Echeveria Dish Gardens

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Echeveria are some of the best suited succulent plants for dish gardens due to their ability to grow in shallow soil.

Used as a single variety, grouped with other Echeveria or as a mixed succulent plant collection, the choice is endless.

The many textures and colours of Echeveria are fascinating and satisfying. Displaying some of your rare and beautiful plants in a dish garden gives you the opportunity to create a work of art.

Most Echeveria are fairly slow growing, so you can expect your creation to last for possibly two seasons, with some remodeling and pruning as required.

Some Echeveria that make good candidates for a dish garden are many of the smaller rosette and mat forming types such as Echeveria pulidonis, Echeveria runyonii 'Topsy Turvy' and others which produce many smaller rosettes. Click on any of the links to the right of the page for detailed descriptions and pictures of each variety or species.

Even the larger forms will stay in bounds if they are combined in a fairly shallow container with no room to expand to their full dimensions. You can prune them back and encourage many smaller rosettes to form at their base, instead of allowing one large rosette to take over the display. See the page on pruning succulent plants for detailed instructions.

If they get too big and rambunctious, carefully take them out and repot separately, leaving more room for the other ones to thrive in their place.

Best Dish Garden Containers

To start, you will need to locate a container. A shallow bonsai dish or bulb pan is great, and there are many other options. Make sure that the dish you choose has a drain hole, or be prepared to drill one using a masonry bit if you have a pottery or ceramic dish.

Shallow wooden boxes or baskets are suitable too, and you can line them with plastic film to make them last longer.

Hypertufa bowls make a great Echeveria dish garden, and they’re fun to make too.

Planting your Echeveria Dish Garden

I use small plastic mesh or insect screen to cover the holes, allowing good drainage, but stopping the soil from washing out. The soil you use should have perlite, pumice or turkey gravel added to it to provide excellent drainage.

Collect about 7-9 small to medium sized plants – the ones I like best are bare root cuttings which have been grown in a shallow flat, or those that are potted in a 2-3" pot.

I sometimes use the rosettes straight off the plant, letting them root in place. This works well for making a very full dish with lots of closely packed plants.

Pile some soil mix in the middle of your dish, and place the Echeveria in a pleasing arrangement, avoiding the 'polka dot' method of planting. Group some that are different in form together, and leave some areas empty.

You can add special rocks or driftwood to your arrangement too. Mulch the whole top of your succulent dish garden once it’s planted. I like lava rock, but polished glass or other pebbles work equally well.

Water once, thoroughly, then allow the dish garden to pretty much dry out, forcing the plants to root down into the mix.

Caring for your Echeveria Dish Garden

Indoors, display your dish garden in full light, but not in the full sun shining through a window, as the foliage on some types will burn. For the summer months or in warm climates year round, you can slowly acclimatize your dish garden to an area outside, a patio or table, again not in full sun.

In winter, you can use fluorescent grow lights on a twelve to fourteen hour cycle.

Water about once every two weeks in winter, and more often in the summer. Using warmed rainwater is best, as it doesn’t shock the roots and won't leave a build up of calcium or other minerals on the foliage. Never allow the dish garden to stand in water, as the roots will rot.

Feed with worm castings spread on the top of the mulch, which can be scratched or watered in. You can also use a very weak solution of water soluble fertilizer or compost tea with every second watering in the summer, or while the plants are actively growing. No fertilizer is needed in the winter, while the plants are slowing down or dormant.

For more on Echeveria cultivation, see how to grow Echeveria and succulent care.

go to Drought Smart Plants home page

go to Echeveria List A-L

go to Echeveria List M-Z

go to Echeveria species

go to Echeveria Hybrids