On Obsessions, New Arrivals, and Re-potting - Succoholic Series #5
Today is Day 10 since POS.
Succoholic
I'm officially obsessed with my succulents. I constantly think, worry, research, and check on them. I'm fantasizing about mini succulent fairy gardens. I even bought arts and crafts stuff so I could DIY mini chairs & tables I'm planning to use for my future gardens.
So far, I've bought new pots (5" diameter - P2.80 each, then 4" diameter - P2 each, because the 5" were still too big), glue gun + sticks, popsicle sticks and other stuff.
On day 7, I bought pebbles (a bucketful, worth P150 from the claypot store in front of the gasoline station in Claytown Daro), for the planned re-potting of my succulents. On day 8, my co-worker informed me that he has pumice available, so I bought 7 packs (450g per pack at P15 each), because I felt that the pebbles I bought were not porous enough.
This is proving to be an expensive hobby, but mostly because of my erroneous and frivolous purchases.
New Arrivals and Re-potting
The rest of my succulents arrived on Tuesday (Day 8). Here's what they looked like:
I had work, then a badminton game scheduled, so I couldn't plant them yet. At the advise of my seller, I fashioned sticks on a tray and arranged my succulents on it, then added a little water so their roots are soaked.
On Day 9, I finally had time to plant. Based on instinct and observations from my 1st batch, I planted my succulents as follows:
1. Use 4" diameter pots, line the hole with a screen
2. Fill 1/4 of the pot with pebbles. I washed the pebbles thoroughly before using them.
3. Mix pumice with the potting soil I used on the first batch (they were a sand-soil mixture). So I ended up with a mix of 1 part loam soil, 1 part sand, 2 parts pumice
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4. Use a spoon to scoop the mix and place the mix around the succulents carefully.
5. Water the skinny succulents (leaves are not bloated). I didn't water those with fat leaves.
6. Place the detached leaves on top of the soil mix (on the space on pots with smaller succulents), hoping they somehow propagate.
Since I reused the soil mix from my previous batch, some of my first succulents had to be re-potted. I wanted to re-pot all of them but I ran out of pumice. (I bought 10 more packs earlier today, I'll re-pot the rest of the 1st batch tomorrow, because I'm playing badminton again tonight).
I ended up with even more pots than before so I again had to rearrange my display "shelves" to make them fit, and make sure they each get enough, but not too much sunlight. It was another workout. I'm super tired and my muscles are sore from all these lifting and hauling works I've done the past few days.
Updates
I now have a lot of different variations of succulents. They are gorgeous. I'll count them later and search for each variation's name.
The "dying one" still looks the same: not too good, not too bad.
The "worse-faring one" looks stable, but it has lost so many leaves, and changed color, that it looks to be a different plant from the one I first planted. Here are the before and after photos:
One of the leafy succulents got pulled out by a chicken. I was hauling stuff around and placed the succulents on the ground. When I turned back, one of the pots had no more succulent in it. I panicked a bit. I found the poor succulent on the ground and planted it back. There is no obvious damage, so I hope it will survive this ordeal.
All three of this red-tipped succulents grew roots on their stems. I hope this means they're thriving.
And that's all for today. :)
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