Erica, just dug up this thread start. I remember I was waiting to see your promised post(foot tapping, arms crossed- jk). I'm glad you started this, so will attempt to jump start it.

Me, I'm in a happy place now. As a kid, I saw schefflera, ficus and jades as house plants, and was intrigued. However, they are common, even boring to some; I bought into that and didn't grow them for the longest time.

As I got into bonsai gardening, I had poor success with some of the traditional trees such as juniper. Finally, I decided to grow the plants that originally attracted me, and I haven't looked back. And even more enriching is my expanding interest in succulents beyond jades, such as echeveria and especially the caudex-forming succulents. Of the fat plants, I currently grow pachypodium saundersii, operculicarya decaryi, and now dorstenia foetida.

Though many succulents would not fit the traditional definition of bonsai, they can be grown after the bonsai fashion. At the end of the day, all that matters to me is if I can look at a plant and be transported to a better place, and growing plants in the bonsai fashion does that for me.

My photography skills leave something to be desired, but I will edit this post later with some of my less egregious efforts. In the mean time, I would love to see many posts by others and thereby learn about you!

ez

Hi Erica & EZ! I am new here and new to cacti & succulents. I've grown a lot of plants. 30 years ago when I lived in Western NY, I had a marvelous food & herb garden. I even had planes fly low over my formal knot garden. I moved to Florida with high expectations of growing year round. Well, you can, but certainly not what I was used to! I got into this addiction quite mischievously.

A couple of weeks ago a friend from work & I walked over to the local hot spot for a beer after work. We went outside for a cig & happened to sit next to a big container with the neatest looking succulent draping all around & over the edges. I just couldn't resist pinching a couple or three pieces. So, when I got home, I put them over my sink in a glass of water. Within days, they began to look totally miserable. I began a search & found out what a dummy I was quickly! Yes, they died, sadly.

On a trip to my local Lowes, as usual, I checked out the mark-downs on distressed or damaged plants. There were a ton of different succulents. I bought a dish garden with 4 or 5 varieties, (below,) one with another with 2, a large Kalanchoe Fang & a few in seedling containers still. I began researching and after two trips back for more soil & cleaning the rest of them out, I'm still learning, but found the love for growing once again.

I paid $10 for this top one. Jade, Blue Chalk Stick, & not sures... $5 for the one below.

In my research, I finally stumbled across this forum. Much to my surprise, it wasn't dead! Holy cow! I have learned so much! I have a ton of work yet to do on my projects because of my mistakes.

Mistake above. The funnest part was playing with the babies. Below is 2 of my mini shot glass gardens. I am hoping they do well together & I have to repot at some point.

So there's my story. My other hobby is beading. I make pendulums & sun catchers. (I'm very much into crystals & stones too!)

Glad to meet y'all!

~Kat

Kat, welcome! In the second picture, the rounded leaf variegate is portulacaria afra. I would love to talk to you about pendulums, my wife does Healing Touch and uses them. Could you enable 'Contact' in your profile, or do you have a place online to look at your wares?

ez

EZ - yikes! I knew I would love this forum! I have a bunch of Zambaba, which is only found in South Africa & Madagascar. Gorgeous stone! I'm bad about taking pictures lately, and I haven't figured out how to update or do much of anything with my profile. katmandhu.com is one of my websites, but holler at me through direct email. (hope that worked.) I have a few pendulums up on etsy also, but I have tons more!

I sell them with boxes also, which you can barely see on the bottom. I do custom work.

Merry meet!

~Kat

Updating... The only thing I can find is connecting with Facebook. My email didn't link, but it is katmandhu@embarqmail.com.