Exotic Garden Landscaping

By Kristyne McDaniel

I am a specialist in exotic garden landscaping.  I like to buy succulent clippings and zeroscaping is my new passion.

I use a lot of different Agaves in my plans for my exotic garden landscaping as well as Aloe.  I use aloe quite frequently as it is one of my standbys for exotic garden landscaping.

The Cacti that I use in my exotic garden landscaping include ferocactus latispinus.  The Ferocactus latispinus have heavy hooked spines are fascinating to touch.  I don’t use this one in exotic garden landscaping at home with children because if you do not use care while touching the ferocactus latispinus, they will rip the flesh clean off your hand.

Another one of the Cacti that I use while I am working on exotic garden landscaping is the trichocereus bridgessii monstrose.  This is a rare monstrose form of bridgessii.  This Cacti forms numerous cucumber shapes with long spines.

Euphorbias are great in the exotic garden landscaping business.  They have a great looking grassy appearance and can also tolerate a few degrees of frost.  The antisiphilitica comes from Mexico and grows really well in Texas.

In my exotic garden landscaping business, I also like to use a group of plants in the Crassulacea family.   The Crassulacea family has exotic plants in all parts of the world from the hot and dry desert regions to the cold and moist alpine locations.  These plants are blessed with a hardy nature and enjoy the widest appeal among plant collectors.

My favorite plant in the Crassulacea family has to be the Aeonium "Plum Purdy".  It is actually the first exotic plant that I used in my garden landscaping business before I added exotic to the description.  I really like the deep reds and the slight fuzziness on the leaves.

I have one client of my exotic garden landscaping business that insists on a flower bed full of Echeveria elegans.  They do look really pretty when they are in bloom.  The plant forms rosettes about four inches across that eventually clump.  They have a turquoise color and the blooms are white.  They are very pretty in a lot of different arrangements I’ve designed.