Succulent Wall Planter with Dig It

Last week I was invited to a living wall planter making class – or as I called it – succulent wall box, hosted by Dig It – Urban Gardens Nursery. I was thrilled to attend because, anything to do with gardening makes my heart happy – and I love to further my education about all types of gardening and plants. Our horticulturist tells me that she likes how I’m not afraid to kill things – that sounded bad, by that she/I mean when I do kill things, I am not frustrated. I just replant or try again.

I promise there’s a reason I’m sharing this.

I have killed many succulents. I think it’s a big lie when people say they are so easy to maintain. Right? It’s not true! But I’m willing to learn more about it and give it a fifth try.

Before our hands on class, we got a little 411 on how to care for succulents, and how to replant them into a wall box. I thought I’d share these tips!

• They like sunlight and they need a lot of it. Forget in a cubicle office, they won’t survive. Which also explains why mine didn’t work in my dark kitchen.
• They don’t like wet feet so provide good drainage.
• Use a water spray bottle to spray the soil/moss.
• Careful where you put them outside, they need bright light but direct sunlight (especially in Arizona) might be too much.
• If you plant them in a box you want to hang on the wall, you need to allow them to take root – more details on HOW to do that further in this post. Don’t plant it and just put it up on the wall, it will fall out.
• You can cut the roots they will create new roots where you plant them.

Dig It has a few classes, check out their schedule. I love how small they are and knowledgeable so you aren’t unsold on anything that won’t work here. We have sadly been victims of plants and trees that do not work in Phoenix pushed on us by other nurseries.

^^ Getting tips from owner Ryan on how to make our own wall box planters!

I appreciate that these boxes by Living Creations – which come in many shapes are made in the USA! Good old made in America products, yes!

We picked our box shape – I’m not a heart person, so I went for the octagon shape.

You fill it with very damp wet moss and grab your succulents, shake out the dirt and used scissors to cut it down to the very tip of the root.

^^ I know it seems so weird but they will take root again in the moss. Give it 6 months laying flat to root before you mount it to the wall. With my impatience check back with me in 3 months haha.

Spray it once a week to water it, you just want it damp not soaking. And you don’t want the moss to completely dry out.

Now I am thinking I want to add succulents in several spots in our yard – I will propagate them so it’ll be cheaper *wink*

I want to mount this box under one of our covered porches that faces south. I can’t wait to get this up on the wall!

Photos taken with Fujifilm x100F.