Strawberry Pots Work Great for Succulents

I've had strawberry pots filled with succulents for years. They take up little space and provide a way to showcase many plants at one time.

After a few years the thugs usually take over and crowd out the less robust little guys, so they need to be redone after a time. This is the first to be redone in several years. I have a lot of small pots of "stuff" around, broken pieces, offsets, unknowns. It's a way to free up some pots, the larger plants from the strawberry pots go in the ground or into other community pots and the strawberry pots get a new lease on life.

Show me your strawberry pots! If you have a strawberry pot that's off in a shed or a corner somewhere.......please rescue it and plant it with succulents. They love the little pockets and will eventually cover the entire pot.

Candy thats such a great idea- I never would have thought about it! Thats a gorgeous pot too, love the glaze.
I just planted a strawberry pot a couple weeks ago with sweet potato vines on top and flax and nasturtium in the openings (they were convenient seedlings at the time)-- maybe i'll repot it with some succulents! I'd like to see other people's use of strawberry pots as well!

I have been planting aloes in strawberry pots for years, but now I have a garden so probably won't be doing this any more... here is a pot with 12 aloe species in it.

Great ideas! What a good way to free up a lot of small pots. But where do you both get such nice pots? All I've ever seen are the Mexican clay pots. The hunt is on. Thanks for sharing. Harold

This is what can happen after a couple of years when the thugs take over and crowd everything else out. This is a standard Mexican terra cotta strawberry pot that will be replanted sometime soon.

And another strawberry pot made of a tan colored unglazed clay. I've had this pot for 33 years, carted it cross country several times when we moved......I bought it for $20 in 1972 and has been a great investment. :-)

It's been replanted many times and is due for another makeover, as soon as the Oscularia deltoides blooms. The O. deltoides is covered with buds which will eventually be lavender daisy type flowers. It is growing from just one of the little pockets in the pot.

Candy and Palmbob, those are really great!

Candy, my goodness that's a gorgeous Jade in the 2nd pic! But the first pot is sooooo gorgeous. I just put some 'fallen angels' as you call them into various empty pots. None of mine are fun pots though...just normal plastic pots LOL. I'm gonna have to see if I can find a strawberry pot at the garden center next time I go there :-)

My Oscularia deltoides is growing like mad but still hasn't bloomed yet. I wonder if it isn't warm enough...although I doubt it. The one at the garden center (about the same size as mine) has been blooming for at least 3 weeks. I want MINE to bloom! Waaaaaahhhhhh! LOL

-Julie

Marvelous pictures. Candy, what about Epiphyllums? Would they work in strawberry pots? Hmmm. I just happen to have an empty strawberry pot. What do you think?

What I wanna know is how do you get that monster out of the tiny side pocket with any of the roots attached??? lol

I have my strawberry pot planted with a prickly pear cactus up top and succulents in the pockets. It works wonderfully. I wish I had a digital so I could show y'all. Ah well. lol

Julie -

A lot of the Jades have great color this year because of the cooler than normal winter....they love that chill, but not frost! My O. deltoides has a few flowers open today, waiting for it to do it's I'M LAVENDER display before I take a picture. It also benefitted from the cooler winter and grows like a weed all winter long. I just pulled out a probably 3' x 3' clump and threw it over the back fence. All that from one little bunch thrown in a bed last summer. (MIne doesn't bloom every year......seems like every other year is about the norm, so here's hoping yours will pop into bloom soon!)

Clare -

I wouldn't put Epis in strawberry pots because the leaves are sooooo long. The only reason I have mine in such huge pots is to keep them from dragging on the ground, and last year (which was about 2-3 years after they went in the big pots) I had to get them up on stands because they were dragging again. One piece is already down to the ground again and it's gonna get clipped! They slow down when you repot them in my experience, so I'd get them finished blooming and either leave them in baskets (mine got too heavy and big) or choose an option other than a strawberry pot.

Angie -

Bet your pot is pretty with the PP cactus! I soak the pot really well and then just yank everything out. The O. deltoides won't care if it has roots...it will still grow into a monster if you let it just touch the soil. :-)

I see what you mean, Candy. It would have to be on a plant stand permanently to keep the leaves off of the ground. It was just a thought. I think your succulents idea is a great one for strawberry pots. I too planted mine in big pots, and they are still reaching for the ground. I may have to get some plant stands for those pots also.

