Pastel purple is a beautiful color associated with many varieties of Echeverias. These Echeverias have a coating of farina, a white powdery wax that softens the color. The most popular of these Echeverias, perhaps the most popular of all Echeverias, is 'Perle von Nurnberg.' When I was building my collection, I found a nice example of 'Perle' in a 3.5-inch pot at Home Depot. I was going to put it in the cart, then I spotted one that I thought looked slightly better, so I took that one instead. When I got home I was surprised to see 'Red Sky' on the label. Oops, more on that in a minute. I returned to the store a week later and got the one I originally had in my hand. Here is 'Perle' three months later.
I thought 'Perle' and 'Red Sky' looked the same in the store, and they are related. 'Red Sky' spent that first week alone under under better light than 'Perle' was getting in the store. When I compared them after I got 'Perle' home, it appeared to me that 'Red Sky' had changed and was more reddish and no longer as dark as 'Perle.' Now, three months later the two are easily distinguishable. For one, 'Perle' has lots of farina on the leaves, while the 'Red Sky' leaves are more glossy. I don't regret getting either one. Here is Red Sky:
The next purple plant is 'Neon Breakers' which I found at Walmart. I posted an image of its stalk a few days ago, but today I gave it the full photographic treatment, shooting 36 exposures for focus stacking. The farina is fragile and you don't want to touch the leaves, but I always take succulents out of their saucers to water them and things happen. Eventually the marks go away...when the leaves fall off and are replaced by new leaves.
Next up is 'Chroma' (Ramsey's Succulents), which is a smaller than the previous three. I put in a bright blue 3D-printed pot.
And then there is this one. It probably is an Echeveria-Graptopetalum hybrid, Graptoveria 'Debbie,' received from Succulents Depot on April 30. It was very dinged up and I didn't take a good picture of it at the time. Apparently I potted it up and forgot about it. If this is 'Debbie,' she is looking a lot better now than less than a month ago. I try to document everything as I'm unboxing but sometimes things slip through the cracks.
And finally, here are the 87 succulent pots stashed on the bench and shelves in my greenhouse. In the pots with single plants, there are a few repeats: Jade, Graptopetalum paraguayense 'Ghost Plant', Echeveria 'Blue Rose' and Haworthia 'Fairy Washboard.' (The first three were multiple purchases and the last one resulted from harvesting a pup.) But there also are multiple plants in two bowls that are not repeated elsewhere, so the number of unique plants here is about 90. Add in two bowls and some other individuals at home, and the number is about 100. On the right-hand menu is a Succulent List static page which lists all of my succulents and pictures of most of them.
The big purple plants are easy to pick out just below and to the right of center. I also have a few succulents at home, but those are mostly propagations or are just not ready for prime time, all of my aloes for example. There also are two large succulent bowls at home that haven't made it over yet. The greenhouse is not on my property; it's about a mile away.
On the left side of the bench are four plants not included in the total: Oregano, Rosemary, English Thyme, and what I call Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic'™. All four thrive when treated like succulents, with planting in well-draining soil and letting the soil dry out between waterings. With the strawberries in my greenhouse planting beds struggling this year while the same variety is thriving in hanging baskets, I am becoming more and more vigilant about having good drainage and not overwatering any plant, not just succulents.
The 'Velveteen' and Aloe Vera are the only plants that I have had continuously for the past 30 years. I am continuously propagating them, but at the moment I don't have a good copy of the aloe. I need to harvest some pups out of a rough-looking pot.
In other news: 'Perle von Nurnberg' has a variegated variety called 'Rainbow.' I ordered one from The Next Gardener a few months ago, paying the most I ever have for a succulent, more than $22. When it arrived, it did not look great out of the box, and deteriorated from there. The company sent me a replacement, it did not look great out of the box, and it deteriorated from there. I give up. Somehow the company got these plants to grow long enough to send them to me, but they both just fell apart when they got here. A problem with variegated plants in general is they have less chlorophyll than the standard varieties, and they tend to be more sensitive as a result. I have some variegated succulents, including a Crassula 'String of Buttons' and the recently-received Graptoveria 'Titubans Variegata.' So far neither of them has decided to die. But this experience with 'Rainbow' has made me less likely to pursue unusual plants that may not be very robust.