Succulent Waterfall: Phase One

Let me start off by saying it's great to be back!  If you follow me on Instagram you may already know this, but we bought a new home back in December and around the same time found out that I'm expecting number four! Both very exciting and life changing! My pregnancy has been pretty easy for the most part, but I've been very unmotivated to work on any projects.  Hence, the nine month break here on the blog.  With only six weeks left until we meet our new little guy, I'm getting excited to get some energy back and to start working on the many ideas I've been saving up over the past few months.

Now let's talk about my succulent waterfall! Our new home has tons of potential when it comes to landscaping. We have huge empty planters all over the place, which is both exciting and intimidating.  You may think I would naturally begin planting succulents, but until just recently ALL of my succulents have been kept in pots. I feel I have more control if I'm able to move them around the yard throughout the year. By keeping them in pots I can keep them out of direct sunlight, rotate them when they start to stretch in a certain direction, move them to covered areas when it rains, make different "arrangements" for photos, etc.  Needless to say, I initially had no intention of planting any succulents in the ground.  That is, until I came up with a "succulent" idea for this water feature. 

It looks like a waterfall right? Well, it has no pump and no drain. It's basically just concrete and rocks creating little water basins with a large pool on the bottom. I'm not sure what its original purpose was since it doesn't rain enough here to create a natural waterfall.  Anyway, I decided it would be awesome to fill the basins with soil and plant my very first "in ground" succulent garden! The waterfall is totally covered by trees so the plants would be protected from direct sunlight. Perfect. BUT, the more I thought about it, the more my perfectionist side told me this was a terrible idea.  First of all, the waterfall is covered with trees! Trees equal falling leaves. (You can see the water basins are filled with leaves in the picture above.) I'm the type to take tweezers and q-tips to my plants to remove leaves, twigs, dirt, spiderwebs, etc. I really started to question whether or not I could handle having plants outside getting rained on, scratched up, and basically out of my control.  Eventually, I decided to give it a try, but only with plants that wouldn't get beaten up too badly by the elements.

I started this project by filling the waterfall with well draining cactus soil.  (With a little help from Krista!) And there it sat for months. A waterfall full of dirt! Until, my mom offered to donate some of her "babies" to the cause and help me with planting.  We took apart some of my overgrown arrangements and planted them as well as a bunch of plants my mom had grown from leaves.  It's still very sparse, but it's a start.  I plan to add many more plants in the coming months including lots of cascading succulents to create the visual "succulent waterfall".  Here is what phase one looks like. Enjoy!

If you have any questions don't hesitate to leave a  comment below or you can find me on Instagram under @tawwni or @needlesandleaves.