Your Spring Succulent and Garden Checklist

Use this Spring Succulent Checklist to help ensure your plants attain their full, glorious potential. Links below take you to detailed information elsewhere on my site.

"Ice plant" is a general term for succulent ground covers that bloom brilliantly

• Shop for flowering ice plants. They bloom gangbusters in spring, so now’s the time to select the colors you want.
• Get rid of weeds, roots and all. They're easy to pull or hoe when small and the ground is soft. All too soon they’ll be looking you in the eye and going to seed.
• Check succulents for rot. Remove mushy leaves before rot spreads to the plant's stem, trunk, or crown. If those parts are soft and discolored, discard the plant.

Above: A supplier's palette of rock topdressings (gravel) for gardens and landscapes

• Top-dress bare soil to enhance the look of planted areas, keep weeds at bay, reduce erosion, and hold in soil moisture.
• If you've yet to do so, trim woody perennials (roses, mallow, salvias) by about half, and cut ornamental grasses to the ground.
• Check your irrigation system and adjust as needed. Don't wait---as I've done, unfortunately---until July, when vulnerable plants have dried-and-died.

I check an agave for snout weevil by seeing if it has lost its roots

• Treat agaves for snout weevil. The pests also attack agave relatives, so drench yuccas, beaucarneas, mangaves and furcraeas too. View and learn more about them.
• Fertilize your plants now as they enter their spring growth spurt, and before the soil goes dry. 
• Obtain nursery plants. The goal is to get them established before summer heat hits.

Succulent cuttings, ready to be planted

• Start pups and cuttings. There's no better time---not to mention all the free plants you can use to fill garden gaps, pots, and window boxes.  
• For more ideas and a gallery of desirable succulents, see my own Southern CA garden in spring.