This is the Sky, pissed at us trying to grow Succulents outside in WA State…
Well, it happened, the thing we feared most of the impending winter season…. we lost some succulents, actually, we lost quite a few succulents from our outdoor greenhouse
The hardest hit crop was our lucky Jade (Crassula ovata) — not so lucky, eh? I had *luckily* brought a few small cuttings inside the garage; the mother and giant plants are completely ruined, they have lost their characteristic firmness as their leaves hold water (more water than say a skinny echeveria plant) they are now plush & squishy (like play dough and soggy bread feeling) and quite sad looking indeed.
All the plants were looking fine as we came back from our Thanksgiving trip… And then the couple nights of freezing temperatures hit us. After installing a thermometer in the greenhouse, I watched the temperatures drop down to as low as 26 degrees F two nights in a row, even with a heat lamp installed! I should have brought everything inside the first time it got that cold— I did not… Tested out the hardiness of the plants and mother nature taught Suburban Succulents a lesson.
Mind you, not all of our succulents have been harmed! There are quite a few that are not *yet* showing signs of overall damage, so that is a relieving feeling.
Ultimately we have settled on moving all of the succulents inside for the rest of winter. Our garage and downstairs living space is filled with succulent containers and flats! I am happy that the succulents get to enjoy a warmer place– although we are now changing out the cold weather for sub-par lighting issues in the rooms… We shall see where this takes us!
The next job, which I didn’t realize was going to become a job this early in the year, is to replant and categorize our succulent collection according to types. No more of our random flat growing days– we are going to divide and conquer- hopefully, making it easier to inventory with the continual growth of the business.
Catch up with you next week on the progress of all this- and a total assessment of our succulent loss due to the freezing temperatures.
Jade- RIP
Aeonium- RIP
Peperomia- RIP
Hopefully some of these guys make it!
Elephant Plant- RIP
Jade Babies- RIP
Jade Mom’s- RIP
Aeonium- RIP
Definitely not the coldest temperature we captured in the greenhouse
Mother of Millions- RIP
Leatherpetal is doing WELL!
Crassula Tetragona is good too!
This is the lot that gets to come inside first to recover! Now to make room for the rest of the greenhouse plants!
We had a blast at our first Vancouver Night Market, the location of our booth placed us right next to the entertainment. The balloon man was fantastic, his wonderful sense of humor was appropriate for everyone and his balloon modeling skills are top notch. The back end of the night we were serenaded with beautiful guitar music and was if Brett and I were treated to a private date night; given all of our hard work up to that point, the fun and entertainment were welcomed. 🙂
Wrap up of first market and lessons learned :
Made contact with a couple of local businesses who are willing to collaborate and make some more local introductions for some of our business’ next moves. Yay local business owners being so receptive to new faces.
We observed that larger arrangements are not as practical for the craft fair as we originally thought, smaller items less than $15 seems to be the sweet spot.
Our display setup to draw more people into the booth proved to be too against the grain of the standard table vendor set-up. This was both a good thing and bad thing as we had many varieties of merchandising, probably too much.
Earnings from the market were less than the entrance fee.
Our raffle was a hit and the winner was very excited to receive the heel display!
Freeze tolerant sedums and sempervivums
We are getting even lower temperatures as November brings up glimpses of Jack Frost to our region. Don’t worry though we have evacuated the open spaces of all succulents and tender plants except for a select few plants that we are going to experiment with leaving outside, such as sedums and sempervivums rated for freezing temperature pictured above. The majority of the plants will be in our newest greenhouse structure or in the garage under the T5 getting plump for next market.
Greenhouse is Kale-ing it!
We are so happy with the new greenhouse, as previously mentioned, it is been getting a bit colder these days with temperatures dropping below freezing. We took some time today to rearrange some of the trays and have a general check-up of the plants and we were impressed. Outside of the condensation forming on the greenhouse roof, the plants are staying dry and even a bit warm. It will be tough to leave our babies for Thanksgiving this year but we are feeling better about it considering the look of things in the greenhouse.
Half of the garage has been dedicated to plant and market services, either as grow space inside from the freezing temperatures or as a setup area for our market display ideas. Looking forward to the next Vancouver Night Market on December 7th 2018 and we have some new and improved ideas in the works! 😉 Stay tuned and be sure to look out for us at the next market or around town in Vancouver!
Yup, that’s right, we have already filled up the new greenhouse… The rain has been looming over us this past week, so we finally bit the grit and moved all the succulents under cover. With that, we are forced to think about what it means once we acquire more plant inventory… Luckily there is still room in our original greenhouse and we have space to grow in the garage. We will definitely have to utilize the garage to grow our more sensitive succulents– which will open more space outdoors… it will all work out. 🙂
View into the greenhouse!
