Succulent Interrupted

Stomatium sp.

Interested in increasing your knowledge of succulent plants beyond “beginner” level? This is for you. Or maybe you are already a member of a local cactus & succulent society, but meetings are cancelled right now? 

I’ve been compiling a calendar of all the live streaming presentations put on by cactus and succulent societies around the world. You can see it here with the schedule normalized to California time, UK time, or Central Europe time.

You can also subscribe to the calendar in whatever app you use with this link.

These events tend to be habitat exploration slideshows by botanists, scientific overviews of a group of plants, or advanced care or horticultural information from professionals at botanical gardens. Most are free, but some do require tickets or free registration, so check the details and reserve early.

Please share widely among succulent hobbyists!

If you know of other live events of this nature, contact me and I will add them to the calendar.

And if you enjoy a presentation, consider joining the institution that put it on, or a similar one in your area. Your support for cactus and succulent societies and botanical gardens helps them make all this interesting content available. Most also have fantastic journals and newsletters, in-person meetings, and plant shows.

Late spring! A time of danger.

A few weeks ago, I started to put window screen mesh (acts like a shade cloth) over a few of my more exposed Haworthias. This was something I experimented with last year to great success. It lets them stay compact and color up, but keeps them from getting too much sun. There are only a few hours a morning of direct light, but it's increasing fast, and there are more hot days now. The combo of too much heat and light can be deadly, especially if the pots get hot and the roots cook, or if the leaf surface burns. The screen will gradually expand over more of the collection in the coming weeks, diffusing the light before it hits the pots and plants.

Haworthia wimii repotted to accent incoming offsets.

Container from Schulps Pottery and Knives

You probably aren’t going to like this answer, but I have a very limited growing space on my window ledge, and I honestly don’t propagate that much.

Leaf props take FOREVER, and don’t really make a lot of sense unless you just like waiting, or have a LOT of space and want to make thousands of plants for sale. I only leaf-prop an occasional rare Adromischus leaf these days.

If I’m pruning an older Sedum or Echeveria, Crassula or something like that, I might take a nice rosette and stick it in a small pot of pumice. Usually it will have a nice “stem beard” of roots in a month or 2 and I very gently replant it in a slightly bigger container with my regular mix. I’d use these as backups or give them away. Once a week is plenty of water and really just use pure pumice at first, and a small container that won’t hold much moisture. If the stem is healthy, less moisture will make it produce better roots.

Or just “stick it in the dirt”. A lot of times it works.

Offsets from Haworthias and Aloes are more valuable to me, but to be honest, I like clumps so I tend to keep them together until it becomes obvious that it is holding back their growth.