Colorful Succulent Planter #2020Under20

Hey, what's up garden friends? Jeff here at Tropical Plant Party. How's everybody doing? I hope you're good. I'm great. Doing my 2020 under 20 tag. Pam's Planty Things. She started up a little challenge here, a little tag thing for everybody to do where basically you see what you can do with your plants, what plants you can find for under 20 bucks in 2020. The video's coming on the 20th. I'm sure there are lots of great videos out that I can't wait to watch on the subject. I did what I always do and just became a mess of confusion and could not decide. A lot of things happened. I don't know what I want to do with this video. I thought about doing sort of like a plant haul kind of thing, but I have a plant haul coming up in this next vlog that'll be out after this. And I don't really want like two of them back to back. So I thought, you know what would be even better? Let's like just get crafty and have some fun. I think that would be a great time. I was at the Dollar Tree in my last vlog and I did pick up a few things to use for this video. I got this little dish here for a buck, some rocks for a dollar. The only thing I didn't see was soil. Maybe I just didn't see it. I don't know. I didn't look very hard either because I have so much soil here. So I'm just going to use the soil and then over here, I have a whole bunch of different cactus and succulents and I'll just, you know, make sure I stick to whatever amount I need to to keep it under 20 bucks, which shouldn't be very hard, right? Because we're already up to $2 here. Still have 18 bucks left to go. I had thought about wrapping the sides of this with sheet moss. They sell sheet moss at the dollar store. I didn't get any because I have a ton of it. Why buy something I already have, right? I would think those little packs from the dollar store or dollar tree would probably, I might need like two of them. But I mean, I have these pieces here and I think that that looks nice. But with the curvature of this pot, I mean, I think it would just kind of be a pain to put that together, to be honest. It could always like line the side with rocks or something. I don't know. I'm kind of content with just playing around with this and seeing the soil and having fun with it. Though on that note, I do have a soil blend here that I need to mix up a little bit more thoroughly. It's just the stuff I've been using lately, the cocoa bop. I added a ton of sand to it so that there's nice sharp drainage. Don't want this to stay moist for very long at all. Because, you know, cactus and succulents would die. I don't want to do that. And these didn't have a hole in them. So I, of course, took a knife and flipped it over and just stabbed the heck out of it. Made a decent enough hole there so water drains out. You don't have to have drainage in all of your pots, obviously. But with cactus and succulents, it's like, why not? Right? It makes everything so, so, so much easier. Then it's kind of a big hole there. I wonder if I... Nah, you know what? It's fine. I've dealt with bigger before. That'll be okay. I did actually use a sand in this potting mix that is more of a floral decorative sand. I noticed when I was at the Dollar Tree that they had a whole bunch of different bags of sand and rocks. That's where I got these rocks right here. And I just kind of figured it has like a little bit of a shimmer to it. That'll make more sense to point out when this is full. My bad. Why am I doing this by the handful? And I can just flip this over. Wow, I got lucky there. I just eyeballed how much soil I was going to need. I don't know how well it's going to show through on camera, but the sand I use, it has like a sparkle to it. Almost like a glitter. And I thought, you know, that's kind of cool. I don't mind seeing that. Actually, it would be a little bit cooler if there are plants that get really big, elaborate root system systems like paper whites. How cool would that be to put a bunch of paper whites in the top of this and then like pack in some moss around them? Oh, that would be... I'm having second thoughts about what I want to do here. Uh-oh. Nope, not going to do that. Came in with a plan. I'm going to stick to it for now. The plants I picked up varied in price from $3.98 to $5. So, so far I'm up to a dollar of use here. I'll go and throw another dollar in for soil because I feel like they might have like those pucks of soil that you can buy at the dollar store and rehydrate them. I think they have those. So we'll say that and we'll call it $2 for the soil. How about that? So up to $3 here. Just because if you're planting cactus, you might need to buy a bag of sand with one of those pucks of soil. You get what I'm saying? So this is a tricolor jade. It has seen better days. That's for sure. It's definitely been getting too much light wherever they were keeping it. That's honestly kind of like champagne problems with succulents from the hardware store because usually, you know, they're not normally looking all that good by the time you pick them up. At least usually not by the time I find them unless you get them fresh off the truck. I'm going to stick this more over to the side and it can stick up a little bit. That's okay. That's not going to hurt anything. Work it down a little bit further. Then I also have this Zanzibar. Excuse you. Hello. Do you not