So far we are noticing the greenhouse is staying relatively warm! There is a lot of condensation that develops on the roof. That is the only issue I see causing problems in the next couple months– issue because when the condensation falls from the roof it waters the succulents with COLD water– that don’t want or need to be watered and probably would prefer to not be given practically freezing water!
Honestly, since moving up here, I have had to let go of anything I thought I knew about raising succulents– I used to just be able to leave my succies outside and water them… that was it… Here, with the less hardy succulents, they require a lot more of my attention so they don’t freeze or rot. We are learning to appreciate Sedums and Sempervivums as they are cold hardy succulents that will do well in the PNW— we are still in testing phase to see if they can handle a freeze and/or snow and lots o’ water.
Our 4 plants in quarantine!
Since we used to keep succulents scattered around the backyard to bask in the sun we became used to looking out of our office window to a beautiful view. Since moving the plants under the greenhouse, the backyard looks so empty! Brett’s mind is running with great ideas to better utilize the yard now. Stay tuned for that…
It’s Brett!
Home-made Soil
Closed house
Inside front view
Inside Right view
far inside view
Randos at the left
Rain is in the forecast for the next week- since the succulents are under cover, I am less concerned about the water- now to make sure the plants are not freezing and root rotting. With its white cover, light is plenty inside of the house- so this is not a concern, yet. Even with the shortening of days, Brett has reminded me that the natural sunlight will increase a bit in the winter over the house because currently, we have cherry tree leaves causing a few areas of light blocking to the greenhouse– once those finish falling (about 1/3 done) we will get to see a whole new perspective of light on that corner of the yard. It is always a challenge to get the most out of available sunlight on your property and we are not immune to that considering we don’t own a property that we can build anywhere we like.
We have been kept busy preparing for our first market on Friday. We have another market next week too! We have our display pieces figured out, our pricing models decided and pieces ALMOST to final products. Please enjoy the behind the scenes pictures of our booth for Night Market.
Pinatas
Prep
So many plants indoors
Even more inside
Growing too fast
We will catch up with y’all next week! Check out the Patreon page for updates on business progress and follow us on Instagram & Facebook- we will be posting various information across all of these platforms.
Our First Market EVER- Night Market Vancouver… Come & see us 11/2 & 12/7!
Here we find ourselves again… announcing our excitement to attend our *first ever* market at the end of next week! We will be at Night Market Vancouver and this is just the start of our growth process! We have been busy purchasing supplies, prepping our products, building displays, making sure our technology integration is set while still running the normal day to day of the business.
Come see us 11/2 and 12/7!
The market theme is Salsa night- and we are going for it. We have set out with the frame of mind that we will design our display to be relatively “themed” for each occasion. I have gone over the top with concepts– thinking of a 6’X6′ booth of colorful fiesta flowers and streamers with salsa dresses and beautifully woven tablecloths. We are giving ourselves until Friday to come up with our booth design, so stay tuned for that. It makes most sense for us to finalize what products we are bringing and design based off the space these products require.
We are nervous about all the details of the market however, I feel with the experience Brett & I bring to the table, we will have no problems getting everything pulled together, planned and prepared ahead of time to do a stellar job at the market.
Brett’s hand-drawn succulent designs
Our office space is taken over by product preparation!
Gift toppers almost ready!
Raffle item for the market
Since moving to the PNW, I was concerned we would not have access to the many supplies needed to operate this business. I have been proven so wrong of that concern *thank goodness*– there are SO many great places in Vancouver alone that are springing our company into action. We have found an even larger jackpot of supply in Portland, OR. It is absolutely amazing and kismet. I’ll post at a later time a list of resource stores we utilize.
We have already begun to prep for our second market in December– we will spare the details that we have already begun to plan. I CAN’T WAIT! We were also informed that there is space that opened up in the 2nd November market that takes place at a new location and has a different theme… we are putting off registering as we don’t really have the money to enter– but if fate allows the space be available in a couple of days, we will be entering.
I keep repeating to myself & Brett- prior planning prevents poor performance… so far it’s working for us. We are running on schedule and getting so many of our tasks crossed off the list– and brainstorming our next lists. I feel ready for this business to take off and leave me busy and satisfied with my life work!
Our greenhouse today!
