Hello everyone,

I have been gone for a while & have really missed everyone & my plants.I had to go out of state for medical reasons.I am back after being in the hospital and then staying in a hotel for some out patient follow up appointments and poking and proding.

When i left the weather had cleared up and was sunny but unfortunately the new basket of succulents i had put together was left outside in the rain a little to long.I am greatful my daughter brought it in when she did.

Here's a refresher about the basket i'm talking about.Some of the plants are beginning to rot at the soil level.They have started to grow red roots from the stems and the rot hasn't went very far up the stems.I would appreciate some advice, opinions and your thoughts on what i am planning to do now.Here are some pictures of the plants that the stems turned soft some maybe even mushy to a point.



I am planning on cutting these plants above the soft or rotted part of the stems,to reroot them.They are doing a pretty good job of rerooting themselves.These 1st. two pictures are the same plant,it has a lot of stems growing from the same root system.With the problem i'm having and the fact that the plant is covered in red roots should i cut this plant in a few places instead of just the bottom of the stem.I'm going to cut it into to 2 plants by cutting above the roots.

After i cut the plants how long should i let them sit out to callous before putting back into the soil.I am going to be cutting the roots off of these plants but 'Vera Higgins' roots very easily.The 2nd to last picture is a plant i have tried to get an ID on unsuccessfully for a while.It is growing the red roots a lot faster the the other plants.

Any advice on rooting these plants will be greatly appreciated!!!!

P.S. i hope everyone has been doing ok!!!

So glad to hear from you and about your plants, Jojoe!

I agree with you that you should cut right above the rot or withered part of the stem. After you make the cut look at the good end and see if there is still rot discoloration of the stem (sometimes light brown or yellowish). If you still see rot, you need to cut just a bit higher until it looks like healthy stem color. I would then let it callous for a couple of days at most and then let them root. For those stems with roots already I would stick them in soil after the cut edge has been calloused. I would cut stems in different places if the healthy part is long/large and you want to propagate more but if piece is not that big, hold off on making multiple cuts so that plant can recover and get bigger.

Sorry about the rot but the basket was looking great.

More importantly, I hope you are getting better so that you can have fun outside with your plants. I assume you have green stuff inside too (?) so that you can still garden indoors if you can't go outside? Please take care, Jojoe. Thinking about you!

Hi Jojoe I am pretty new and wanted to say you are in my thoughts for continued good health.

Now the plants if while you are cutting and some leaves fall off.....Lay them on top of dry soil and the leaves will root and make new plants too. I do not squirt them with a little water if I see them shriveling. I have a couple of pots of the one with the balls (your drapping plant I cannot think of the name right now but)...... They always fall of the stems I just throw them back into the pot and they root and make more plants.

Hi Jelinda,

If the plants have existing good roots, you can put it back to the soil. For the ones rotting, agree, pull them out let dry. For how long..well, I just eyeball it, if it forms a callus. In the meantime, if you can get hold of pumice, I would suggest you amend your soil with it before you return the plants with good roots, to make it more fast draining. The soil I see clinging to the root area looks very damp, understandably since you said it has been raining a lot in your area, so you need to make your soil more fast draining. I like pumice since it is heavier than perlite, has rugged texture so roots will have lots of air pockets. These plants do not really need rich soil anyways, will like growing in more gritty textured soil.

If your weather forecast really says downpour for a week or longer, consider putting them in a sheltered patio or umbrella..as well draining your soil can get..too much rain will always take its toll in hot days or cold days. And you did say you have higher humidity, so all the more to shelter those plants on rainy days if you can. The leaves and stems can only absorb as much moisture..so the only way to help them is find them some bit of dry area.

I'm new to these too, but wanted to share something that helped me (a stereotypical always-recovering over-waterer,) keep most of the plants alive so far, I got about 100 various succulents last winter/spring. Even some growing and blooming in this awful monsoon that's usurped summer here. I wish I remember who said it to me. I don't, but when they did, these plants made more sense to me regarding propagating especially. Paraphrased, the info was, "the search for water is what forms roots, not actual adjacent moisture."

Because it's such a fine line between having enough moisture present for survival and rot occurring so often when I add any, I've had much better results propagating in pots and spots where there are already plants with root systems. Then I can moisten the surface often when watering the pot, but it dries so much more quickly. The next best thing is to pack them in as closely as possible so the minute amounts of moisture used add up to at least slightly faster drying of the pot as a whole. Something really shallow, like the drip saucer of a regular pot seems to work better than the actual pot, if it's a pot of nothing but propagation attempts, little snips and single leaves. I've gotten a few boxes of stuff like that in trade, and for postage.

Not everything has been successful, but really great things (IMVHO) are happening in a couple aluminum baking pans, cheap, don't get too hot in the sun, shallow, easy to put whatever holes I want. I have to move these at least twice a day for the past 2 months so they don't get rained on constantly. If not for that, I think a lot more stuff would still be 'in there.' In the spring, some separating and spreading out should hopefully be needed for these babies in 'diaper pans.'



