GROWING

Succulents are easy, no fuss, low maintenance plants with low water requirements compared to normal plants as they store water in their leaves.

WHEN YOU FIRST RECEIVE YOUR PLANTS

Open your box immediately and unpack your plants.  If soil has fallen out of the pots, put it back in.  Rinse off your plants and water your new plants thoroughly until water runs out of the bottom of the pot.  You can also let your pots bottom soak for 30 minutes in a saucer of water.  Then, pllace your plants in a shady area for a day to let them recover from their 2 to 3 days in a dark shipping box.  Plant your plants in the container of your choice or outdoor flower bed.  We prefer to plant succulents and cacti in peat moss in containers.  Please recycle your plastic pots at your local nursery.  We encourage zero waste- reduce, reuse, recycle and compost.  For this reason, we wrap in newspaper and do not use heat packs, packing peanuts, bubble wrap or other non-recyclable packing products.  We encourage you to give your plants 2 hours of direct sun the first week, then 4 hours the second week and gradually get your plants acclimated to full sun.  Our plants have been grown in a shaded green house and can be burnt if put directly out into full sun right away.

It is usually best to plant one low and one tall species in a pot, not lots of multiple varieties.  Usually when you plant multiple species together, then one plant usually outgrows and shades his neighbor of available light.  That is because all plants grow at different rates and situations change.  One plant may grow more in spring, or another may grow more in autumn. One may thrive in more sun, while another thrives more in shade. One plant may sleep its first year, creep it's second year, then leap its third year, while another plant takes off wildly growing its first year.

LIGHT REQUIREMENTS

Sunlight makes succulents and cactus healthy and vigorous.  Scales and mealy bugs hate full sun. Darkness is bad for cacti and succulents. It makes them stretch, lose their color, become weak, able to rot quickly, and susceptible to fungus, bacteria and bugs. No succulent or cactus is happy in full shade or north windows.  Most are happiest in at least 1/2 day sun or bright sunny windows.  Most cacti, Yucca, Aloe, Gasteria and Haworthia thrive in full day sun or at least half day sunshine.

More sunlight, slight water stress, and age brings out brighter color in many succulents, especially in the fall and winter when they are not actively growing. Some succulents or cacti can color vivid orange, red, purple, and even develop a whiter pruinous bloom/dust on their leaves with more sunlight, water stress and age. 

Less sunlight and more shade makes succulents deeper green and they can lose their bright red, orange leaf colors. Frilly Echeverias develop caruncles or raised bumps with age and heat stress. Stress coloration is a normal condition of a succulent in response to natural environmental extremes due to amazing microbiological and chemical changes to protect succulents that are of a temporary nature when plants are sun or heat stressed.  Succulents and cactus once again will be greener in the spring when temperatures are cooler, and when  they are well watered and actively growing.

REMEMBER- Not all succulents like blasting hot 100 degree full sun! Even spineless cactus will burn in full sun.  Succulents grown in 1/2 shaded greenhouses as ours are grown will suddenly burn when moved to full sun in the hot summer, so acclimate them in stages by 2 hours of full sun the first week, 4 hours the second week, then full day sunshine the third week.  In nature, grass, shrubs and trees often shade succulents and cacti. 

Cuttings were taken from the same mother plant (Haworthia reinwardtii) and planted in two separate pots.  The top pot was grown in shade with more water, while the bottom plant was grown in a sunnier, warmer place with less water. Notice the bottom plant's response by coloring up redder? You might even think they are two different varieties. Not so.  When identifying succulents with correct botanical names, this is one reason of why it is very important to read about and notice all plant characteristics, including most importantly- flowers!  With succulents, you don't just look at leaves and their color and shape!  There can be major differences in the same plant, the same genus or cultivar, with different care and culture!

Left-  These are close ups of the leaves from the three different pots upper left. Notice that the least watered plant on the left is whiter, more orb shaped, and the one with the most water on the right is flatter, lusher, larger, and greener.

Below-  The very whitest Cotyledon orbiculata on the bottom left was a cutting grown only in sphagnum moss without soil which was very airy for the roots.

         (Pure sphagnum moss dries out the fastest compared to different soils.  Our favorite soil is peat moss for all cactus and succulents as it seems to hold the most moisture in pots/containers. Our cactus and succulents appear the healthiest, prettiest, and strongest when we grow in peat moss.)

(Left) Cuttings were taken from the same mother plant (Cotyledon orbiculata) and planted in three separate pots at the same time.  All three pots had no drainage holes, which didn't hurt the plants or affect anything, and they all had regular garden soil, nothing special. But, all three plants were watered only once a week at the same time and filled to the top of the pot with water.  All were grown on the same sunny, hot cement patio in always sunny, never foggy, inland Southern California.

The top middle plant with the most water each week (about 3") looks lusher, taller and greener, while the bottom left plant which was more watered stressed with only an inch of water in a 4" pot, has smaller, whiter, more pruinose leaves, while the bottom right pot with the least amount of weekly water- only 1/2" of water in a shallow 2" deep pot, has the smallest, whitest, more orbicular leaves.  It is hard to imagine that these are all the same plant from the same mother planted on the same day! 

I can see how the plant was named in Latin as Cotyledon orbiculata by looking at the smallest, most drought stressed, rounder, orb-shaped leaf form.  But, I could also see how the plant got its nick name or common name as SOW'S EARS by looking at it's lusher, larger, more watered form!  Also, normally these plants, like most succulents, look lusher,healthier and larger growing in the ground than growing in pots.  This is one of my favorite plants to take fall cuttings and plant in the landscape and forget about them as over the winter they will root and grow on rain water alone, and you will never have to water them over the whole first summer. Plus, Cotyledon orbiculata  takes a little more frost than other tender succulents.  Its leaves turn super white with bright red margins in response to heat and no water over the whole summer.  Every spring, it blooms large bouquets of large peach bell flowers. I also like Aeoniums as you can also plant fall cuttings, then forget about them, as they also  take off growing great on winter rain water alone.  In the summer, Aeoniums loose lower leaves and tighten up into little onion bulb-like, rose buds. But, unfortunately, they are not as frost tolerant.

EXAMPLES OF THE SAME EXACT SUCCULENTS TAKEN FROM THE SAME MOTHER PLANTS  LOOKING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IN RESPONSE TO HEAT STRESS AND LESS WATER.

Note- Sometimes there is a variation in the number of spines or length of spines or number of ribs even from seedlings from the same mother cactus as seen here below with seedlings from the same Parodia warasii mother cactus .