Under The Sea: Crassula Muscosa In My Succulent Terrarium
My Crassula Muscosa is so wonderful!
I cannot remember where I got this plant. It may have been in another planter grouped with other succulents and sedum. Or maybe I got it at a fund-raising plant sale here in the neighborhood, but I have fallen in love with this cute little plant. It is also known as watch chain plant. That’s an OK name. Clubmoss crassula, that one is fine. I can live with Princess Pine. But then rat-tail crassula? Somehow that one just doesn’t grow on me.
I had this plant the past two years in an “Almost Hypertufa” planter with Portulacara afra or Elephant Plant and when I brought it in for the winter, I let it stay in the same container and it lived/existed all winter. I spoke about some of my indoor garden here.
But these past winters, I have changed up all my containers and have put the succulents, both the uprooted ones and cuttings, into glass containers. I made a whole lot of terrariums which I wrote about here.
Now, that’s what I am talking about! Don’t they look wonderful? I feel like they are growing well, and since a succulent doesn’t need much water, they are so easy to care for like this. And this Crassula muscosa or Watch Chain plant seems to resemble coral under the sea, right? Especially in the bowl in this photo below and at the top of the page. I planted that up for my son to take to his home. Easy for him to take care of, too!
The Crassula muscosa or Crassula lycopodiodes has been an easy one to grow for me. It can be pulled apart and rooted separately, or you can pinch off or trim a cutting and put it in the ground to root like a lot of other succulents. Easy peasy! Now I have so much of this, I am going to plant it in a lot of hypertufa pots this spring. It must have well-drained soil which makes it perfect for my hypertufa pots and bowls. And in the terrariums, it works out well for me because I can almost ignore them. ( I don’t have these succulents in a covered terrarium, only open bowls and jars and whatever container I can find.)
And the weirdest thing, when I brought this plant in and potted it up, all settled and content, the next thing I knew, it BLOOMED! And this was in November! Now that must mean it was happy. The scent was like paperwhites, sort of a scent you think is nice, and then you think it’s not. Overall, the blooming lasted for about a month and these were tiny yellow flowers which covered most of the stems. Here’s a close-up. It is in a bowl with some Donkey Tail.
This Crassula muscosa is a small plant
But it can grow up to about 12 inches high and spread about the same. One of the nice people in the garden groups I belong to advised that Watch Chain will tend to get “woody” around the bottom stems after of period of time, but that is just the nature of the plant. Based on how these are growing, I will be dividing them this spring….again.
When these stems are pinched, the growth under the pinch begins to branch. So I have pinched a lot and have accidentally broken off pieces too. I just toss those into the bottom of the terrarium and voila ! More plants. See how easy it is to propagate most succulents? But this is a nice plant to have and I am really enjoying it.
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