Pots with older plants, newer plants, and recent propagation attempts through holes in the side of the one on the right. Did that about 6 weeks ago, pic last week, so going pretty well although too soon to officially pronounce everything as a rooted plant yet. Well, the preview is just part of a fence, the plants are hanging on both sides:

Thanks for the advice,

Tarev,I have looked for the different things that you have said you use in your soil and i simply can't find it. I believe i've asked you more than once where you get the different things you amend your soil with.I have been adding everything i can find including different sized pea gravel,from very small to regular sized pea gravel.Pea gravel that looks like it's been tumbled or is smooth without the sharp edges.It helps a lot.The reason the soil in my pictures seems so wet is because well it is,the pot was put on the back porch,which is covered the night before i took the pictures & i took the pictures the next morning.I guess it could have been worse.I was out of town & when my daughter told me it had rained a week then stopped a few days & started back and had been raining about 8 or 9 days, i told her to get that pot out of the rain.She brought it in the house,i don't know which would have been better inside in the A/C or the porch??

The temp's here have dropped back down into the high 70's to the mid 80's but the humidity has stayed high.I am going to replant the peices today. Everything else looks good in that pot.I had to move my pot of Sedum Rubrotinctum,didn't want them to rot.

Does anyone know of a on-line store thats not to expensive that i can buy the different things Tarev uses in her soil? I believe she said she got hers at some kind of specialty store?? :shrug:

Can't wait to get pictures of my plants to share.Inside i did have a lot of very dry Holiday Cactus i am tending to!!

Perlite can be substituted for pumice and I know my Home Depot carries it.

Pumice, I have seen in carry-able bags at Orchard Supply Hardware.

Jelinda, try amazon.com. Lots of sellers there of akadama, kanuma and pumice. Just evaluate who offers free shipping to lower your cost. But if you really cannot get from them..you just have to use Perlite, add more of it, keep containers shallow and wide..similar to the depth shown on Tiffany's aluminum containers.

I have perlite & have used it before.The only thing about perlite is it seems to always end up on the top of the pot after a while.This is the first time i've used that type of pot.Do they drain better than a solid pot or hold water.What's yall's advice on these lined pots? Seems like water & air would more easily be able to get to the soil through the (what are they lined with coconut hair or something).

I have a question of course, should i put the ones without roots 'Vera Higgins' & Sedum 'morganianum' in a different pot than the one they come out of until they root.

After letting them callous i have noticed the 'Vera Higgins' has dried out in a couple of placed along the long stems.I am going to have to cut them into a few place's.I have noticed this is one of the easiest plants to root & propagate.I am not sure about stem rooting the Sedum 'morganianum'.I have 1 piece of it that i had to cut the stem and it calloused faster & the leaves began to wither quickly.It's already in soil.Here's a picture of the 'Vera Higgins' they were fairly long & were hanging over the side of the pot.


The second picture,the middle stem up toward the top of the picture you can see were the stem looks withered.I will have to cut that off.It didn't look like that at least not enough that i noticed when i took these out of the pot.

Any advice or just let me know if I'm on the right track or anyone have any idea's they will be greatly appreciated!!

Jo, you can put the vera Higgins back into the pot where they came from unless it's already too crowded or you want a new pot of them, Yes, I would cut that withered part off.
The coir lined pots are more draining but the makeup of a soil itself where the succulent roots are can hold a lot of water. And so there's where you want the soil to good draining.

I don't know what else i can do to make the soil drain better.I started out with succulent soil & added rock of different sizes.It's the same mixture i have everything in.I mixed up a bunch of it months ago.I really think it was simply the constant rain.It was left in the rain to long.

My jades which i have about 5 or 6 different ones and a total of 9 from propagating.They are struggling because of the hard rain,then while they're still wet the sun would come out and it has burned some leaves.They looked great when i left but they have dropped leaves & are sunburned now.Do i just leave they sun burned leaves on the plants,they will fall off sooner or later anyway.Removing the leaves won't make new leaves grow back any faster correct?

I will try to get some pictures of them today.

jojoe said:I don't know what else i can do to make the soil drain better.I started out with succulent soil & added rock of different sizes.It's the same mixture i have everything in.I mixed up a bunch of it months ago.I really think it was simply the constant rain.It was left in the rain to long.

Well jojoe, if you feel you have addressed the drainage issue, then I think you can't do anymore than that. Hope your plants get to recover/rejuvenate when the sun finally comes out a little bit more often?

The sun came out for about 30 minutes right before dark yesterday.It didn't rain but the humidity is still so high everything just isn't drying out as fast as it would with the sun shining.Keeping fingers crossed for sun today.

I do think i'm going to check out a little mom & pop nursery in Augusta and see if i can't get some of the things Tarev uses to amend her soil.It's a long shot but again fingers crossed.Who knows maybe they could order supplies for me??? WE need a little man with crossed fingers.

have a lovely day everyone.