Crassula

The jade plant is a long-lived succulent houseplant with thick, woody, branching stems and plump, glossy, jade-green oval leaves that flush red at the edges in bright light - the familiar "money plant" or "lucky plant". POWO (Kew) places it native to South Africa; it is grown worldwide in pots as one of the easiest and most forgiving of indoor succulents. RHS gives Crassula ovata the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) as an easy succulent houseplant for bright light and rates it frost-tender (H1C / H2). Honesty matters with this plant: it is killed far more often by kindness than by neglect - OVERWATERING and too little light cause soft, leggy, rot-prone growth, so let the soil dry out completely between waterings. It is TOXIC to cats and dogs (chewed leaves cause vomiting and lethargy). Mature plants can be trained as an indoor bonsai-like specimen and may, with age and a cool bright rest, bloom in clusters of small white-pink star flowers.

A rounded, slow-growing succulent shrub from the Western Cape of South Africa, the silver-leaved cousin of the common jade plant. Its thick, branching stems carry almost circular, fleshy leaves of a striking silvery-grey, edged in red where the sun hits them, and mature plants top out with domed clusters of pink-white star flowers. Like other Crassula it is an easy, drought-tolerant succulent that stores water in those plump leaves and uses CAM photosynthesis to cope with heat and dry air. POWO (Kew) places it as native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa, and it is frost-tender (about RHS H3), so outdoors it belongs only in warm, frost-free gardens (roughly USDA zones 9b-11) - everywhere colder it is a classic pot or house plant. It wants full sun to keep the silver colour and red margins, very sharp drainage, and only sparing water: overwatering and cold, wet soil are what rot and kill it, far more than any drought. The leaves are mildly toxic if eaten, to people and to pets, so it is grown for looks, not the table.

String of buttons is a rambling South African succulent (Crassulaceae) native to rocky slopes and thicket vegetation in the Cape Provinces and KwaZulu-Natal, where it scrambles through shrubs on long, unbranched stems. In frost-free gardens (USDA zones 9b–11b) it is a textural ground cover, rockery plant, or spiller in containers; everywhere colder it is a houseplant or frost-protected patio succulent. The honest catch is twofold: it is frost-tender and will be killed or disfigured by a hard freeze, and - like its toxic genus-mates such as the jade plant - it is best treated as toxic to cats and dogs, so it is not a safe choice for pet-accessible plantings.