#etiolation

over the winter, this little guy became super etiolated and recently his leaves have been dropping :(

Hi! Yes, does your succulent have enough light? If there isn’t enough light, it will keep stretching as far as it can in search of the sun! Plants do this naturally when they’re growing in shady undergrowth to try to escape from under shady branches and reach sunlight. If they fall over, they often just keep growing sideways, then start reaching up again to start all over again. This process is called “etiolation.” I have a few plants that are like this, like this purple perle echeveria:

It’s about five inches tall! Here’s what these plants usually look like: 

(photo via World Of Succulents)

BUT! 

Another thing that could be happening is that you could be fertilizing your plant when you shouldn’t! Some plants react very strongly to fertilizer, and a plant that would otherwise be small and bushy will get long and leggy, even with sufficient light. This happened with one of my plants, my pink ice plant! 

Here’s a pic of how this plant’s leaves would be spaced normally:

Take a look at how your plant is situated and you’ll be able to decide what it needs! It’s probably one of these two things, though! 

If all else fails, it may be happier in a hanging container like my anacampseros! 

v. Botany To cause (a plant) to develop without chlorophyll by preventing exposure to sunlight.

v. To cause to appear pale and sickly: a face that was etiolated from years in prison.

I brought a succulent plant with me to the desert.

To me, this made sense. Sunlight and warmth, that’s what they like, what they need. It was a gift from a friend. Something for me to care for in this new place, to remind me of the town I’d left. That I’d run from, really, the way a child wriggles free from an adult embrace, ducking and running out the front door, slamming it behind her.

This is a place of extremes. One would think I’d have known and prepared for this as IT IS THE DESERT, but then again I’d only planned on being here a short while.

It is presently ninety-five degrees outside, yet over the winter it would drop down into the teens. My little plant waited for spring on a side table. It would freeze if I left it outside. The star-shaped heads turned to the January sun. The stems stretched in a slow-motion dance.

Etiolation occurs when a plant doesn’t receive enough sun and so it reaches and reaches to get what little light it can. The stem elongates. This is unsightly but not always deadly.

I’ve been watching the succulent as the months have passed. Part of me thinks, well I’ve kept the thing alive. And some bits have sprouted little offshoots. There is growth.

But today I realized the stems couldn’t sustain the weight of the healthy part of the plant, the plump, symmetrical, burgundy and blue-green leaves that assert: I will live, I will live, I will live.

So I cut the most beautiful parts off, as a google search taught me is what one sometimes must do.

The top, I cure, I replant. I (hopefully) propagate.

The middle stem, the remnants of the winter, I toss.

The tiny stems clipped right above soil, above roots, to those I whisper, “please live” and I leave them, also to cure.

Let me show you an example of etiolation from when I first started getting serious with succulents. I went to a nursery and bought a tiny little Echeveria colorata (She might actually be a Echeveria colorata 'Haage' but I digress) in a 2 inch pot. I stuck her in my bathroom window and 2 months later she was showing some major changes. Changes I didn’t really notice because the progress was so slow.

(“Now” being April 16, 2018) Once I looked back at the pictures I had of her it was VERY easy to see how much she had changed. You can see her bottom leaves have drooped and are starting to curl downward even. She lost her pink coloring. I was also touching her far too much and rubbing a lot of her farina off! So I moved her outside. Even though I thought a sunny window would be enough for her it was obviously not! She got a little sun burnt since I moved her outside so quickly, but she started to grow back in!

By July 1st 2018 she was showing some major improvement. You can see her spot of sunburn and her previous leaves are still drooping. But her new growth is compact and pointing up! Her color is even coming back! (She’s really thirsty in this picture, you can see the wrinkles she has.)

In June, about a month before this picture, I had acquired a grow light and decided to move her under there to keep a better eye on her conditions and keep the squirrels and winds from disturbing her. Her progress was phenomenal!

Banananananana-night gardening! 

hi, i got this haworthia cymbiformis a couple weeks ago from a big box store but it doesnt look like any ones ive seen online. any idea whats wrong with it?  ive got it planted in 1:1 cactus soil & perlite, i water wherever the soil gets dry, and its getting enough light to where it’s starting to get a tiny bit sun stressed. 

SuccyGirl: