Succulents for Beginners: Growing an Indoor Garden

Growing a garden can be a lot of fun, and you can even grow plants indoors! Indoor gardens are great if your family lives in an apartment or your yard doesn't have a lot of outdoor space. The key to planting an indoor garden is picking the right plants. Inside your home, the air is drier, and there's usually less natural light. This is a great environment for planting a succulent garden. But what are succulents? Succulents are plants that have fat or thick leaves, roots, or stems that store water. That's why they do so well when they're planted indoors! The type of succulent that most people recognize is the cactus. These prickly plants are always succulents, but that doesn't mean that every succulent is a cactus. There are a lot of different succulent plants that can be used for an indoor garden, and they come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Some have interesting leaf patterns, or their leaves may be ruffled, round, or shaped like needles. They can be different colors, too, like blue-green, red, nearly black, pink, or multicolored. Some may even have colorful flowers that bloom at certain times of the year.

Creating a home garden with succulents is a fun project to do with your parents. They can help choose the right ones, which is important for success. Some succulents do better than others when they are planted in places with low light, like the inside of a house. These are the best choice for an indoor garden. An example of succulents that do well in low light is the pearly dots plant. It's called this because of the white pearly dots that are found on its dark green leaves. Another succulent, called the zebra cactus, looks almost like the pearly dot, but it has white stripes like a zebra! Even though these do well in lower light, they'll still need to get some sunlight every day. This means the garden should be put near a window for four to six hours, depending on the type of succulent. During the day, when you're at school, is a good time for succulents to get some sun. Be careful when moving your succulent garden so that you don't drop it, or ask a parent to place it by the window for you. Other succulents that will do well in low light or in any type of light include the jade plant, panda plant, and hen and chicks plant. For your garden, you can plant one type of succulent or several kinds. When you buy your succulents, ask the people you're buying them from which ones are easiest to care for and which are good for beginners like you.

Once you have your succulents, it's time to start planting! There are a lot of containers that you can create a garden in. The container has to be big enough for the number of succulents that you want to use. Be creative! It's fun to use your imagination and pick a container that's different. It can be a shallow bowl or dish. A teacup (ask your parents first!), a fishbowl, or even the bed of a toy truck will do. It also has to have good drainage, which means that water can easily drain out the bottom. Your parents can drill holes in the bottom and cover it with small rocks. The rocks will help with drainage and will be covered by the soil that the plants will be planted in. After the succulents are planted, use the right amount of water to moisten them. Use too much water and it can make the plants of your garden sick or make them die.

You and your parents can learn more about growing an indoor succulent garden by clicking any of the links below.

Written By Ava Rose.