Little water, no problem

By C.W. Cameron

For the AJC

It hasn’t been so bad this summer. A little rain here, a lot of rain there; we haven’t had the miserably dry weather of the past few years. But the U.S. Drought Monitor still lists our part of Georgia as abnormally dry, and that afternoon thundershower might hit the neighboring county but not spare a drop for your garden beds and patio containers.

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PHIL SKINNER , pskinner@ajc.com Ozzie Johnson talks about a thornless prickly pear plant in the garden of his Marietta home. As spring's rainfall turns into summer's familiar drought, we take a look at a resilient gardening option: succulents.

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PHIL SKINNER /pskinner@ajc.com A plant Ozzie Johnson calls an Echeveria Lucy is thrives in the crevasse of a rock in the garden of his Marietta home.

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Hot, dry weather calls for tough plants, the kind that can take care of themselves in dry conditions because they store water in their leaves. Hens and chicks, century plants, stonecrops — succulent plants aren’t new. Southerners have been growing them for years. But the variety available for home gardeners has never been bigger, thanks to the efforts of plantsmen who travel the world to add to the collection of succulents that will survive the extremes of our hot, dry and humid summers and cold, wet winters.

One of those plantsmen is Ozzie Johnson. A partner in Itsaul Plants, Johnson crosses oceans and climbs mountains collecting seeds in the wild and searching out plants in out-of-the way nurseries. He brings his finds back to the United States, where the seeds are grown and the plants are tried to see which should be offered for American gardeners.

When he’s not traveling the world, Johnson is gardening in Marietta. In beds that flank his circular drive, tucked into crevices in the gravel paths, in enormous 18th-century Romanian troughs and in diminutive terra cotta containers that line the steps to the front door, Johnson experiments with succulent plants. A ruthless editor, he tries plants and rejects them if they don’t meet his standards.

While Johnson’s garden features specimens such as Echeveria ‘Lucy,’ named after the friend who found the plant growing in Costa Rica, there are plenty of plants that mere mortals can find at their local garden center.

Johnson likes Sedum sieboldii ‘October Daphne’ for its silver-gray foliage and pink blossoms in the fall and Sedum cauticola ‘Bertram Anderson’ for its almost purple foliage. And he likes an old favorite, Sedum telephium ‘Autumn Joy,’ which grows taller than many other sedums and makes a nice contrast with the ground covering types. All these plants are widely available at Atlanta garden centers.

Agaves and opuntias form strong architectural accents to the softer mounding forms of the sedums. While these plants are becoming easier to find locally, Johnson has acquired many of his through mail order.

Agave americana is the large gray-green agave commonly called century plant and commonly grown south of Atlanta. To survive in Atlanta it needs a protected spot, so he recommends Agave parryi, a slow-growing hardy variety that has survived in a pot on Johnson’s front steps for a half-dozen years.

Cactus seems a logical choice for gardening in the hot sun, and that’s where opuntias come in. Commonly called prickly pear cactus, there are more varieties than you might think. Johnson likes ‘Old Mexico,’ a large-leafed variety. Many garden centers offer Opuntia ellisiana, the thornless prickly pear.

Generally speaking, all these plants want a sunny area, but it’s the drainage that’s critical to surviving in Atlanta. Johnson amends his garden beds with Perma Till, a commercially available material made of crushed and expanded slate that’s used as a conditioner for clay soils. For containers, he recommends purchasing potting soil and adding perlite and lime to get better drainage and less acid soil.

Johnson fertilizes his plants during the active growing season with liquid fertilizer or a slow-release plant food. As for watering, Johnson says you don’t want the soil to completely dry out. “For containers, check at the drainage hole to see if the soil is dry at the bottom of the pot,” he suggests and adds that established plants in the ground will need water only when it’s really dry.

Once you begin finding these plants, it’s easy to increase your collection. Talinums, once established, will seed themselves throughout your garden, and agaves send out “pups,” which you can break off and transplant to other containers and garden beds. Many sedums can be increased by the “pinch and poke” method. Just pinch or break off a part of the plant and poke it in the ground. Keep your cuttings from completely drying out and you’re on your way to a lush, drought-tolerant garden.

Resources

Few of us will ever have access to the variety of plants that Ozzie Johnson grows. But sedums, agaves and their companions are becoming increasingly available at local garden centers.

● Randy’s Perennials and Water Gardens, Lawrenceville. 770-822-0676, www.randysnursery.com.

● McMahan’s Nursery, Clermont. 770-983-3666, www.mcmahans
nursery.com.

● Specialty Ornamentals, Watkinsville. 706-310-0143, www
 .specialtyornamentalsretail.com.

Mail-order nurseries

● Plant Delights Nursery, Raleigh. www.plantdelights.com.

● Yucca Do Nursery, Giddings, Texas. www.yuccado.com.