thank you