Greenhouse update: The succulents that have been moved into the greenhouse are doing GREAT! So far we have had two nights of about 40-degree weather- nothing has died or rotted to its death, yet… There is rain in the forecast for the next week, so I am considering it is time to bring the succulents that are still in the exposed yard inside the greenhouse for their winter rest periods– to keep them dry and most importantly, keep them alive.
Hoping everyone is getting into the #toospooky season. We have partially set up decorations at the house, but have left it half-done… let’s just say we have put our motivations to efforts that are screaming their importance for success.
Will we see any of you at the Night Market on 11/2? How about 12/7? Let us know below!
Well, we did it! We have doubled our covered inventory space in the backyard… all with a giant thanks to Fred Meyer garden center! Brett and I were poking around Freddies on Wednesday night looking for the supplies we would need to build our new greenhouse- as discussed in our last post, check it out– we came across a 6′ x 8′ x 6.5′ temporary greenhouse structure— for 50% off!!! We didn’t buy it that night because it was not the appropriate size to fit in the space we have for it.
So, here is how all this went down- Thursday morning, I was looking out the window into the backyard and saw how well the sun hits the spot NEXT to where our current greenhouse is… I went upstairs and told Brett that maybe we should use that spot for our new greenhouse… We went and measured and voila- it would fit the 6′ x 8′ footprint of the greenhouse we found for cheap…
The starting space- was going to be a fire pit area. Not anymore…
A day went by- Friday morning- I woke up panicked that the greenhouse would not be available at Fred Meyer any longer- 50% off is a great deal- and I’m used to Bay Area where someone else would have scooped that up just to resell it. Needless to say, I did not expect it to last. I called the store to check on the inventory level and see if I would save myself a trip there. I was told that they weren’t selling greenhouses any more and to check back in spring… I told her, “Darn, I was just there two days ago and there were two left! Thanks though…”
This made me feel some type of way… my gut did not trust the answer. So I got in my car- drove to Freddie’s and walked back to the garden center.
There they were! Sitting in the same spot as two days ago and still 50% off. SCORE! I dragged one of the babies home with me.
The un-boxing of our new Greenhouse!
On Friday we got serious about the job ahead… We prepped the ground and assembled the structure. To prep the ground, we scraped up the old layer of rock, then made the ground slope a little more even with dirt and sand. After, we spread a new layer of sand, leveled the surface, and covered the area with weed block (landscaping) cloth. We reused the old rocks in the back corner area, then spread 2.5 bags of new rock in the area. Once the pad had been prepped, we began to build the greenhouse.
We used mason sand to create a flatter surface for the new structure.
FYI – We shop at Yard N’ Garden Land in Vancouver, WA for sand, rocks, soil, and ideas. They are a great nursery store with wonderful customer service to boot. We have bought some of our favorite Sedums from this place and love to walk around and look at the seasonal plants and decor they stock.
Lay weed block.
Nail it down!
Rock on.
Make it flat. Pinkies out, bitches.
Anyway- The hardest part of assembling the greenhouse was driving the stakes into the ground. Note- they did not make it all the way down… I am not even in the slightest concerned about this– there will be plenty of weight on the shelves and within the structure to weigh down the house– and well, time will tell…
Drive those posts
lotsa nuts & bolts
Brett & I are stoked about this greenhouse- it saved us a couple hundred dollars and a lot of time and effort on constructing our own. The cover of this structure alone is 10 times better than what we could have DIY’d.
We haven’t really moved succulents into the greenhouse as I was really tired after working in the sun. We did move some of our Jade collection in to see how they take to the structure. IMO, Jade is our hardiest plant and one I have the most trust in- I do not anticipate anything to change with moving the Jade in, but am willing to use them as test subjects. 🙂
The weather forecast this week in Vancouver, WA shows 60’s to low 70’s with lots of sunshine, no need to worry about the succulents so much this week. REALLY, no rush with that forecast. I am viewing this like we have one major step completed in winterizing our succulent inventory. As a bonus, we even have the old greenhouse & space that can be re-utilized as an “Orchid House” – as well as a place to store my personal favorites. As I said, I’m in no rush to get the plants moved, in fact, this coming week I have a friend visiting and I’m not planning to spend much time with the plants at all – TOUGH LOVE little succies!
Side note, we are still working our way around the backyard, updating and cleaning it as we go. This is something I love about Brett & I- we attempt (and I think, succeed) to beautify every backyard we have. This place has been no different – now that fall is here, we are kept much busier with raking than in the Bay Area – and with all the moisture in the air, weeds are growing bat-shit crazy fast. We have yet to spray with chemicals to eradicate them because I find it therapeutic to go outside and dig the weeds out.
