With our 5,588-foot altitude, short growing season, and pests ranging from aphids to deer, I have become a believer in growing what works and not bringing on self-induced frustration. Even in the greenhouse which gets quite warm in the daytime in spring, the soil stays cold and damp for a long time. When they say zinnias are a warm-weather plant, believe them.
The (semi) succulent that for me is easiest to grow is Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic'™, my 30-year propagation of Plectranthus Amboinicus or something extremely similar. You can also find older references to this plant as Coleus Amboinicus. On the other hand, some sources state that the botanical name for the plant commonly called Coleus is Plectranthus scutellarioides. Other sources, apparently more recent, say that Coleus scutellarioides is correct.
So let me get this straight. My 'Velveteen' used to be Coleus but is now Plectranthus. Coleus used to be Plectranthus but is now Coleus. I guess there is someone who decides these things.
Here they are together. The Coleus is the ColorBlaze 'Wicked Witch' from Proven Winners. They do not look related, although they are both under the family of Mint (Lamiaceae). There are very few Mints that are semi-succulents, but the 'Velveteen' is one of them.
Both of these are instant gratification plants. I was 18-for-18 on propagating 'Velveteen' from cuttings this year. They aren't as big and bushy yet as the one pictured, but they will be by this time next year. On this particular Coleus, the results aren't definitive, but I'm on track for 3-for-3. I also have about a dozen generic Coleus that I sprouted from a Burpee's variety packet, and some of them are bigger than the one shown here.
This is a succulents blog, so bringing it back to that, Sempervivums were not instant gratification when I started accumulating them in January, but some (not all) of them started pumping out offsets as the weather got warmer. A couple of posts back, I showed an image of Unknown #3 with a stolon hanging over the edge, and here is my temporary solution. The stolon at the bottom of the plastic pot on the right is loose, but I have learned that you don't give up on a piece of a succulent until it dries up.
With the Sempervivums forming offsets, will everything fit in the 13-square-foot planter when it becomes available, or should I get bigger pots? I have resisted getting 8-inch terra cotta squat pots (only 4.2 inches high), $16 each on Amazon, saucer not included. But looking at #3, wingtip-to-wingtip is 7.5 inches and it probably will continue to spread. I need to start eating more onions to free up the planter space. Yesterday I bought the remainder of the pumice and coir that I will need to revise the soil in that bed to provide better drainage.
So all things considered, these three have been the easiest for me to grow this season -- 'Velveteen,' Coleus and Sempervivums, accounting for more than 50 individual plants. A lot of the Echeverias and other succulents are doing well, but have not produced masses of offsets like the Sempervivums (although I did notice an offset on the slow-growing Haworthia attentuata 'Concolor' a few days ago). Among the non-succulents, my success rate at cloning petunias is well below 50%, and I'm starting to get strawberry runners to replace the 50% of the plants that died this spring after I planted them. The nasturtiums are growing like weeds inside the greenhouse, but I only planted them as companions to the strawberries and sunflowers. Same with the borage. Those two don't really count.
At some future date, lazy me will have 50 'Velveteens,' 50 different Coleus, 50 different Sempervivums, and nothing else. Go with what works.