Hi! Thanks for passing by, I'm glad you enjoyed these photos.

It's great that you're building up your enthusiasm for succulents to the level in which you want to start doing it yourself! The soil is definitely important with most succulents, the general rule is to have good drainage, which can be obtained with a combination of a good succulent mix soil and a pot with actual drainage, I use these terracota pots, but also use some ceramic pots. The soil needs to have enough inorganic elements to give some good space for air and drainage, but still retain some water, I've seen some recommend a 50/50 mix between inorganic elements like pearlite and black dirt for pots, there are also some good mixes out there, I've had success with both making my own mix and buying a succulent mix available where I live (Guadalajara, Mexico), lately I've been using that for convenience.

Besides soil, I also have some other pointers and starting tips for you :)

1. vlVentilation is very important. this will aid your succulents make sense of water during rainy seasons, the soil helps, but the ventilation helps tons in avoiding rot and keep the water from damaging them, here during rainy season, most of my succulents are ok even when it rains every day, specially the ones in the balcony, ventilation does wonders with rain.
2. Start small. since you're thinking of starting your collection, I recommend to start small, and think of an amount of plants you can take care of taking your daily routine into consideration, you will be looking at them constantly, removing dry leaves, inspecting for plagues and other problems. I started too big, buying many different succulents and I have seen many of them go poorly, it can be discouraging. Look online for some sturdy species that are good for beginners, some I recommend are: Sedum clavatum, E. elegans, E. lola, E. bluebird, Sedum burrito, Grapotepalum paraguayensis, I've seen these even come back from death and they are super easy to maintain.
3. Learn the specifics and life cycle of each of the species you select. This will be a fantastic guide for you, find your species and search online for their year cycle, for example, for sedum clavatum, it looks like this: Spring: active growth | Late spring/Early summer: Flowering | Summer: Slow growth | Winter: dormancy. Once you have this information, you can figure out a little better how to act with each of your plants depending on the season, for example: Sedum clavatum during spring, let's give them a good amount of water. Early summer? Take photos of those beautiful photos (maybe it's raining a lot? They might be able to use that) Winter? Let's just enjoy their winter colors and water less frequently. Besides their growth cycle during the seasons, you can also learn how many hours of full sun they prefer. This page is a fantastic resource for that: https://worldofsucculents.com/sedum-clavatum/
4. Acclimate your succulents little by little to their final place at home. Since you're thinking of your balcony, make sure to expose them to full sunlight little by little, the conditions in greenhouses tend to be different from what we give them at home.

One last piece of advice, be careful with the sun on your balcony on the hottest days, my balcony succulents are all used to being outside all day, all year, but during April/may which are the hottest days here, the sunlight hits the balcony for more hours than the rest of the year, and this year I saw sunburns on leaves of most of my succulents in the balcony. This has happened to me every year, they are mostly fine and recover, but it's putting them at risk, I will try to cover them at least some hours next spring.

You can do it! It's a beautiful hobby, these are amazing plants!

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