To get started with creating your succulent Christmas tree, here’s what you’ll need!

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Plants

• Four 4” succulent (Haworthia or anything with multiple pups)
• Thirty 2.5” succulents (in a variety of types of colours; give or take a few)

Supplies

• 5 wooden dowels or sticks, about a foot long each (any thin, mostly straight sticks/branches will work)
• 1 -2 pieces of florist wire
• A wide shallow pot at least 8” in diameter
• A scoop of pea gravel
• 3 or more scoops of sand
• A handful of sphagnum moss

Tools

• A hot glue gun
• 5 or more hot glue gun sticks
• A pair of scissors

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Now that you’ve gathered the right plants, supplies, and tools, you’re ready to begin!

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Preparation

1. Attach your dowels/branches in a tipi shape, using floral wire to secure them together at the top. Place the structure in the pot.
2. Fill the bottom of the pot with gravel. Make sure to spread the dowels/branches equally apart so the structure is straight and supported by the gravel.
3. Fill the rest of the pot with sand.

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Planting

1. Make sure your succulents have been watered beforehand.
2. For the first few layers of the tree, remove the small succulents from their pots and loosen their soil. Place them sideways in the tipi structure. There will be gaps, but that will be filled in later. The soil helps support the upper layers, so compress a bit as you go. Continue placing succulents until the width of the plants no longer fits in between the dowels/branches.
3. At this point, you will need to cut (yes, cut!) the succulents from the soil. Attach the succulents to the structure by generously applying hot glue to secure them to the other plants on the lower layer and to the dowels/branches.
4. Working your way up the tree in horizontal layers, go back and fill in any gaps by attaching plants with hot glue.
5. The weight of the plants on the structure may cause things to shift. Examine the structure and determine if you need to add a plant or more hot glue to provide support. Both may be the answer to keep the plants from shifting, falling down, falling out, or breaking the lowers layers. (This is also why you need lots of glue the further up you go: you can rely on the support from the lower layers to a point, but eventually they won’t support the weight, so glue to the branches where possible).
6. Break up the larger succulents with pups and use the pups to fill in the smallest areas as well as to cover the branches up top (which can be trimmed to a point if they cross over too much).
7. Fill in gaps with moss and hot glue.
8. Feel free to decorate! Use mini lights, small glass ornaments, and so on. If using mini lights with a battery pack, use a large piece of fabric ribbon and create a “pocket” for the battery pack. Decorate with a piece of curled ribbon so the pocket looks like a present under the tree.
9. Water the succulent tree by spraying all-over lightly with a spray bottle every couple of days (more often if you use less robust plants).

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And that’s it! Enjoy your festive succulent Christmas tree all season long!