(I feel like the title of this post would make a really good band name.
Or a really good porn name.
…No?)
There are some things that are really, really hard to transport 3,000 miles. Hats, for example: hats are freaking impossible to get from your head to your closet un-crushed; forget about trying to get them from New York to California.
You know what else presents a bit of a conundrum when one is moving across the country?
Plants.
I know, I know: give them away. I did. Except there was this one plant – a planter, actually; a cool-looking wooden square filled with tiny baby succulents that I had planted myself and grown to a respectable size – that I didn’t want to leave behind. Because the purpose of this planter is to hang it on the wall as a sort of living art piece once the succulents’ roots are established enough, and I got all excited about the idea of having the inaugural hanging happen on our brand-new wall in our brand-new state.
(Spot the happy succulent planter sitting in the Santa Fe sun.)
So I came up with this brilliant idea: I’d make the plant a mascot for our journey. I’d balance it on the dashboard of our car, leave it out in the fresh air whenever we stopped for the night, and keep the damn thing alive and thriving and what have you, and then once we arrived at our new home I’d stick our plant on the wall next to the pool and it would all feel very bringing-our-old-life-into-our-new-one and emotional and lovely.
And then I forgot it in a thousand-degree car in Arizona for three days, and I killed it.
Like, killed it dead.
Fortunately, you know how you pay ten or twenty bucks a pop for those little pots of adorable succulents when you live in, say, New York City? Well, here “succulents” are more frequently referred to as “that crap growing next to the highway.”
They’re everywhere.
And so when we finally arrived, I decided to try to resuscitate my planter with the addition of a few cuttings from my own backyard. And, because succulents are hardy little beasts, it actually appears to have worked.
How To Plant Succulent Cuttings
If you want to grow more succulents from ones you have already, it’s actually super easy, because, like I said: hardy little beasts.
Just make sure that you trim them with a sharp blade, let the cuttings dry on a paper towel for a couple of days to prevent rot, and then pot them in a nice, rich soil (store-bought cactus potting mix is perfect). Keep the soil moist (not wet) until they grow roots (you’ll know roots have grown if a light tug on the plant doesn’t immediately dislodge it), at which point you can reduce the frequency of watering.
And then go ahead and let them do their succulent thing. Which is nothing.
