It's time to re-pot some babies! Sorry for the funny lighting, I was doing this in my bathroom with my grow light going in the corner.
Putting more pictures of my repotting process under the cut as I tend to get picture happy.
So first thing first... I prepare my pots.
The holes on the pots I'm potting up into are a little big and I end up with soil and perlite falling out the bottoms. Since these are indoor plants I don't really want that mess all over, so I use drywall mesh tape to keep it from spilling everywhere. This sticks and won't move when I fill with soil, but the sticky side is facing out of the holes so it'll pick up any soil you set the pot down on. Doesn't stick to surfaces though because the width of the plastic keeps it from hitting the shelves.
Kinda ugly on the inside
But looks perfectly fine underneath, though you probably won't be looking at the bottom too much anyway. If you have a pot that's already planted and don't want to un-pot it but have soil falling out of a large hole in the bottom? Can also slap it on the bottom from the outside, might look a little funny but whatever works!
I then scoop my pots maybe half full with my gritty soil mix. I want some soil on the bottom so roots aren't just sticking out of the holes.
Next it's time to pop them babies out. These are in really thin plastic so it's easy to just push them in at the bottom to pop a cell out.
I try as hard as possible to handle these by the soil or with a claw grip like on one of those claw machine games. That way I'm only touching the undersides of the most bottom leaves.
But you can't just pop a baby into some soil looking like that! Those roots will never grow out of it's previous shape! So you have to squish it and rough it up a little.
Since these are in good gritty soil there's no need for me to go overboard and try to remove the old stuff. I just want to break up that structure so the roots can branch out into the new soil.
Now my pots I'm potting into are 4 inch pots, which is honestly too big for them but it's what I have and they'll be fine since my soil is so gritty.
I unfortunately don't have pictures of the next process as it requires two hands to do.
But I claw grip my babies and hover them in the middle of the pot and scoop and pour soil in around the sides. I switch hands on holding and scooping, and I'll turn the pot (and try to turn the plant with it so I'm not just twisting the roots around) so I get all around filled in. There's also some tapping and shaking to get soil settled, and I'll press it down around the plant a little and fill a little more. I try very hard to keep soil from falling on the rosettes, though a little is inevitable. Soil also doesn't always make it into the pot. So that's why I pot on my bathroom floor though I would prefer a metal potting bench/table, then you can just scoop any dropped soil and try to get it back in the pot again. And it's easy to sweep up when I'm done.
Once done I use a soft (and clean) make-up brush to help remove any soil dust or bits of perlite that may have fallen on the plants.
But I don't usually wipe or actually do any brush stroking motions. These are quick up and down movements like I'm powdering their noses. If there's any bigger pieces of soil/perlite between leaves I gently pull a leaf down to give it some room and try to blow the piece out. If it's in easy reach I also have some tweezers on hand to gently pull it out.
The make-up brush does remove some of the farina, the powder coating some succulents have, but generally it's very light and if there's any finger marks will make them appear fainter as you're blurring the edges of them. I also brush off the pots themselves as there's usually soil dust clinging to them. If the roots poking up in-between/around the rosettes are bothering you then you can pull or cut them off, but I don't find them annoying at all.
All done. Now to do it 8 more times.
Now you can also break these babies up even further and have more individual pots, it just requires shaking them loose or sometimes cutting them apart and repotting them on their own. But I liked the little groups all clustered and wanted to keep that look.
After you re-pot you do not water like you would with other plants. I'm also potting with dry soil and I had to wait until my baby's soil was dried from their last watering before I did this. Wait at least one week before you water. These are very easy to tell when they're thirsty so I'm going to wait on the plant to tell me when to water and not a schedule. Thankfully that works for my ADHD as time means nothing to me and I'd have to set a reminder for every plant if I was on a schedule. These I can check on every once in awhile and their leaves will get more bendy and kind of open up a bit more when they're thirsty. Has it been 3 days (maybe 3 hours)? A week? 3 weeks? I literally don't know, but I don't have to know if I water when the plant tells me to.
Also, because I'm potting with dry perlite there's quite a bit of perlite dust floating around as I'm doing this. You do NOT want to breathe that stuff in, if you start coughing it's time for a mask. I wear a dust mask the entire time I'm potting and I should honestly be doing this outside where it's better ventilated. But I don't have a good space for it and I'm lazy.
