About 20 years ago, when I moved into my house in Denver, and had my own first garden, my mother gave me some hens and chicks. I was not impressed. I knew my mother loved these plants, but I assumed it was because of the name. She had raised six children and had five grandchildren by that time, and she was most assuredly a mother-hen sort of woman.
I'd heard my mom rave about these plants in her own garden. To me, they were rather ugly. They lacked flowers. They looked more like cacti. I had handled the plants while Ihelped my mother create a rock garden toward the back of her large yard. At the time, I did not quite grasp the concept of rock gardens, either. But my mother was old-world eccentric, hyper-creative and wild about gardening, so I just helped her situate the stones and the little hens and chicks.
Twenty years later, I've come to appreciate hens and chicks. In fact, I'm crazy about all succulents these days. For one thing, they're low-maintenance and drought-tolerant, making them perfect for my semi-arid garden in Denver.
But they're also elegant, architecturally lovely, and worthy of every garden, whether in containers or the landscape.
Today's Grow section of The Denver Post carries my feature on succulents: "A succulent success story."
Just click on the link to learn more about succulents and how to grow them. I hope you'll give these plants a try.
And, as usual, my mother was right!
"You grow your garden, your garden grows you."
For related entries, see the list of blue links above, at left.
••• Colleen Smith gardens in and writes from central Denver.
• She founded Friday Jones Publishing to release her first novel, GLASS HALO.
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