It's been raining quite a bit in San Francisco, enough that I haven't really gotten a chance to go out an work on the yard in quite a while. As a result it's gotten completely overgrown. While I wait for the yard to dry off (and the weather to become more stable) I'm satisfying my inner gardener by working on the garden within the house. We have a collection of potted plants all over the house, so this morning I re-poted all the ones that needed it. There was also a few plants that live outside which had clearly outgrown their pots. One of them was a collection of succulents that were bunched into a small plastic pot. I gave them some room to grow by spreading them out into a larger succulent garden.

I found a big round terracotta pot in our storage area. Then lined the bottom with rubble. I never know if this is REALLY necessary, but in theory, having the large rubble chunks near the drainage hole helps excess water drain out the bottom of the soil. I also think it helps prevent the drainage hold from clogging.

We have a fair bit of potting soil, but I was concerned about drainage so I mixed some sand into the soil to help it dry out a little quicker. I've dealt with moldy soil, and it's not great for the roots of the plant.

When there's enough root mass the plants leave the pot as easily as gelatin leaves the mold. I have to break them up if I want to spread them out, but must be careful to minimize damage to the roots. Starting at the bottom, I massage that little clump of dirt, loosening up the whole clump as I get towards the top.

Rather than pulling the plants apart, I continue to massage and loosen the dirt clump until I feel them falling away from each other. In the end, there were 8 separate plants squeezed into that tiny little pot.

In order to space them out evenly, I decided to arrange them radially with the smaller plants on the inside and the larger plants towards the outside. Then it's a simple operation of digging a whole at each plant, and popping them in. I get strategic with how I arrange the roots to minimize the interference they will have with each other.

After all is said and done, I think it looks fairly decent. It will look even better after they have some time to grow into their new home. I suppose there's still more room to add other varieties, but before that I might have quite a bit of yard to tend to. Look at all that foliage!