know we're making a video right now? The Zanzibar aloe here. These, I don't know if this would be totally appropriate for this, but then again, neither is going to be the Crassula, that jade, because that'll get kind of big. But so will this. I don't want a bunch of really tall succulents in this. I think that'll be kind of weird. So I'm not going to use that. What else do I have? Lothoria. These are neat. Oh, apparently my camera is having an attitude. This is not the right time for that. Come on. Keep it back here since the focus doesn't want to work the way it's supposed to. Really pretty plants. The Concolor, they're part of the Entinuadas. They sometimes will come up a little bit more than they will spread. But I think that'll still look nice. I like the colors and the texture, all the little spots and everything. So I'll go ahead and put that in here too. Wait. Nope. Nevermind. Neat plant. So glad you guys got to see it. But I think I would rather use this Sedum here. Isn't that beautiful? Look at those colors. These aren't uncommon. I've seen them all over the place, but just this one particularly had very nice colors, which is probably just, you know, temperature and time of year. But it's the Adolphia Sunset. Yeah. Sunset's the variety on that one. This is going to stay more short than the other things I'm putting in here. I think that that would look good in front of that Jada. In front, off to the side a little bit. There we go. That works. Still have a gap back here. What am I going to do with that? One of my favorite plants for succulent arrangements. I don't use them that often. Unfortunately, the name just popped right out of my head, but I'll put it here on the screen. I've seen it sometimes listed as a Rapsalis and then the Hathoria. Is that a guess? Yes, I think so. These are, I mean, it's just my opinion, but I think they are phenomenal plants for doing these little desert scapes because they end up growing up and looking almost like a bush and they give a lot more texture than most other things do that you can put into an arrangement with other succulents. Succulents tend to have a shape and hold to it. And these do also, of course, but like I said, they get taller and more bushy and airy. They're super easy to propagate, really easy to grow. I would consider this to be a good companion plant back here with this Jade. You tell, I had like four different videos planned out for this one and then I was like, I'm just going to hit record and see what happens. So that's why we're all over the place. Hanging out, having a good time here. I'm liking this. I feel like it still needs a little something. Where am I at math wise? I'm at what? 3, 4, 4 and 3. This was 315. So not like 14 bucks. There's still a little bit of wiggle room there. I have an Echeveria. I don't know. I don't know if it really needs it. Usually I like to have something really stout and rosette shaped in the front of these. But like I said, I don't know if it needs it. It's going to bother me a lot that I don't have some kind of big chunky rock here in front of this guy. So I might go poking around in the morning to see what I can find outdoors. I don't think you can just buy like a big rock from the dollar store, but maybe, I'm not sure. Plopping that in there so I can get an idea. I mean, actually I do. I'd say that ties things together nicely. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. Get this down in here. Oh yeah, so that's good. Because this color is going to go nicely with that tricolor jade in the back, which is going to change colors. Hopefully it won't stay that dark. That's not really what that's supposed to look like. Fill in some gaps, some more soil, and then yeah, my top dresser. This is my own personal bag of sand. Again, it was something where I was like, I don't see a reason to spend money on something I already have at home. So I don't know, we could say you would probably need, I think a dollar would be more than enough to get enough sand to do a top dressing. Don't you think? I think it would be. Thread that around nice and evenly. You can see where there was some soil missing there. That's all right. It's the beauty of succulents. They don't really care. As long as things aren't too wet, they're not too fussy. All right, I'm going to go through and even this out and finish it up. What if to kind of dress this up a little bit, if I were to just like, I wonder if I just like poke my finger down in there a little bit like that. Go through here and make some little waves that the sand can go into. That might look kind of neat or completely ruin the whole thing. I don't know. I guess we'll find out. I'm okay with that. I think it looks a little bit better than just straight up potting mix. That'll do. A little bit of like sand art. It's a nice thing with succulents, right? Pardon the scratching sounds. But since this isn't going to be watered really heavily, I'm not really gonna have to worry about that sand displacing too much since I'll use a syringe probably to water this or my little squirty bottle. Where'd it go? Okay, right here. You can just kind of get down and water in the little nooks and crannies more. I guess I need to water this. What's wrong with me? Yeah, see with this, I can just get in here and give everything a nice drink. I can get in around the base of the plants like so without having