We have been lucky to come across some great succulent and planter deals around town. As we get more and more serious about Suburban Succulents, everything seems to keep falling into place. Kismet, and that’s how I know things are on the right path.
Hope all of you are finding sweet deals on garden supplies in your towns! Please share in the comments what you stock up on at the end of growing season!
AH! The cold nights and dreary/rainy days have arrived– the sprinklers went off this morning and I freaked out at the thought of too much of a chill hitting our little succies. (They are all ok!) Today involved a lot of plant moving in order to find warm, relatively dry spots for them to continue to grow until the new greenhouse build is complete.
To top it all off, with this wetter weather, the grey slugs are out full force. We are keeping them at bay with our natural methods, with the emphasis on keeping them at bay. There are no methods to completely eradicate slugs from your plants only killing as many as you can to hinder the population growth.
Here in the wet PNW, these slugs can get massive. The gray leopard slug in the photo below can grow to be 8″ long! This one here was probably closer to 4 and gross enough for my liking.
Leopard slug on the loose! We left his smashed carcass for his brethren to know their fate if they enter…
Did you know? Grey slugs should never be touched with bare hands– they can carry a nematode that can cause meningitis. Definitely avoid touching bare handed and always wear gloves!!
I have started to rig our current greenhouse to utilize more of the upward and inside middle spaces- it is very difficult to maneuver in there but as long as you walk straight in and reverse yourself out, it works out…kinda. I have faced a couple of tray casualties, the obscenities were shouted and mess cleaned up, but what else can I do… Can’t wait for the new greenhouse to see how much more room we will have to work with.
Suburban Succulents new greenhouse plans!
The greenhouse plans have been created and we are keeping the structure basic which serves our purposes just fine! Above is a rough sketch that Brett put together for us. We are hoping to utilize as much upward space as we can. The best part of making your own greenhouse is the customization options. We will keep you updated with the progress and share what worked and didn’t once the project is complete.
Have any of our succ-scribers built a greenhouse themselves? Let us know in the comments. See ya next time!
Since our last post, we have repotted EVERY container plant we have in the backyard– and most of the houseplants too. We are seeing an improvement in the health of our little succulents as they have a better draining soil to stretch out their roots in- we found that our old soil had compacted to dirt mush and most of the 2” succulents were becoming root bound and sitting in some water- due to the rain we have been getting and less sunny days to dry up all that water.
small transplanted arrangement
In an attempt to fight the rain gods from killing all of the plants, we have moved our favorites and the most sensitive varieties into the greenhouse to best protect them… Brett always laughs at how much I try to fit into our greenhouse (because all of them are my favorite)– but stuffing is never good- it leads to less air circulation & less light being able to reach all plants. It is time for us to increase our growable space.
We are finding that we are going to need to change our attack plan for keeping the succulents protected this winter– Initially we figured our small greenhouse would house MOST everything and whatever didn’t fit would be kept in a sunny, rocked area in the yard — we realize, it’s not going to house them all… SO, we are going to build a greenhouse structure in our side yard that can fit all of our temperature sensitive plants– the spot is already cleaned out and set-up as a dog run from previous renters, so the prep is easy, now to gather supplies and do the build.
What happens if the greenhouse doesn’t keep your succulents warm this winter you ask?? Firstly, we learned that we own many varieties of succulents that CAN survive the colder winter temperatures and have separated them from the rest of the flock as the “outdoor troopers”. These include our sempervivums, sedums, and stonecrop varieties. The most tender succulents will be brought indoors to be grown under our LED light system in the garage– that way we will reduce casualties overall should that fate come and winter is a beast… My fingers are crossed this will not be the case!
For the greenhouse build, we plan to use PVC pipes and a transparent 4-6 mil. thick polyethylene. Sounds good, eh?? Well, it always looks good on paper— Stay tuned to see what worked and our final result.
Our leatherpetals are getting massive!
What are you doing to prepare your plants for winter? Let us know below.
Division day happened, hundreds of plants were cut, stripped of their bottom leaves & topped to grow on...
tray of leggy succulents ready for division
We set-up, we divided, we conquered, AND now we are growing a ton of new plants as a result.
