How to Plant a Succulent Peace Wreath

When it comes to wreaths, nothing quite packs a punch as much as the Succulent Peace Wreath! An internationally recognized symbol, this wreath is perfect for all occasions and holidays year round! We have sent peace wreaths as sympathy gifts, wedding gifts, birthday gifts, etc. but most of all, they make the most beautiful, and really unique holiday arrangements!

There are virtually two ways to plant a succulent wreath:

1. Using all cuttings

2. Using already established plants

We like to plant our wreaths with already established plants.

The reasons we prefer this way are:

1. We feel we have a greater success rate of our plants living, because they already have established roots growing.

2. When you plant a wreath with cuttings, chances are you are using a lot of cuttings of trailing plants, or cuttings of plants that grow tall with lots of offsets. These aren’t really the growing qualities we want in our wreaths long term. It causes them to get really leggy and appear outgrown and sparse relatively quickly.

3. We like the instant gratification of being able to hang our wreath immediately after we plant it. You don’t have to wait for cuttings to root, etc. As long as you’ve done a good job of repacking the moss and pinning, your plants are secure and ready to go vertical.

Supplies:

18″ Peace Wreath Form
2″ & 4″ Succulents
- Approx. 8-12, 2 inch plants
- Approx. 16-22, 4 inch plants
A tool for digging
- We like to use a screwdriver
Bucket for dirt
Floral Pins
- We recommend at least a pack of 100
Scissors to trim
Paint brush to dust

Step 1.

You’ll want to start with a moist wreath form. Sometimes your wreaths will come relatively moist. Other times, they can be bone dry. You don’t want to attempt to dig holes in a crunchy, dry wreath. So if this is the case for you, go ahead and give it a quick soak in a basin of water, or you can also just spray it down with the hose outside. You want the wreath to become soft throughout. If you overwater it and it is dripping wet, just let it sit outside for a couple hours before planting so that it can drain.

Optional Step:

Another thing we like to do before planting our wreaths, is to reposition the hook on the back.

Now, this is totally optional! The reason we do it is because if the hook is hidden behind the form, stemming from somewhere in the center, when you hang the wreath on your door it’s most likely going to lean away from the door at an angle. We reposition the hook to stem from right our of the top, so that once hung, it will hang straight – Flat against the door. Yes, you can now see the hook, but it is our personal preference so that the wreath hangs flat, versus cock-eyed.

Step 2.

First choose your center plant. We like to use a pretty statement plant in the center, typically a little larger.

We like to start planting our wreath from the center and work our way out. This just makes it easier to plant. If you plant the outer rim first, and then have to go back really carefully and squeeze in the center plants, you’re more likely to damage the outer plants while working.

Next, you’ll want to break down the plant’s root ball. Don’t be scared about hurting the plant or it’s roots. Just tear right into it, pulling away soil and breaking down those roots. Do this until you have about a 1″-2″ diameter of root ball left.

Start digging your center hole. If your wreath is anything like the ones we use, it will be wrapped with fishing line to hold the moss in. There is a lot of fishing line in the center of peace wreath forms, so the first hole is probably going to be the hardest. Use your handy digging tool to start your hole, pull the fishing line apart, working to make a pretty deep opening. As you go, we recommend pulling out moss out to make even more room for your plant.

Insert the plant into the hole you just dug, making sure it sinks down into the wreath form. Then use some of the moss you pulled out to fill back in the hole, packing it around the root ball snug.

To finish, pin your plant into place. Depending on the size of the plant we typically use 2-5 pins to secure our plants to the form until they are in there, nice and tight. You don’t want your plants loose and wiggly.

Repeat this process using small size 4″ plants, and/or 2″ plants, until the whole center section is complete.

Step 3.

Begin to plant the outer circle of your peace wreath. It doesn’t matter where you choose to start, just follow the same steps to plant as you did for the center area.

Design Tips:

– We like to vary our plant colors, textures, and shapes. This creates a more visually intriguing arrangement, as opposed to if you were to use just all rosette succulents. By incorporating some Aloes, Crassula, and clumping Echeverias, etc. you’ll instantly have a more attractive design.

– When planting, we try not to put any two plants that are really similar next to each other. We’ll use 2’s & 3’s of the same type of plant so that we end up with a cohesive arrangement. If you were to instead of use only 1 of 25 different types of succulents, your arrangement might turn out less put together and a bit random looking.

– We like to start with one of each type of plant and begin to work our way around the form. For example, we’ve used a dark green aloe, a purple Pearl Von, a pink aloe, a green echeveria, a light blue clumping echeveria, crassula, etc. Once we’ve used one of each of those types of plants, we will loosely repeat the pattern using those same plant types again. You don’t have to repeat it exactly, but having the slight repetition really helps to evenly space the specific plants apart and move your eye around the arrangement. You don’t want to have say – two Pearl Von’s next to each other.

Another thing we like to do for the same reason’s above, is try to make triangle shapes with the certain plant types. This again, keeps them evenly spaced apart, and makes the arrangement more appealing to the eye.

Step 4.

Fill in any empty spaces with small succulent cuttings and/or airplants. We like to go back and add in just a few cuttings that we’ve taken from existing plants to fill in any empty space. You can of course fill in with 2″ plants, with roots already established, but if you’re like us, we have tons of extra plants hanging around that we can take a handful of cuttings from. And this way, you don’t have to use even more plants.

Another fun way to fill space is to add frilly air plants. They have about the same water requirements, and provide a really fun texture, and whimsical element that you just don’t get with succulents alone.

Step 5.

Trim & Remove away any loose moss that is hanging off all sides of your wreath. And dust away any debris from the plants.

Step 6.

Hang and Enjoy!

CARE:

To care for your succulent wreath, we recommend hanging your arrangement in a spot that receives a few hours of direct sun per day, or one that receives really bright sunlight for most of the day.

To water you can either spray your wreath down with a hose, or soak it in a basin of water. You want to get all of the moss evenly moist. We recommend you do this when the wreath is dry to the touch, about once every 1-2 weeks.