I just want you to know I bought a Strawberry jar today. I will put it together this weekend. This is all your fault :-)

Well we were of a like mind then Ursula......because I took my coupons to my favorite nursery and got a 2 for the price of 1 deal on strawberry pots!

I am so bad.....but it was a deal to my way of thinking. I have too many plants in small pots that need to be repotted and this will solve some of those problems without taking up so much space. Makes sense to me.

Please take pictures of your project when you get it done! :-)

Well, I emptied and washed out a strawberry pot that I already had, which had been sitting vacant for three years! I bet Kalanchoes would look neat in strawberry pots too. I have several Kalanchoe "bowls." Here is one underneath my orange tree.

Very pretty! What is the varigated plant there with it? I grow my citrus as big bushes so the branches hang down to the ground. Consequently I am missing using that space under the trees for plants. Harold

Pretty pretty Clare! Love the Plectranthus too, it's another one of my favorite plants. (Pssst Harold....that's the variegated plant in with the Kalanchoe & Geraniums). I think the Kalanchoes would look really nice in a strawberry pot, but they grow so fast here I don't think I could keep up with them.

Harold, I had branches hanging down low too, but they were getting so big that I had a hard time getting around the tree on this little piece of property. It seem to respond really well to pruning. It seemed like the next crop of fruit was bigger and the oranges seemed larger as well. The variegated plant is called Variegated Swedish Ivy, Plectranthus coleoides variegata. I think I found it at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. It is an outstanding plant that grows with little or no water or care. It is kind of nice sticking plants beneath it. I've pruned all kinds of trees here on this property just so I can put containers beneath them.

Here is the tree:

Here is the Swedish Ivy growing beneath my Hardenbergia vine. It is actually in a small container, but it tends to spread out.

Thanks for the info on the O. deltoides Candy! I'll be patient and look for blooms next summer if not this :-) All of my jades have lovely coloring all around the edges of the leaves too. We had warm weather, HOT weather, cool weather and downright COLD weather over the past 4 weeks. It's been crazy. I suppose the succulents liked it because they are all looking good. I've got one though that must have something blocking it's drainage because when I pulled the plant up to check the soil yesterday I found MUSHROOMS in the pot! ACK! So I'll be pulling that one out today and repotting him. He seems happy enough, but that moist soil certainly can't be good for him. I'm going to see if I can get a strawberry pot this afternoon too :-). I've resorted to reusing many of the plastic pots some of my plants came in (I save most of them in my shed....just in case I need them later) as at least half of my succulents outgrew their pots over the past 4-5 months. And having nearly 100 different succulents, buying new pots for them all would be a bit scary LOL. In any case, if I find a strawberry pot, I'll be sure to post a pic of the itty bitty babies in it :-)

-Julie

Oh, my. I walked right by a strawberry pot a shop today and didn't give it a second glance. Now I'm thinking I may have to go back...

Any more pots to share......?

I freed up 20 smallish pots taking up shelf space by doing these two strawberry pots that I got on my 2-for-1 deal. They always look a little bare to start out, but by summer's end they should look a little "less new." Still have the Mexican terra cotta one to redo, the plants are really in there tightly so I'm soaking it again to try and loosen them up.

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Candy, they look great! And don't your terracotta pots in the background (pic 1) look like neat little soldiers in rows :-). Gosh I wanna stroll around your garden! :-)

-Julie

Spectacular, Candy! You're amazing! Those are lovely, lovely pots. I've got to go get some more potting soil to do mine, and I'm afraid I won't be able to get it until next week, but I'll be sure and post when it is all done. You are so inspiring!

One more strawberry pot redone today....it was a bear getting the plants out of this one, thought at one point they would just have to stay there!

I chose to do a more cohesive plant design for this one, using only one type of plant for the whole pot. So it was a Haworthia harvest day. Every year I find some bare ground and put out a dozen or so of these Haworthia to harvest the following spring for permanent placement in the garden or just for potting up in a situation like this one with the strawberry pot. Last year I had popped dozens of heads off some Aeonium and had a bit of space left so that's where the Haworthia went. The Aeonim all are grown up now at 12-16" tall and the Haworthia were happily hiding out underneath.

