Succulent plants, a small guide for those approaching this world: the simplest species to grow

The world of succulent plants is extremely vast. It follows that the cultivation needs of individual succulents can vary considerably from family to family and from genus to genus. With a concrete example, a cactus (plant belonging to the Cactaceae family) has extremely different cultivation needs compared to an Adenium obesum (succulent plant belonging to the Apocynaceae family). Likewise, large differences in cultivation can occur within the same family or between different genera of a single family. Here too is an example: an Ariocarpus (genus belonging to the Cactaceae) requires a cultivation regime, understood as substrate, watering, etc. very different from an Echinopsis (genus always belonging to the Cactaceae).

Without dwelling too much on the broad field of plant classification (here, if you want, you will find an article dedicated to this topic) and taking it for granted that the term “succulent plants” refers both to cacti and to many other succulent botanical families whose specimens have a different appearance from any other cactus, we are addressing a very “heartfelt” topic among novice growers. Even the grower who boasts a good knowledge of a given family, however, may find the following article useful, which recommends succulent plants (belonging to various botanical families) that are less demanding, more robust and simple to grow and therefore more suitable for those who are only now approaching the world of succulents. (…)

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The Asclepiadaceae family: African succulents with beautiful but… smelly flowers

Although more than twenty years have passed, I still remember my first encounter with an Asclepiadaceae. A few years ago, I approached the world of succulents, and I went to visit a nursery just outside my city. I had been browsing among the succulents for quite a while when the owner of the nursery, an elderly but very chirpy lady, noticed me and my interests in plants, approached me and said: “Do you want to see a succulent plant with beautiful flowers?” I said yes, of course, I wanted to see it, so she took me down a narrow corridor cluttered with plants and pointed to a large succulent in a hanging pot. It had thick fleshy, straight green stems with reddish edges, and from one of these stems hung a big star-shaped flower with elongated, thin tips and shaded yellow petals crossed by tiny dark streaks. “Come closer, sniff how good it smells”, the lady said to me, passing from a restrained smile to an open, fat laugh, as soon as I obeyed and immediately withdrew, disgusted by the smell of rotting flesh that from that flower had entered right into my nose.

Keep on reading the article if you want to know how this story goes (…)

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