Succulents are a group of plants that have many attractions. Because they need little water succulents are both low maintanance and easy to care for. Their small size and many different shapes make them ideal for use in containers as these examples demonstrate. The eight succulent container arrangements are described by Debra Lee Baldwin in her article which I found on the Garden Design Magazine website.

Although Todd Holloway of British Columbia and Peter Loyola of Southern California are nearly 1,400 miles apart and have vastly different styles, both designers use succulents as living adornments to create their distinctive container gardens.

Todd Holloway drilled four large drainage holes in a client?s cast-concrete birdbath, and then transformed it into a garden focal point with white-webbed Sempervivum arachnoideum (cobweb houseleek), several Sempervivum cultivars, and feathery Sedum ?Angelina?. Photo by: Todd Holloway.
Holloway?s streamlined, contemporary aesthetic is consistent with the sleek metal pots his company, Pot Incorporated, designs and fabricates. Loyola, who favors a more rustic look, uses repurposed objects at the Succulent Caf??a quaint coffee shop where you can purchase succulent arrangements. In Oceanside, near San Diego, the sun is bright but not searing and temperatures are mild year-round. Vancouver is colder and wetter, but Holloway?s enthusiasm for dry-climate, frost-tender plants has yet to be dampened. He praises succulents as ?modern and architectural, with bold leaves that offer sharp contrasts and brazen textures.?
Both say succulents are easy to care for, low-water using, tough, diverse, and intriguing. But what is it about the plants that they like best? It seems succulents are a designer?s dream; like fashion models, they tend to ?look good in anything.?
Rule of Three

Photo by: Todd Holloway.

It?s an investment to obtain several of the same or similar containers, but echoing shapes and colors invariably enhances outdoor living areas. And when grouped, such pots create a focal point. The simple lines and neutral, gunmetal-gray color of this trio by Holloway display the succulents they contain without upstaging them. In two are hens and chicks, which will overwinter outdoors in Vancouver. The middle pot is replanted annually; it showcases green and variegated Aeonium cultivars, blue Senecio mandraliscae, Crassula, and Sedum. Succulents benefit from warmth radiated from the hardscape, and don?t drop much leaf litter?a good thing, because these are poolside pots.

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