I have been promoting planting flowers to attract beneficial insects since I attended the Master Gardener’s class .  Since moving to my apartment in August of 2011, I got involved with California Native Garden Foundation and learned the endless benefits planting Natives.  I purchased a Dudleya from CNGF that is a succulent with beautiful yellow flowers.  I split the plant into its two clusters.  I kept one cluster for myself and gave the other cluster to my boyfriend Henrik as part of a beautiful succulent arrangement.  He still gets lots of compliments from his friends over the arrangement.  I should state at this point that Henrik only has one other plant on his patio and that is the African Daisy.  And his plant’ is in a winter slumber at the moment with no flowers.  So basically he has no plants on his patio to attract Beneficial’s on his patio in the Fall/Winter period.  Well it’s been 2 months since we’ve had our Dudleyas and here are the results:

Bottom line: I haven’t had to use any pest control sprays of any kind on my patio this year!  The Neem Oil pesticide I had bought a year ago was promptly gifted to Henrik to control his Aphid infestation on the Dudleya.

Here is my current collection of succulents I’ve amassed in the last few weeks. I’m not sure about the names of a few of them.  When I was carrying my latest additions up to my apartment, my neighbor joked, “You got more plants?  Haven’t you run out of room to put these?”   I backfired, “Well hey Rich, don’t you have enough records?”  I’ve caught glimpses a few times into his apartment and he has boxes upon boxes stacked on each other.  I guess my new collection is similar to ladies’s ridiculous porcelain doll collections…

I am continuing to add to my collection and seek seek out the more exotic varieties.  My rules are that they must have an unusual appearance and they must be small.  I’m trying to learn  to propagate my succulent plants and will write a post on this.