The paddle and propeller-shaped foliage of succulents often looks more like spare parts from a scrapyard than anything botanical. But when cold winds and rain have torn the softer elements of your garden to pieces, the silvery, fresh, waxy foliage of succulents come into their own. Containers are a great way to showing off succulents - they provide the drainage these plants need plus we can haul them into warmer spots and elevate them where we can better see all those patterns and colours. Succulents also look great tumbling down a dry stone wall.  I tend not to herd my succulents together – though they can make a beautifully textured tapestry if well cared for, as in the garden pictured above. Such an arrangement is tempting because succulents invariably like the same sunny conditions and rarely deprive each other of the breezy openness they love.

* How to make a living succulent wreath * Create a succulent hanging basket, step by step * Take part in the first ever Great Kiwi Bee Count this September

Echeveria 'Afterglow' is one of the largest and showiest cultivars of this genus. As with all echeverias, avoid watering it from the top as it can cause rot in the rosette.

Pull dead leaves away from the base to remove hiding places for mealybugs. For good leaf colour, water with a balanced liquid feed fortnightly in summer. Propagate by taking leaf cuttings at any time of year.

Pots and walls allow some succulents to show off their personalities - some gradually drizzling over the edges like setting lava flows. 

Blue chalk sticks (Senecio serpens)  is mind-blowingly blue and will waterfall over a pot rim or a wall as well as any glacial torrent. 

It has a rampant wandering habit, making it an effective groundcover for sunny awkward places, such as dry tree bases and stony banks. Weeds find it hard to penetrate the foliage. 

The creamy button flowers are attractive, but remove them quickly after flowering and tip prune to maintain shape and keep it tidy. 

Sometimes called the spiral aloe, Aloe polyphylla is tougher than it looks and naturally  grows in areas of high rainfall where it is used to sitting under snow, so make sure it gets ample moisture during hot summers.

Unusually, this aloe stays as a single rosette. The stubby flower spike is branched with cream flowers deepening to orange in the centre, and is interesting rather than elegant, rather upsetting those amazing Fibonacci swirls.

If you have the wrong soil (too rich, too poor, too dry or too wet), this corkscrewing work of art can become distorted, in time ruining the effect.

Kalanchoe luciae is a compact but bold succulent. With its red-tipped leaves it is sometimes labelled 'Bronze Sculpture', which was presumably a name tacked on as a marketing device but acts as a good description of this popular landscape plant.

Stop feeding it after Christmas, and if it is marooned in a pot you will encourage wonderfully warm, bronzy tinges in the leaves.

If other-worldliness is your look of choice, then this is the plant to group in a gravel garden or to show off in a sculptural pot. If you like the shape of the tall flower spikes it's a  good idea to stake them so they don't topple in strong winds.

In the North Island, you can spot giant specimens of the bushiest aloe, Aloe spinosissima, growing at old farm gates, making a rounded shrub up to 1.8m high.

Its slender spikes of flowers are numerous and deep orange and, like all aloe flowers, are beloved by birds. Propagation is child's play from side shoots.

Grow young plants in pots without fertiliser and the stress will show itself in beautifully bronzed leaves. The toothed leaves are soft to the touch.

Agave means "noble" in its home in Central American deserts, and Agave parryi  is a very aerodynamic if rather downsized member of the family.

Because agaves are monocarpic, the flowering rosettes die after the enormous flower spikes have appeared, so it pays to purchase plants of differing sizes so they don't all flower at once.

Leave the wreckage and new pups may appear from the base of the dying leaves. Failing that, simply collect the seed and grow from that.

Like most of this genus, Aeonium arboreum 'Atropurpureum' comes from the Canary Islands where its large, acid-yellow, pyramidal flower spikes grace the rocky hillsides in early spring.

You normally see its jet black and more luxuriant cousin 'Schwartzkopf' for sale.

'Atropurpureum', however, is better branched and stockier, and the shades of green and chocolate in the leaves make it more interesting,  especially alongside bronzy native carex grasses or whipcord hebes.

Echeveria elegans is a popular and common little groundcover. The rosettes multiply quickly and are easily removed, so it's easy to use this plant to edge a path, as part of a green roof, or to create a ghostly grey carpet.

Try mixing it with black grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens') for extra funky effect – you could even go really cheesy and write your house number or name in it so low flying aircraft know exactly where you live.

Succulents are available from Wairere Nursery, Coromandel Cacti and Mauways Nursery and Gardens.