Near Deaths, Worm Infestation, and Propagation - Succoholic Series #6
Today is Day 14 since POS.
Since my last post, I have had near deaths, a worm infestation, and new roots growing on a detached leaf.
On Near Deaths and Re-potting
What I did wrong: a recap:
- On day 8, I received my second batch of succulents and soaked their roots on a tray overnight.
- On day 9 afternoon, I potted my new succulents in a mixture of soil, sand and pumice, with a base of pebbles. I also re-potted some of my succulents from the first batch. I watered the skinny/ leafy ones.
- On day 10 evening, seeing that the soil was very dry, I watered the rest of my plants.
On day 11 evening, I came home to these:
Three of my pretty succulents were showing signs of rot. One was on its death throes. I was very tired from work and seeing this got me so depressed I didn't want to talk to anybody. My mother saw the signs of rot early in the day but didn't understand what they meant so she's been trying to shield the succulents from sunlight, thinking they were too hot. She was as depressed as I am.
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Three of my pretty succulents were showing signs of rot. One was on its death throes. I was very tired from work and seeing this got me so depressed I didn't want to talk to anybody. My mother saw the signs of rot early in the day but didn't understand what they meant so she's been trying to shield the succulents from sunlight, thinking they were too hot. She was as depressed as I am.
We went out to dinner and when we came back, we decided to transfer the dying succulents into a pot of pure pumice. This is what the roots looked like:
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I removed the leaves from the the first one hoping to salvage at least a propagate in case the mother plant dies.
On day 12, I woke up early (on a Saturday) to re-pot the rest of my succulents. Examination of the potting soil confirmed that there was a big problem in drainage. This was how wet the soil still was even after 1.5 days since watering:
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Rationalizing that 1) the first batch did well in our initial potting mix of sand and soil over rocks, and 2) pumice is very porous and drains well, so adding pumice to our sand-soil mix will only make it more porous; I concluded that the problem with our second potting mixture is the bed of pebbles. I therefore used the following revised potting procedure:
- Cover the bottom hole with a screen.
- Place a bed of rocks in the bottom of the pot, making sure that the hole isn't directly covered by a rock.
- Place the sand-soil-pumice mix on top of the rock, press a little.
- Place the succulent into the pot, carefully spooning more sand-soil-pumice mix around it. Press gently.
After almost 7 hours of work, I finally re-potted all of my succulents, except one which I didn't want to move (because it's quite big and it's doing pretty well in its current pot). I re-potted the three dying succulents as well.
Worm Infestation
I found that three of my succulents had been eaten by something, probably a worm. Two of them were of the same variety. There was extensive damage in one and average damage in the other, while the other variety had some branches cut-off. I didn't find anything while potting them so I just tried to clean off the leaves with a cotton bud.
While replacing the succulents on our display shelves, my mother found a black worm on the leafy succulent. She killed it without showing it to me so I wasn't able to take a photo. I'm hoping that was the end of this worm infestation.
Propagation
While re-potting, I carefully removed some leaves from the succulents, hoping to propagate them. I laid them on a bed of dry/moist pumice (the first container had moist pumice). Here are the photos:
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Most of the leaves I've removed over the last days have been placed beside their mother succulents. So far, only 1 has remained alive. It has grown little roots! I'm so excited! I want to see little rosettes on it soon. =)
Updates
This morning, the three dying succulents looked like this:
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The rot seems to have been arrested. I'm optimistic they will fully recover. =)
Extra
I started with the furniture for my DIY succulent fairy garden. So far I have made a bench and a table (table not pictured here).
And that's it for today. Follow me for more. =)
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