Here are a few that you can see that escaped from the cover plants. (All that debris is the mess that the timber bamboo throws off each winter, time for a last cleanup since it is beginning to leaf out again.) These were all about 2-4" when put out last summer, now very large and lots of pups on each plant.

And here are the ones I dug up for the strawberry pot.

As for the other tan colored strawberry pot.....the Oscularia deltoides is blooming now, so will do that one in a couple of weeks when the flowers begin to fade.

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Candy, you are so talented! I'm inspired:-)

Show off! ;-) Your O deltoides is lovely! The Haworthia look great in the strawberry pot too. I wonder if you'll ever get them out of there when they've had a chance to grow more.... without breaking them or the pot. Speaking of breaking plants, how do you get plants like the O deltoides out without making a mess of it?

I meant to go to the garden center to look for a strawberry pot yesterday, but DH had the car. Probably won't make it there til the weekend.

-Julie

Candy, I just noticed this basket that I ignore most of the time. What about this basket of overcrowded Echeverias? Would that work? Do I just break them apart and stick them in the holes as cuttings?

ACK! I went to the garden center today in search of a strawberry pot. I nearly went into cardiac arrest when I saw the price they wanted for one! Let's just say that, without exaggeration, the cost of their strawberry pots equals how much I've spent on ALL of the other pots in my garden combined! I never knew that holes were so expensive! LOL Needless to say, I'll be watching your efforts on this project rather than participate myself LOL

-Julie

I've been admiring these strawberry pots for several days, now. I just keep coming back to this thread. I understand Julie's pain at the expense of the pots! :) I've been trying to find some that were that big and beautiful and I don't think I've ever seen anything like yours, Candy. Where in the world to they sell them, these days? I've seen some cheapish small ones that have holes in the side, but not pockets and I don't really love them.

Any ideas on mail order resourses for the pots?

MaryEv, I decided I should just get a regular terracotta pot and take a hammer to it ;-). ROTFL. They should make plastic ones....at least those wouldn't crumble or stain the patio tiles like the terracotta ones.

-Julie

HA, I have plenty of broken pots! :) ...Oooooh you just mean holes in the sides... ;) I prefer to use clay pots for everything just because I like the way they look. However, I don't know how I'm going to carry some of them once they get full and sure don't have the luxury of leaving them out over winter....so, maybe plastic is a good idea ;)

I love the terracotta ones, but I find myself most attracted to the one that has the potted aloes behind. That is beautiful! I have a place where I can go in Cincinnati that carries beautiful pots, but I've never seen a strawberry pot there. And some of their prices can get crazy!

Morning Potters!

Julie, of all the succulents the Haworthias are probably the most forgiving when moving, repotting, yanking them around. They are easy to get out, where the Jades are almost to break the pot stage when trying to remove them. I agree with you on the cost of strawberry pots.....I've been lucky that I had some major coupons and discounts going on when I purchased these last two. Basically got them for half off after all was said and done.

The problem with buying these pots online would be the weight for shipping them. Even so I did some research and found just a couple that I thought would be worth ordering if I were so inclined.....ranged from $60 - $129 or so. Add the shipping and that would be prohibitive.

Most of the local nurseries, home centers, big box stores around here carry one sort of strawberry pot or another. I guess it's just a matter of finding someone in your area that carries them. They have been kind of "out of fashion" for a number of years......most people found they were difficult to keep going with annuals because they dry out fast. One way to mitigate the dried out soil in a strawberry pot is the sink a length of pvc pipe with holes in it vertically down through the center of the pot. Fill the pipe with gravel and you have a way of getting the water down through the soil the full height of the pot. The dry soil isn't usually a problem if you are using succulents, it's actually a benefit.

Keep searching and I'm sure you'll find something......I have heard that tag sales, garage sales are a good place to find ones that people have given up on. :-)

LOL....garage sales here? LOL That's a good old american custom. When in the States, I love cruising garage/yard sales. But it just isn't a concept that is heard of here. Unwanted things are thrown out or given to charity. Bummer. I continue to live vicariously.....

-Julie

Sorry I forgot to answer your question about the basket of Echs Clare!

I'd soak it and then gently pull them apart.....they would look great in a strawberry pot!

Thanks, Candy, will do and report back! I'll get some more potting soil this weekend.

Here's an update on the Oscularia deltoides....it is really putting on a show this year!