I have always enjoyed growing succulents, those plants with the fleshy leaves that usually come in shades of grey and silver.

There is something pleasing in the geometry of their regular rosettes and I have a collection displayed on a hand cart in a sunny part of the garden.

I imagined that my succulents would love the dry spring and summer after such a cold winter. However, they were poor specimens until they had a very heavy deluge of monsoon-like rain about four weeks ago. Only then did they get going and plump up their leaves. This seems obvious in hindsight. In order to store the water in their leaves they must have water in the first place. Yet it had never occurred to me before.

A dry spell followed by the occasional heavy deluge is probably the pattern of the weather in their native environment because many come from the drier, hotter parts of the world. As a result they have evolved in a number of interesting ways. Most of the photosynthesis takes place in the stems rather than the water-storing leaves.

They also have a metabolic system that fixes carbon during the night (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism or CAM) and a reduced number of pores (or stomata) in their leaves to reduce water loss through transpiration.

Sometimes the leaves are waxy to the touch and sometimes they are hairy: both reduce water loss and protect the plant from the effects of full sun. Succulents with spines are called cacti. I don’t have any of these boys’ toys!

All succulents are shallow rooted, a device that allows them to access any rain within seconds. However this makes them very susceptible to rotting off should they stand in water, so all my succulents are grown in terracotta pots without saucers. This allows rain to drain away. The plants are also surrounded by grit, but mainly for aesthetic reasons — it displays their foliage well.

Apparently, I should be feeding my collection little and often, but generally mine go hungry until they are repotted every spring. At this time of the year I am taking cuttings by either cutting away a small rosette, or pulling off a leaf. These are left in the shade for two days, so that the wound dries out, before being plunged into sharp sand in seed trays. My introduction to succulents was an interesting affair. I was presented with an ornate box of chocolates. When I unwrapped them expecting to sink my teeth into a chocolate brazil I was confronted with mini rosettes of succulents in every shade.

It is the joy of producing babies that keeps me interested and often a small cutting will persist through winter when a mature plant fails. All mine are fleeced in cold weather and kept very dry in an unheated greenhouse. Once warmer weather returns they stand outside in the sunniest position I can find, and this year I will give them a good drink. Some look at death’s door, but I spare them and generally they return into leaf by late July.