This is a succulent plant that is also called succulent. There are over 25 different families of succulent. They come in many shades of green with a mix of blue, purple, pink, orange and red. The word succulent comes from Latin word sucus meaning juice or sap. They are drought resistant plants with thick, fleshy and swollen stems and nourishing leaves, that easily adapt to dry environments. The picture below is a succulent called Leatherpetal which grows at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It is one of my favorite plants of the succulent family. I have 6 of them inside my house by the windows. They are beautiful and look more like flowers than a plant. It’s nice that they grow facing the sunlight.
Succulent plant known as Leatherpetal. Photo by City Tech Photography Student Ishaat Hossain
The reason why I picked this picture is because a succulent is a very good plant to have in your house apart from the fact that I have obsession with them. Succulents work like air purifiers; they help keep your air fresh and remove toxins from the environment. Like many other plants, succulents absorb our respiratory waste – Carbon Dioxide, and convert it into strengthening plant carbohydrates that in turn create pure, clean, life-empowering oxygen for us to breathe. Did you know that a succulent improves the humidity of your home? Succulents, and many other plants, release water naturally and enhances the humidity of your home. If you get cold or flu a succulent can help you with common health issues such as sore throat, dry cough, common cold and headache.
Succulents are very low maintenance plants. They require a soil mix that can drain the water quickly because they don’t like to be in watery soil. Succulent thrives on sunlight and dry air. They need 10 hours of sunlight a day. So, it’s critical that you keep the succulent by the window that gets the most sunlight. Another reason they are very low maintenance is because they are pest resistant.
The best part is if you have a succulent you will never have to buy a second one ever again. You can simply snip off a healthy leaf and leave it in a soil, water it every other day. And that should sprout in few weeks. There you have new plants.
