With succulents, no water, no sweat

WASHINGTON — Container plantings bring color and joy to every patio. For city dwellers with small patios and balconies, or renters with no need to invest in the landscape, they may be the only garden to have.

But the watering needs are a burden. In the sapping heat of July and August, pots may require a soak twice a day to prevent annuals and tropicals from wilting. And what happens when you go on vacation, or have to travel for work?

Designing with succulents

Consider the foresight of that great showman and gardener P.T. Barnum: “There’s a succulent born every minute.” Or something like that.

In container gardens, succulents come to the rescue in strangely beautiful forms. Recent breeding and marketing programs have produced an expanding palette of contrasting shapes, sizes and colors. Agaves, echeverias, aloes, stonecrops and aeoniums are now part of the savvy gardener’s vocabulary. They share a key common trait: no need to be watered.

Once popular in arid states, “the craze has gone all over now,” says Chris Berg of EuroAmerican Propagators, a major grower in Bonsall, Calif. “They’re stylish plants.”

You can make a handsome combination of hardy succulents that can winter outdoors in a frost-proof container (which most terra cotta pots are not). If you include tender succulents, the range becomes broader, more colorful and wonderfully weirder. You can treat them as you would other annuals and discard them in November, replacing them in spring. Or they can be wintered indoors.

Once watered, they can live without attention. Indeed, irrigation is the quickest way to kill them. “They’re happier when you get back from vacation than when you left,” says Berg.