Succulents Simplified by Debra Lee Baldwin: A review

Succulents Simplified: Growing, Designing, and Crafting with 100 Easy-Care Varieties by Debra Lee Baldwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Succulents are described as the plants that drink responsibly. Requiring very little water in order to thrive, they are the perfect kind of plants for areas where water is a scarce commodity and must be conserved. There are likely to be many more such areas in the future. It is good to know that even in these circumstances, there are plants that we can grow successfully.

Debra Lee Baldwin has written a book that is a useful introduction to these trendy, low-maintenance plants. In Succulents Simplified, she gives advice about how to choose the appropriate plant for the site or the indoor project that you have in mind. She gives step-by-step instructions that can help the reader whether she has an acre to plant or is intent on filling only a few windowsill pots.

I enjoy succulents and have several pots around the house as well as a few in the garden. Over the years, I have learned through bitter experience that the worst thing you can do to these plants is to overwater them. I admit I have killed more than a handful in this way. Perhaps if I had had Baldwin's book to guide me, I might have been a better and more successful succulent gardener. Well, I guess I have no excuse in the future, do I?

I think the great appeal of succulents lies in their sculptural and geometric shapes. These are forms that blend well with modern design, but, in fact, they can accent almost any style, regardless of what your individual preference might be. I suspect that succulents, which are hot right now, will become even hotter in the future as more people come to realize just how easy and care-free they are.

For the crafty gardener, a category that doesn't really include me, Baldwin includes information and instructions for several projects. Things like turning a cake-stand into a planter/centerpiece for succulents. She also shows how to make vertical gardens with the plants or to create a topiary sphere. Personally, I prefer a more naturalistic look, letting plants grow naturally into their own space, but to each his/her own.

Baldwin's easy-to-follow text is illustrated with some beautiful photographs of these versatile plants. Most of the photographs were taken by her. The credits for other pictures appear in the back of the book.

She gives us a list of her 100 favorite plant picks for all uses and she explains how to care for them and keep them fat and healthy regardless of where you live. She is obviously well-versed on the subject and writes from a wealth of experience. Also, her enthusiasm for succulents is contagious and the humor with which she writes helps to convey that contagion.

This was a fun and interesting book to read and from it, I picked up several ideas for including succulents in my landscape and I am looking forward to getting to work on that. I am especially excited about the diverse colors that are available and that were shown throughout the book through the remarkable photography.

If you have an interest in succulents, this might just be the book to help you get started. And if you don't have that interest, it might be the book to give it to you!

(A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.)

View all my reviews

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

Search This Blog