It took mine about a year to go from 2-3 heads to filling a 4 inch pot. Not exactly slow compared to a lot of cacti anyway. They just keep growing and growing, and after about a decade you'll have something pretty huge.

After a little afternoon shower... these plants all recently rooted cuttings in 3 gallon pots

@Baja, forget to ask, are all your succulents at rooftop enjoy a full sun full rain?

Full rain except for 3 or 4 dormant caudiciforms (so all of the Aeoniums most definitely yes). Full sun to greater or lesser degrees at this time of year, the walls do cut out some of the sun when it's coming from an angle.

Ok, TX a lot

But that's comparing apples and oranges, or maybe mangos and papayas, depending on your latitude. Please excuse a short mathematical diversion...

If you look at solar intensity over the course of an average day, it should be a trigonometric function of the solar angle. So just knowing how high the sun gets up in the sky on a given day, you ought to be able to predict how piercing it might be. Does this make sense? At least from a plant's perspective?

Put it this way: your average solar angle at midday (74°) is about the same as our annual maximum solar angle at midday (77°). And our annual minimum midday solar angle (32°) might be about half yours (60°). And we're not even that far away from the equator compared to others in the thread.

This info available for various locations here:

https://www.gaisma.com/en/loca...

So translating these numbers into intensity through the magic of trigonometry, our most intense sun of the year is about equal to your average daily maximum, and our least intense midday sun here in the subtropics is 3 times less powerful than your annual minimum.

This on top of horizon effects where walls and stuff will cut out the sun when it is lower in the sky.

In the end sun exposure is a function of intensity and time (the term "full sun" refers to over 6 hours a day of direct outdoor sun) and the seasons affect both variables. My Aeoniums are in full sun if you were to take an annual average, but some of them are getting less than the stated figure at this time, because there are some low walls around the patio.

Yes, agree.. Just want to have a feel on how you always can make the succulents show their best. In here seems like I have to put some sort of UV plastic and/or shading net to reduce the light intensity, the heat and rain to really bring them to their best performance (except echeverias). But I don't want to put those net / plastic on my rooftop. At the end I have to manage my expectation, just make sure that I can grow them reasonably ok without ruining my rooftop layout
My brother is even in a worse situation, he struggles even more, whenever he visited my place and look at my cactus/succulents, he will say :" I need to do something "

It's been raining all day here. It's good for the drought. Kaktus, do you have a rooftop garden?

Not a garden, just a rooftop, but I grow a lot of succulents, adeniums and some fruits in there

Well, results from the recent beheading. There's so many pups on that one stump. A lot of energy stuck in a that headless 1 foot trunk.

@kaktus, Most of my succulents are grown under roof or shade cloth.
It does not rain here frequently like in most of the Hawaiian islands, but when it storms I can have several days of intense rain which can rot the roots on my plants in less than a week.
For me the colors of most species is better under 30% shade.
Some plants demand full sun so I grow them under a clear Polycarbonat roof.
My Euphorbias, Agaves and Aloes do fine in landscaping with the rain.

I used to live in Hawaii. In Oahu. Occasionally it just starts pouring for days. A much better climate for air plants, then the Caudiciformes I grew. As well as the cacti. I tried to grow lithops, that didn't work so well...

I think 'Emerald Ice' was in a hurry to produce stem just so it could make branches... and there aren't actually any flowers on the way in the foreseeable future.



It's kind of fascinating how all the new growth (starting with the leaves that reach the edge of the pot, and up) has buried the smaller, flatter rosette from the spring and summer. A very big change in character, even for an Aeonium. Some of the variegated plants seem to be extreme this way.

Very interesting. I have never seen so many pups on a plant, unless I have beheaded it, or it's going to flower. Arboreum variegata also likes to pup. Well, as of right now...

My kiwi is doing so as well

It is that season. Good to hear y'all are seeing lots of branches right now.

Extra super branchy at the moment is this sedifolium, which also displays pretty extreme seasonal variation.



You can't even tell that I took 3 branches for propagation at the start of the fall, the way this thing has filled out.

I've always wanted one of those. Though if they do flower, and have seeds...

Your sedifolium looks different than mine -- could it be that mine is dormant or something??

@Sedumzz
Say what? You have a sedifolium? Well, if you do have any cuttings in the spring, ill trade for them...

Maybe post a picture of your Sedifolium. Aeoniums should be growing, now that it's winter. There are also different cultivars of Sedifolium, fyi