Ceramic Alpaca Succulent Planter, 4 Colors, 2 Poses

Succulents in a hollow this small dry out over a hot weekend and rot in a week of winter watering. The alpaca's back is a saddle sized opening rather than a pot, and that changes what you can put in it.

It is a glazed ceramic alpaca with a planting cavity set into its back, 5.9 in (15 cm) tall and 5.5 in (14 cm) long, in four colors and two head poses.

• Glazed ceramic with a raised curl texture over the body
• Painted saddle blanket panel on each side
• 5.9 in tall, 5.5 in long
• Four colors, two poses: head turned or looking ahead

Size

At 5.9 in (15 cm) tall this stands about as high as a coffee mug and takes a little more table than one. The cavity is what decides your plant: it holds a small root ball, which means one echeveria, a haworthia, a sprig of string of pearls or a single small cactus. A fern will look right for a month and then run out of room.

Good to know

Use gritty cactus mix rather than potting compost, and water with a spoon rather than a can. A shallow hollow goes from bone dry to waterlogged in one careless pour, and glazed ceramic gives you no warning either way because you cannot see through it.

Mixing colors and poses is the point. Two of them facing each other on a windowsill read as a scene. One on its own reads as an ornament that happens to have a plant in it.

Care

Wipe the glaze with a damp cloth. Lift the plant out and rinse the cavity once a season, because mineral crust builds up on glaze wherever hard water sits.