In case you didn’t see the post about buying all of these new plants, check it out here.

Alright so I have about 45 new plants that need to be repotted into new soil and containers. I have ZERO clue what I am about to do. So with the help of YouTube, Pinterest, Google, and a quick prayer for help, I’m diving in to my first big potting endeavor.

First, a look at the goods. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 cacti and succulents and 10 orchids that need new homes. I sort of thought about things I wanted to plant together while walking through the nurseries when I got the plants, but honestly I’m just flying by the seat of my pants here.

I bought Cactus, Palm & Citrus soil at Home Depot to use in my planters. I also used some marble chunks and pea gravel but forgot to take a picture of the bags.

Start with a container that has a drain hole, fill the bottom with something chunky to help with drainage, I used medium marble chunks from the hardware store. Cover your chunks with cacti soil until you get almost to the top of the container. Take your plants out of the containers that they came in and gently squish and squeeze the roots to remove excess dirt until you have the roots free. set your plants in your container and gently top with more soil. Once the plants are placed where you want them, firmly, but still gently, press around the root area to make sure they are secure. Top your soil with rocks, becasue it’s pretty and it probably also serves some kind of real function, because all the cool kids do it.

I really love this succulent, that’s why it got it’s own pot. The leaves look and feel like leather or suede.

Some of the containers I tried to plan out ahead of time and then things would go sideways and new plans had to be made. This is one of those times. I really wanted to shove 4 plants into this cement container, but one of them didn’t have sturdy roots yet, so I decided to put it in a different container where it would be a little safer.

I just love all these little cuties.

These weirdos are called Lithops and they look like flat little brains, and they make me smile.

This is my last container of succulents. I can’t wait for them to grow a little and really fill out this pot.

I ended up planting all of my cacti together in this container and I just followed all the same steps I used for the succulents, but this time I wore leather gloves to keep me from being poked to death.

I didn’t take pictures of potting my Orchids because I ended up doing it at night and it was dark. I bought these wooden slat basket/boxes from the hardware store, lined the bottom and sides with a little orchid moss put my orchid roots in and topped with orchid bark, all purchased at the hardware store. I just kind of wiggled and gently pushed and tapped until the plants felt secure in their new homes.

One of the best parts about having all these new plants around, are the new little visitors. The birds have been visiting so much more and love to hop around in my orchids.

One of my trips to the hardware store for potting supplies, I ended up seeing this large planter for sale, and then I had to get a large plant for it, and it was just another verse in my plant story that never ends. This beauty is now on my front porch with my little container of cacti.

Here are some of the plants I’ve kept alive for a while mixed with some of the new ones. I am almost a gardener. Watch out world!

Do you have any gardening tips? Leave them all in the comments. I am trying SO HARD not to kill all of these plants.