Succulent Addiction

a blog to document my succulent family, and reblog cool plant things where possible. 

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Citrus-spectrum Haworthia hybrid with truncata influence in the leaf arrangement. Purchased from Rob Skillin, July 2018. Label says ex. Jim Smith.

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Spiral Grass succulent

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me when someone gives me a non-succulent that i know Nothing about

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fasciation!?!? its hard to tell on props but that wonky flat stem certainly looks like some crested growth!!! i might remove it from the mother leaf- i’ve heard...that you can get multiple props from one leaf?! i wonder if another would grow fasciated if this one is?? experiment time i suppose!! im so happy about how well this child is doing though. who knows what it is though LOL i just found it on the ground....

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How’re Ur Roots?

- Succulent Edition -

A few weeks ago someone asked me to post some pictures of healthy vs. unhealthy roots. I assume they meant succulents so that’s what I’ll be covering today! My mom recently got a really cute hanging succulent planter, but OF COURSE the damn thing was an overcrowded, peat moss hell. But it was PERFECT to photograph for this post…

^ Let’s start with some dehydrated roots. You can see that they’re completely wizened. They’re usually a dull brown or greyish-brown color. They are dry and sometimes crunchy to the touch. These roots here are completely dead, and incapable of taking up water. At this point, I had no choice but to cut off the entire root ball and start over again.

^ Here’s an example of the direct opposite: overwatered roots. Note how limp and squishy this big ol’ root is. It’s mostly a sickly brown, but in some spots is turning dark with the beginnings of rot. Advanced rot due to overwatering will turn roots black, gooey, and will sometimes have a bad odor. This particular plant was rescued before all of its roots were affected. In this case, I was able to simply cut away the two or three mushy roots. If ALL roots were squishy, I would have AGAIN had to cut off the entire root ball and start over.

^ Here we have an ADORABLE baby nubbin. A new, healthy root will be firm and white, with a touch of green or pink. You should be able to bend them gently and they’re usually lightly moist.

^ Remember the first photo of dehydrated roots? This is the same kind of plant with some healthy roots. Note the arrow pointing at the nice, fresh white. This is helpful in judging whether or not mostly dry roots are still capable of taking up water. If you can spot any white, those roots are okay. I ended up leaving about 50% of the roots on this guy.

BONUS! Some examples of different types of roots. The outside two are echeveria and the center is a pachyveria. These needed very little trimming – as you can see, plenty of robust, white roots.

I hope this was helpful! <3

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this is a really good guide!

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a gift i arranged for my mom, who’s been very patient as i drag her through nurseries and we enable eachother’s plant addiction. but hey, now we have zucchini growing in the garden so whatever works!

haworthia turgida v. pullidifolia

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had to do my first emergency surgery today....and on the beloved king frumpus no less ;m; i had thought the yellowing leaves were pretty normal, maybe they were getting old or something, but i finally felt them today and!! squish!!! squish is bad, the rest of the king is hard!!! so this morning i got the isopropyl and a knife and disinfected it and houugh...the second pic is the cross section, with all that nasty stuff...i tried to cut away as much as i could and put ground cinnamon on the wounds which apparently helps keep fungus out, but im not optimistic. long live the king ;m; pls make it through!!!

the soil was the culprit it turned out- i must have used the end of the perlite bag which is mostly very fine dust aka very good at holding moisture and not nearly as gritty as succulents, especially indoor ones, prefer. when unpotting it didnt even fall out! it must have been like mud! my poor king! now that i have some pumice, i will desperately attempt to 1. get a sieve of some sort to keep the mix very gritty and 2. keep all my indoor plants on a grittier mix because the air flow indoors isnt as much so its harder to wick off the moisture.

on the bright side, three princes were rescued with taproots even so there may be hope for the royal lineage yet.

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here they are...the first full fledged graduates from my prop stations. left is definitely pachyphytum compactum, and right seems to be pachyphytum oviferum? maybe! either way i am So Proud of their growth and beautiful roots and i hope they get bigger and stronger!!

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went to a big nursery and finally found what i’ve wanted for so long! haworthia mirabilis, and its even flowering...i wont pot it yet because its soil is nice and im afraid the transplant shock might make it abort its cute flowers. but ahh! so pretty! when the sun hits the windowed leaves, they practically glow!!

also harder to the touch than it looks...i thought there’d be some squish but its rock hard. so interesting! windowed haworthias are so neat!

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before and after watering my sedum coppertone- i’d only heard about watching your succulents to see when they need water before but seeing it in action is really neat! because they store water in their leaves, they start to prune up and get less full when they want water. of course sometimes that can be rot, so im not always sure. either way very neat! fat little leaves!!

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prop station and then New and Upgraded prop station with only the most promising of candidates!! i noticed that the props under the grow light were doing well (i had some in a car, some on the porch table, some under the grow light. for Science.) so i’ve moved a lot of my favorite little props there. grow strong children, or you will be sent to the rootless tray of Shame.

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my BEAUTIFUL BEAAAAANS! the props at the bottom were all rehomed, of course. this has changed very dramatically once i gave it a lot of sun- its really thriving now! i love these jellybeans.

sedum rubrotinctum ‘aurora’

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local echeveria stretches arms out to enjoy bath tub.

no, this is just my echeveria chihuahuensis, now that its properly blooming. lost some leaves to make the flowers, its gotten redder from sun stress, and i think is reaching up because none of my echeverias will ever be happy in the piddly western washington sun. 

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King Frumpus of Bumpus as helpfully named by my best friend. on the left he is Very dehydrated from the long journey through the mail- it took a few watering cycles before he plumped up so nicely like on the right. the red coloring is sun stress- truncata’s can be acclimatized to sun, even though they prefer low light.

haworthia truncata var. lime green

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i call it...the Maws. i was so excited to get this guy from home depot!! i love the creepy weird succulents!! i made it its own Pit of Death.

faucaria tigrina ‘tiger’s jaw’

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in my efforts to make sure my perle had enough sun, i didnt acclimatize it to the sun and it got nastily burnt... thankfully over time pearlie has bounced back and the new growth is looking lovely.

echeveria ‘perle von nurnberg’

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a very etiolated crassula moonglow i got beheaded, who grew tiny pups! The heads are growing well on their own.