Succulent Container Gardens: Design Eye-Catching Displays with 350 Easy-Care Plants

With their colorful leaves, sculptural shapes, and simple care, succulents are beautiful yet forgiving plants for pots. If grown in containers, these dry-climate jewels — which include but are not limited to cacti — can be brought indoors in winter and so can thrive anywhere in the world.

In this inspiring compendium, the popular author of Designing with Succulents provides everything beginners and experienced gardeners need to know to create stunning container displays of exceptionally waterwise plants. The extensive palette includes delicate sedums, frilly echeverias, cascading senecios, edgy agaves, and fat-trunked beaucarneas, to name just a few. Easy-to-follow, expert tips explain soil mixes, overwintering, propagation, and more.

Define your individual style as you effectively combine patterns, colors, textures, and forms. Discover how top designers interpret the dramatic options, in ideas ranging from exquisite plant-and-pot combinations to extraordinary topiaries and bonsai. Expand your repertoire with plump-leaved plants that resemble pebbles, stars, and undersea creatures. Short on space? Create vertical gardens and hanging baskets, and use daisylike rosettes in wall displays.

Each of the more than 300 photographs offers an inspiring idea. A-to-Z descriptions cover 350 of the best succulents, plus companion plants. Whether your goal is a gorgeous potted garden for a sunny windowsill or outdoor living area — or simply making great gifts — this is a comprehensive primer for creating vibrant, living works of art.

A pleasure for the eye and filled with ideas and useful information about individual succulent varieties and companion plants, this beautifully illustrated volume describes and demonstrates winning combinations of plant and container. Designs are grouped according to use, location, and motif. Plant types are described in alphabetical order, with many color photos. A lengthy concluding section describes all aspects of plant care and propagation. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Succulents are forgiving plants that require

minimal water and very little care. They are

the perfect plant for a modern, busy gardener

who wants to consume fewer resources and

spend less time toiling in the garden.

In this inspiring and practical guide, Debra

Lee Baldwin-the award-winning author of Designing with Succulents-provides everything you need to

know to design, plant, and nurture succulents in pots of any size. Succulent Container Gardens makes

container planting easy. In addition to tips on selecting, designing, and planting, Baldwin also includes

lessons on how to pot and care for succulents outdoors and how to overwinter them indoors. When

taken indoors in the winter, succulent container gardens can thrive in any climate anywhere in the

world. She also shares her design basics and tips on using pattern, color, and form to pair plants and

pots. Vivid photography showcases the imaginative work of garden designers and creative gardeners

who interpret the shapes, colors, and textures of succulents, often in surprising ways.

Detailed descriptions of compatible companion plants are also included, and easy-to-use lists of

plants by key design criteria provide an inspired and reliable guide to exquisite, no-fail arrangements.

Award-winning garden photojournalist Debra Lee Baldwin wrote Designing with Succulents (2007) and Succulent Container Gardens (2010), both bestsellers.  She is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and major gardening magazines. Debra's specialty is showing how top designers use these architectural, waterwise, low-maintenance plants in a wide variety of creative, eye-catching applications.

Debra has presented at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, the Denver Botanic Garden, and major flower shows in Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco, to name a few of many prestigious venues. Her own garden near San Diego has been featured in Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and other publications.