So what do you do when it’s time to clean up leggy or overgrown succulents? Provide new soil, cut the plant, save the leaves (& stems if you are a succulent hoarder like myself), and use the tops in a project or plant it to grow on.
preparation of well-draining soil for our succulents
Be sure to provide new soil when you transplant any plant not just succulents. If you want more information on the benefits of a custom soil mixture for your garden, see our resources about soil recommendations, which we also offer in our store ;)… furthermore—a well-draining, porous soil is going to help when it comes to keeping your succulents alive. If your soil is mainly dirt or is a few years old, it probably won’t have a nutritious enough environment for the succulent to continue to grow properly. Basically, it will cause root rot and then becomes a breeding ground for bugs and fungi.
tray of succulents that have become leggy over the past year of growth
Here are some more helpful tips for cleaning up your leggy succulents– when you pull the leaves from the stems, be sure to get the entire leaf piece– try a twisting & slight pulling motion to remove the leaf from the stem. If you break the leaf, you still may be able to grow a new plant- I suggest saving everything as it doesn’t take up too much space and you never know what you may grow!
callused end of cut succulent stem
Before you plant your new leaves in soil be sure to let them harden off (callus) for a couple days. I have tried putting leaves directly into the soil as well as letting them harden first and I definitely get better results when I let them harden. The only caveat, if I forget to plant them a couple days later or they get overly exposed to sun/heat, the entire batch can get burnt & die. However, if you plant them right away, you run the risk of them rotting…
While waiting for your succulent leaves to callus try to avoid watering them. Be sure to place the leaves and cuttings in a dry, warm area and mist lightly with water. Same goes with the stems if you chose to keep them, just place them on top of the soil and bury any roots.
I suggest planting out your succulent leaves into large trays- spread an inch or so deep of soil to grow leaves– spread 2-3” deep of soil for larger succulent tops as they will need more soil to grow strong roots.
tray of succulent tops that have been cut
Once you have the tops (rosettes) of your succulents cleared of the leggy mess they grew into over the last season, the world is your oyster- you can make many projects or designs or even just grow them on to get larger each year. Be sure to let the stems callus before planting into the soil to grow on.
In the photos here I have planted out trays of leaves and tops- I will use these for future projects, but for now, I am just growing them to increase the plant count of our farm. Note- I am not saving any stems as I have a separate tray of saved stems that is growing on, but for the sake of what it looks like after the division and cutting massacre, see below and as always be sure to check back for more!
tray of discarded stems and old soil after cutting and dividing
I realized we have been so busy talking about and creating our brand, we forgot to tell you a bit about ourselves! We realized that we would never be able to afford a reasonable space to buy in the Bay Area of California while not living above our means. We moved to the Pacific Northwest in early 2018 to get the hell away from the hustle & bustle we experienced in California. Boy, are we glad we did because we are loving the Pacific Northwest lifestyle!
Founders and Lovers of all things Succulents. We have now lived and raised gardens at 4 different homes together in various parts of California and Washington.
How it all began…
Simply put- It started with one succulent arrangement my mom gave me quite a few years ago that we have just let grow in its pot, not really doing much to care for it, its a succulent right? When I began working with Orchids, I became more interested in succulents. Brett and I got a couple of our own succulents from OSH (:'( bye OSH) or a big store like that and we started our own succulent garden. While all of this was going on, we were renovating a backyard space at our rental home and soon became infatuated with growing veggies and flowers. Thankfully, I started to work for a plant maintenance company getting cuttings from the many succulent displays that had to be cleaned up– this is where the collection took off and has grown to the operation we have today.
Finished Renovated Garden in San Jose, California
Another driving force behind this endeavor is our difficulty with accepting a boss other than ourselves, so with Adriane’s well-rounded business management and administrative expertise and Brett’s fingers producing magic on the computer we are able to share these parts of our life with you and thus Suburban Succulents was born.
Please join us on this adventure and be sure to check back soon for more succulent fun!
While it’s not quite September yet, we find ourselves rushing to get ready for cold weather– reality check, it has been in the high 80’s here every day… and hot at night… but I feel the days getting shorter and know that the succulents are probably going to freeze this winter if I leave them outside. Brett and I are going to experiment this winter with what varieties can survive outside, but the rest are going to start to acclimate inside the house soon– so that means many things- change out the soil- cut back the plant if it is getting leggy, fertilize, and kill any bugs or spiders hanging out on the plants. I am sure I’m forgetting some steps, but you get it, prepping for cold weather is no joke… This will be the first time in my life, well, since 6 years old, that I have endured a winter– California and Arizona did not produce snow or much if any, rain. I am feeling a HUGE learning curve is going to take place in regards to watering amounts as well as freezing conditions. I am excited to see what we learn and can pass on!
Blooms!
Anyone out there familiar with growing plants in a colder climate during the winter? Be sure to let us know your experiences or want to know how we are doing a specific task.
For more up to date succulent pictures be sure to check out our Instagram page.
