It all started with my wedding.

Growing since 2013

As me being a wedding videographer in the Dallas, TX area, I have seen lots of wedding bouquets and spent countless hours shooting video of them over the ten years I have spent focusing on capturing couple’s special days.

When it came time to get married myself, I felt a lack of inspiration for my own. Especially when it came to the question of what kind of ring I wanted. I had seen so many diamonds. They were kind of boring to me, all the same. But that is me in general, I guess. More of a go against the flow kind of style. My ring ended up being a custom designed morganite in rose gold. My mom sewed sleeves onto my dress. And of course, I had my hand in the flowers. I had seen pictures of echeveria succulents in bouquets online and that got me really excited. The shape of a rose in beautiful shades of chalky green-ish blue. I had to have them. They became the central color scheme of the wedding: sage.

While scouring a specialty fabric store in Dallas, I found a single roll of Italian silk in the matching color and promptly shipped it to my mother in Kentucky so she could start work on making the bridesmaid dresses.

The greater challenge came when trying to find a florist who could supply succulents them for me in 2013.   One actually suggested I just buy fake ones from the local hobby store. The horror! Another was able to access them but they were around $16 a bloom for the ones I wanted. So I had her order just a few of those for my bouquet and took matters into my own hands and ordered a box of about 50 assorted cuttings from a little family run company in California. I asked if they could specifically put ones in there with shades of green and blue.

I flew home to Kentucky the week of the wedding and, with the help of my family, promptly got to work on making stems for them and then gave them to my florist to incorporate into my bouquets. She shared sad news: the ones she had ordered, the ones I had dreamed about, turned out to be too large and heavy to fit into a bouquet. Good thing the ones I had ordered had beautiful ones with “the color” I was looking for and were good bouquet size. The three expensive ones were decidedly tucked into some larger arrangements for the day. The flowers turned out beautifully and the day was grand.

Some brides specifically have artificial bouquets so as to be a keepsake. The thrilling thing about mine is they still live on, too. That’s one of the things that makes succulents so amazing. After the roses of my bouquets withered away, the succulents remained and sprouted roots and live one. For seven years, I have cared for, propagated, learned from, and planted the very succulents from my wedding day.

Now I have too many to keep and my house looks like a jungle when I have to bring them inside for the winter.  Thankfully, I have expanded to a greenhouse for the colder months of the year.  Along the way, yes, some have died, and I have added more variety and color to my mix. I won my sister over, too, and recently harvested a bunch of my purple echeveria to include in her wedding flowers.

Growing up, my family would plant vegetable gardens for the summer in the lush, subtropical climate of Kentucky and reap huge harvests of melons, cucumbers, corn, and tomatoes. I dreaded those summer break mornings wake up calls of, “girls, get up and weed the garden!” After moving to Texas and experiencing the more dry, arid climate, I felt such a relief from the summer humidity and multitude of creepy crawly bugs. But then droughts set in. It was shocking to see the grass turn brown by summertime....pretty much every year. Crevices of parched dirt develop in the lawn. There were devastating accounts of people having to get rid of their horses because there was no grass to feed them. Then when I would go back home to visit and see the rolling green fields, I realized I had taken the beauty of Kentucky for granted. But slowly I started to notice and really appreciate the foliage that could take the heat in Texas. The whispy Mexican feather grass, the red yucca with their coral bell shoots, the prickly pear, the hot pink flush of crape myrtle.

I decided to embrace the southwestern flora and when my husband and I moved from the city out to Wise County and bought a house, I specifically planted bushes that would stay green, to avoid the dusty depression I felt myself slipping into during the summers. Sage and yucca and cactus are some of my stars. Our place is nestled beneath the summit of the historic East Mound, one of several mesa shaped hills in our county. I’d say you can see them from 20 or 30 miles away. East Mound is home to a 1880’s cemetery and at one time a school. I love the view of mesquite trees in the fields with cows and prickly pear and the summits in the distance. And so, Summit Succulents has launched, showcasing the happiness that succulents and other drought tolerant plants can bring.

“Like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.” Isaiah 32:2