LIKE many South African gardeners I love succulents, perhaps because this country has so many different species from which tochoose.
In fact, according to Gideon F smith and Neil R Crouch, authors of ‘Guide to Succulents of South Africa’, an amazing 47 percent of all the known succulent plants in the world occur in southern Africa.
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“Succulents come in all shapes and sizes. This diversity ranges from succulent forest, savannah and desert trees of over 20m tall, such as the baobab, to miniature soil-huggers only a few millimetres high that mimic their pebble-desert surrounds,” the authors point out.
While we associate succulents with our more arid areas, these planst are not completely lacking in our green and rain-rich KwaZulu-Natal. In fact, one of my favourite succulents is quite at home along much of our coastline, including the South coast where I live. It goes by the Latin name of Ceropegia woodii but has a number of common names, including necklace vine or string-of-hearts.
To me the most descriptive name is hearts and candles. Its fleshy mottled little leaves are a perfect heart shape and the small, pink upright flowers look just like little candles.
My plants are flowering at the moment and are looking lovely.
The leaves and flowers grow on long strings that trail downwards, making this plant the perfect choice for hanging baskets. The strings also produce little tubers that can be harvested and planted to produce new plants.
In the wild, these plants live in a forest environment and grow on cliffs, so my hanging basket in a slightly shady area perfectly mimic these conditions.
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