to worry about disrupting things too much. Not going to get water into the crowns of them, which is always something that I worry about with succulents. You know, if you get water there into the center, that can cause problems. You have to worry about rotting those things. And by using one of these guys right here, I actually, really, I prefer this over the hand syringe. I just feel like I have better control over it. I mean, look at how easy it is to get that down into those crevices, which is, I know, the same idea with using a medical syringe, or I think it's a catheter syringe is what they're called, but I don't know. I just prefer this for some reason. Another thing I like about these is that you can actually take these, I'm gonna do this on the side here, maybe you'll be able to see it better, that you can actually push this down and shoot the water below the soil surface. I don't think that's going to show very well on camera, but that makes it easier to do, like, direct watering with the cactus and succulents. You can push it in there and then give it a squeeze, and that water will come through. Especially useful with the echeverias, because they're the ones that can be the most difficult. Echeverias and agaves, aloes, to actually get water down beneath the foliage on those, that can be a little bit more tricky. I do need to be careful here. I don't want the foliage to be in too much direct contact with anything damp, but I mean, the sand should dry out pretty quickly, so I don't know, that should be fine. Hey, that was fun and easy, quick and affordable too. I love that. The echeveria, I like having it in here. This is an echeveria parva, by the way. I would prefer a lola, but I didn't have any of those around, but they stay smaller. Echeveria parva, chris, and lola all stay a little bit smaller, but the chris and the lola, I prefer, because they really do actually stay a lot smaller. And the parva, with the spiky tips on it, looks more like an agave to me, like some sort of pariae. Hotchin, hotchinits, I can't say it. That color, it's got texture. What I was going to say is, wouldn't even need to really have this echeveria in here. A really pretty rock or piece of wood would look nice. And then as time goes by, this guy back here is going to branch out and get more fluffy, and it will hang out right behind that, which will look really neat. As much as I like how the echeveria ties things back in here with this jade back here, that jade is a tricolor jade. The colors on it should shift to being more of a white, creamy, and pink, and not so much this dark tinge that it has on it right now. So while I do think the light nature that this has, the lighter shade it has to it, will still pull those together. It's not really necessary when the other things aren't really pulled together. All the things in here can be different. It's one of the great things about succulent arrangements is you can just have fun with them, and pretty much no matter what you do, it's going to look nice. And this, oh my goodness, this sedum. Doesn't that look fake almost? It's just perfect timing to plant that one up. It's at probably the peak of its color right now. Eventually it'll fade off to being more of a greener color, and then just be pretty much a basic normal sedum. And then next year in the wintertime, it'll probably color up again. The change in temperatures and strength of light and whatnot can all influence the colors. This just started going in the direction it doesn't need to. This is just craft time. And hey, we crafted and it was fun. Could always like put some ribbon around the side or some decoupage or hot glue some stuff on there. I don't know. I don't mind the clear bowl. It's not bothering me. I think that even had I decided to use the moss down here, it still would have looked a little bit odd. But like, that's just not, I don't know. That doesn't seem fitting to me with cactus and succulents, right? I don't know. What do you think? Comment down below. Say hi. I love talking to everybody. What are some fun projects you have going on? Days till spring are finally starting to count down. Like still having fun with my indoor projects, getting me through, but I'm ready to get back outside. I don't know about y'all. All my social media linked down below in the description of the video. I use Instagram way more than anything else. It's probably the best place to find me or get ahold of me. If you do the whole YouTube thing, like the video, subscribe, hit that notification bell. That way you know when new videos come out. Likes go a long way, make a big difference for the videos and for the channel. So I appreciate it. And I thank you. And I'll have my eyes peeled for some various stones and things like that. Maybe like if I can find a slender sort of twig or something to put back here. I usually like to have some kind of larger rocks in these to add some sort of extra element and depth and dimension. But I do think that that looks fine without it too. It doesn't have to have rocks in it, but I don't know, a little bit of something extra would be nice. Don't you think? I always hope everybody's doing well, having a great day and a great life and everything's just going beautifully for you. Not gonna focus. My camera hates succulents today. All right. Well, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye bye.