Please excuse the shredded paper "mulch". This area in my back yard is "in training" and I can bring home about as much shredded paper as I want for free from work.

Anyway, this plant was getting too dry about every-other day in a clay pot so I dropped it in the ground a few weeks ago so it wouldn't get too dry while I was away for 10 days. Luckily it did rain and the bloom stalks are exploding!

I've heard about the famous Alabama summer snow, the succulents love it!

Echeverias on the patio this cloudy afternoon....




You'll be seeing more of the first plant (a "Black Prince" hybrid) in coming months as those inflorescences develop. The second plant is finally done flowering for the season, and has gone into full summer mode, with maximum red highlights in full sun.

I do have about 3 plants that are Echeveria but I do not expect much here in Houston, TX They are all out on the deck and we hope they do fine!

A while back, I told mum I'd try to fix her etiolated Echeveria for her. I've since gotten a nice rosette to come in, and I think it's ready to cut. I'm still not great at judging the best spot to cut, so I was hoping you guys could point me in the right direction. Here it is:





Recommendations?
I never seem to find a sweet spot on these guys. I usually end up with my stem shrivelling too short and I have to set the cutting flat on the soil and hope it takes. Or I end up with too much and end up having an "Echieaeonium".

Cut about here:

and remove the lower leaves that are pointing downward (up to about the level of the wrinkly one at the left), leaving only the leaves that are perpendicular to the stem or curve upward.

The end goal is a cutting with about 1cm of naked stem at the bottom. If I've got the proportions wrong, make the cut wherever you need to in order to arrive at this result. You can make it work with less naked stem, but there's no benefit to keeping any more. The stem will contract just a bit when it dries out, so the final cutting you plant will be slightly smaller than what you get when you first make the cut,.

I've always cut much farther down. For the pictured plant, I would leave just a nub of a stump and cut nearly to the soil level. There are tons of roots down there already. It should continue growing as if nothing happened. I like a taller entity, while most other people seem to prefer a soil-level rosette. It sounds like the latter is your goal, TK.

If you prefer to cut higher, it might be fun to cut a 2nd time and plant the naked section of stem with all of those roots, if you have space for that.

The longer the stem is when you start a cutting, the smaller its rosette will be and the shorter the lifespan of the resulting plant. Those features of Echeveria aging relating to stem length are true for the entire genus, to one degree or another. And the more buried succulence, the greater the risk of rot. It's not a guarantee of a bad outcome, it's a relative risk and it's different for each plant.

As for the existing roots, here's my view. A cutting will typically root and start growing again in 6-8 weeks here. If waiting two months is the price for minimizing the risk due to buried succulence, that's something I'll gladly pay. But to each his/her own, of course.

I can see where you're coming from.

There's a really useful book by Kapitany & Schulz called "Succulents: Propagation" (perhaps available used or digitally) and in it they run through all the options available when choosing where to cut, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each. Obviously there's no one right answer, and a fair amount of improvisation is probably a good idea when one does these things, so as to explore the boundaries of possibility.

Planting cuttings with long buried stems can work out great with some kinds of succulents, like the crown of thorns and some other Euphorbias. I actually buried a meter of stem when I started the E. ingens on the downstairs patio. And there are plenty of cases where the longer the stem on a cutting, the better the result. But that is not generally true for Echeverias and other similar members of this family, in fact it's usually the opposite. The mother plant will be more likely to branch afterwards when the cut is closer to the tip (again, a relative probability that increases in one direction) and the cutting will be quicker to root and start growing if the stem is young (likewise).

Thank you for the info!

I'm glad I asked. I was thinking of cutting higher than that. I probably would have ended up with too small a stem again.

Thanks for the additional info!

Here's another related question. I forget if I asked this before.

What do you guys use to cut your Echies? I have an assortment of Fiskars pruners that I typically use, but I can't get as clean a cut on thicker Echies (and other succulents). Been wondering if there's a better option I could look into?

I don't use pruners on my Echeverias, usually. These are my tools of choice, depending on the width of the stem:



Sometimes it helps to remove a leaf at the site of the cut, in order to get better access to the stem with these tools.

Sometimes I cut the head off with scissors and then use the paring knife to trim the end, because it leaves a perfectly clean surface.

I've got a folding pocket knife that I usually use for the thicker stems. I noticed that my pruners were still crushing at the cut site even when I made sure they were sharp before using them.

found this one under the larger leaves :)

I'll have to give that a try then. I have the same issue with my pruners. They'll be sharp, but I still don't get as clean a cut as I'd prefer.

I've been wanting to trim down my 'Aha Way' for a while too, but I've been nervous to cut it because it has the thickest stem of any of my Echies. Wasn't sure the best way to go about it. I may have to look into a good knife for the task.

Two "Rain Drops" propagations about to flower, and finally starting to make carunculated leaves.



A miniature setosa (2" max)


xSedeveria "Fanfare" a year and a half after arriving as a tiny barely rooted cutting


xGraptosedum "Francesco Baldi" aka "Darley Sunshine" (a recent acquisition)


And a Graptopetalum cutting I rooted about 3 months ago, now full size (that's a 6" pot)

Baja - I looked around for your book recommendation, and saved a link for a copy. Think I might order it soon. Sounds like it could be handy to have given I still have so much to learn about propagation.

A few Echies for today:



I have no idea what kind those two are. Also have some 'Topsy Turvy' blooms starting to open.





It's my topsy turvy 'Topsy Turvy'. It gets rotated, but has always seemed content to grow sideways. It grows right beside the previous two.
Oh well. Each to their own. Whenever their stems get long, I'll probably cut them as well and root them so they're growing flat again.

4 Echs, I think & I don't know who the green one is.

Lovely plants, people. I am kind of fascinated by the monstrose flowers on "Topsy Turvy".

A leaf underside in the afternoon sun, with the hairs casting shadows that make the leaf look striped.



The hair is very striking in person but not that easy to get a decent picture of. Compare that image to this other setosa pic from earlier this year and you can see why the cultivar has its name.