As gardeners search for ways to reduce water usage yet still maintain a rich plant palette, succulents have flooded the marketplace. Drought-tolerant succulents bring exciting options to gardeners.
Succulents with unusually shaped and colorful leaves and flowers achieve celebrity status, become the darling of landscape designers, and are pursued by plant paparazzi. How can any low-maintenance succulents maintain composure with such exposure? Thick leaves!
Kalanchoe Cultivar Flapjack
One of the newer kalanchoes on the block in USDA hardiness zones 9-10 is Flapjack, a one-foot high cultivar of Kalanchoe luciae, a native of South Africa.
Flapjack has large smooth thick grey-green paddle-shaped leaves with red margins. The more sun, the more the red shade spreads throughout the leaves. The thick leaves store water and can tolerate periods of drought.
A two-foot flower stalk emerges from the center of the plant with yellow flowers. Since flowers drain a plant’s energy, cautious gardeners remove the stalk at emergence. Such pruning preserves the plant’s shape and encourages new foliar growth.
Landscape Designers Love Flapjack
Flapjack’s pancake-like leaves make it quite a conversation piece in any garden. Designers use Flapjack as a solo centerpiece or garden focal point on the ground or on a pedestal. Alternately, the succulent used en masse makes a dazzling display.
Some designers suggest pairing Flapjack leaves with flowering plants like daylilies in shades of pink, red, and magenta to echo the hues of the red leaf edges. Other designers are content to use the succulent’s colors with decorative terra cotta pots or tiles.
Designers find Flapjack to be a playful plant. Jeff Moore owns a succulent nursery in California. He creates sea-themed succulent gardens for residential and commercial clients. He uses Flapjack specimens as the marine life look-alike for coral reefs in his underwater succulent scapes for Sea World in San Diego.
Cultivating Flapjack
Succulents take full sun performing best in early morning and late afternoon sun. High noon and intense sun cause leaf scorch.
The preferred ready-made potting mix is cactus mix. A do-it-yourself potting mix recommended by Jeff Moore of Solana Succulents is 5 parts perlite, 4 parts soilless potting mix, and 1 part coarse sand.
Mulch potted plants with a layer of rocks to keep leaves from direct contact with wet soil. Wet leaves are at risk for fungal diseases.
Wherever Flapjack lands in the garden, all eyes will follow the show-stopping succulent.
Sources
- Baldwin, Debra Lee. Designing with Succulents. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2007.
- Cave, Yvonne. Succulents for the Contemporary Garden. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2002.
- Hewitt, Terry. Succulents. New York: Lorenz Books, 1998.
- Solana Succulents website at www.solanasucculents.com/
Arlene Marturano - Arlene Marturano, an educator, consultant, master gardener, and writer advocates gardens as a context and gardening as a tool for ...
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