by Bonnie Burton

Created on: February 02, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

As anyone with a green thumb knows, it's always best to really research plants you buy before you attempt to keep them alive in a corner of your house. For a long time I thought succulents and cacti were pretty much the same thing. And so I never watered most of my succulents and they eventually gave up on me and died. Or I thought they came from a rain forest area and I overwatered them until they turned to mush. (Nothing is more depressing than watching your lithops commit suicide rather than be "nurished" by your tap water.)

Then I found out from a few helpful botany books that it's not the drought tolerance factor that distinguishes a succulent from a fern or a lily. It's a common biochemistry that defines this plant group. The story goes that a graduate student accidently discovered succulents have something called Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM). The student tasted the leaf of a succulent (apparently grad students will eat anything) and noticed that the leaf was bitter in the night time and somewhat sweeter during the day. This lead to the discovery that succulents store complex organic acids in their leaves or stems at night and close their stomata and metabolize organic acid into CO2 during the day.

Ever wonder how to tell the difference between agaves and aloes? Agaves are in the Agavaceae family have tougher skin, die after they flower, are thick at the base and tend to have tall yellow or green flowers. Aloes are in the Liliaceae family, are not tough nor as thick at the leaf base, and they tend to produce orange, red or pink flowers.

Of of my favorite succulents to grow indoors is Senecio rowleyanus otherwise known as String of Pearls. Believe it or not, this plant is in the Asteraceae family, which of course is the Sunflower family. When you propagate this plant be sure you put the "cut end" or proximal end into the soil. It's important to do this or else it just won't grow. Then you mulch lightly with aquarium gravel and put the leaf buds that fell off onto the gravel so they will eventually sprout as well. Don't water for a couple of weeks so that the "cut ends" have a chance to callus. If you don't allow the plant to callus, you basically end up with root rot. Stick the plant in warm shade and then water after the two weeks. You can also do stem cutting propagation like this for other succulents like Sedum morganianum (Donkey's tail).

Here's some more tips on how to make your various succulents happy:

1. A good mix for container succulents has

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