Essential Tools for your Succulent Garden
My succulent tool kit includes both conventional garden tools and other handy items you might not expect. Find out what they are and how I use them. When my husband began to see that the succulent bug might become a long-term condition, he gifted to me my first official succulent gardening tools: tweezers and shears. Over the years, I’ve added to that makeshift starter kit, making it convenient and easy to tend to my succulent garden–you might be surprised by some of the items I find essential.What’s in my Succulent Garden Tool Kit?
I’ll start by listing all the items I have pictured in this post. I’ll follow this with the best use for each item and links if you wish to purchase them for yourself. The list may seem long but they don’t take up much space and most are inexpensive.- Tweezers in various sizes
- Brushes in various sizes
- Pruning Shears
- Hand Trowel
- Moisture Meter
- Measuring Cup with Spout for watering small pots
- Mini Measuring Cup for precise watering of water-sensitive succulents
- Spray Bottles
- Small Bottles
- Clear Plastic Tray
- Collapsible Crate with Handle
- Gardening Stool/Tool Caddy
- Mini Broom/Dust Pan
- Garden Gloves
- Window Screen
- Plastic Spoon
- Drinking Straws
- Chopsticks
- plucking dead leaves,
- pulling weeds,
- tucking the roots deep into the soil when planting small succulents and
- for picking foreign items from tight arrangements without damaging your succulents.
- 10″ Aquarium Scissors (similar)
- 18.6″ Long Tweezer (scroll down the images to see it in use)
- 3-in-1 Aquarium Tool Set
- Felco Hand Pruner (more expensive)
- Pro Pruning Snips (under $20)
- water therapy for dehydrated succulents (will share in a separate post);
- rooting succulents in water (will share in a separate post);
- spot treatment for pests – Spray bottles are great for treating large areas but sometimes it’s not necessary. For the random mealybug sighting it’s handier to walk around my garden with a tiny bottle containing Windex or rubbing alcohol and my Filbert brush (see two images down). Even with non-toxic treatments as I’ve described here, the solutions leave a mark on the succulent so a spot treatment can minimize the area that scars on the plant.
Debra Eliotseats says
So, I wandered over after a trackback on my blog to yours from an old C.L.U.E. post. (Remember those?) I have become a cactus queen so I love these ideas. I was thinking of hemostats for pulling weeds but those long tweezers may be the ticket!
Jean says
Hi, Debra! I’ve been migrating my recipes to a new plugin and gosh, I’m sorry if you’ve been getting tons of trackback notifications! I do remember the C.L.U.E. group and I’m so glad you found the succulent post. Welcome to the crazy succulent lady club! 🙂 I also have a hemostat in my tool box but I’ve found that it doesn’t get a lot of active time–the tweezers are my go-tos and I hope you will find them useful, too. Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving a note!!
Megan says
I love your succulent posts. More information and equally beautiful photos than any succulent book I have.
(Seriously, you should write a book. This is so much more informative than what I’ve read by Debra Lee Baldwin, Robin Stockwell, and so on. Your photos are both better and more realistic in terms of what you grow than Baldwin’s in Succulent Container Gardens. I have book suggestions but I’ll refrain.)
It’s also fabulous to see that you use a lot of the same eccentric items I do. Chopsticks also make good stakes for small plants. Since my plants are right off my kitchen, I use spoons from the flatware drawer for any task requiring a tiny “shovel” / scoop / trowel.
I learned a lot reading this,, too. I started growing succulents by taking cuttings (SMALL cuttings) on walks around SF. Only recently have I started buying plants. So I’ve never bothered with (and never really knew how to do) the fine detail work you describe. No succulent that survived on the city streets through the long drought, or the last two rainy winters (not to mention a ride in my handbag folliwed by inept propagation attempts) *needs* to be handled with tweezers. Now I’ll know how to care for the sort of stuff I’m starting to buy.
I’m getting a real artist’s paintbrush right away. The crummy I have isn’t much use. I have the same OXO measuring cup: now it’s also a “watering can”. Drinking straws sound like they have lots of potential. And I’m ordering the moisture meter today! (I’ve always wondered if “completely dry” soil in books actually means what it does in my containers. You’ll have to write a post about plants’ differing water requirements, though.
One semi query, and two pest control suggestions:
I’m thinking of trying an air bulb for getting dirt and pumice bits out of leaf axils. (Not sure I’m quite ready for the 18” tweezers.) Lens cleaning bulbs used by photographers seem like a good way to go. Have you ever tried this?
Pest stuff: (1) nicotine tea. It’s just like it sounds. Nicotine is highly toxic, but ephemeral in the environment. So you can spray the tea on individual plants and be confident that unless one if your desirable insects gets in between the spray bottle and the target, it will be unharmed. I keep a package of rolling tobacco in the freezer. Put a tablespoon or so in hot water enough for a spray bottle and let it steep overnight. I don’t think it’s dangerous enough to require protective gear, but don’t drink it! (2) Ladybugs! You can order them, and they’ll eliminate your small insect pests. Mine all flew away, but I haven’t had aphids outside for months now. The ones I tried to “install” in my indoor propagation area weren’t so effective. They did have a window to escape from.
(“Semi” query because I don’t expect you to respond to a comment on such a long ago post. But I really mean about the book. There is nothing out there that’s anything like as helpful as these blogs posts.)
Jean says
Megan, your thoughtful comments and generous compliments have made me very happy. I so appreciate your taking the time to provide this feedback on my posts and I’m happier that you found them helpful. I have a backlog of succulent posts that I intended to publish in spring and summer but they’ll be trickling in over the next few weeks instead. I hope you find value in them, too. Thanks so much again!
PS: 1.) I love ladybugs and have often considered picking some up but haven’t done it yet. 2.) Nicotine tea: I’ve never heard of it but I’ll be looking into it after your recommendation. 3.) The artist’s brush is a must-have and I’m glad you’re adding it to your succulent tool kit. It works so much better than a cotton swab.
PPS: Your comments have motivated me to hurry up and publish the other succulent posts. They take a bit of time to draft and I don’t want to publish one that’s not carefully written but I’ll bump them up on the list. Thanks also for your encouragement about a book–the idea had crossed my mind but I didn’t think that there would be any interest for another succulent book out there. I will give it more thought. I might have missed some other questions in your comments but I’ll come back to read through again. Thanks again.
Cristina De leon says
Hi! Where do u get your pots from.? Thanks. Learning so much from your succulent blogs. Thank you for sharing.
Jean says
Hi, Cristina. My pots are all from local shops here in the Bay Area. I’m lucky to have some local nurseries and pottery shops that have stocked their shelves with a nice variety of pottery over the years. Also, over the last few years I’ve seen more ceramic offerings in stores like Marshall’s and Home Goods, particularly, talavera pottery. When they open their doors again they would be worth checking out. Thanks so much for the nice feedback. 🙂