Hello everyone! Hope you are well and keep yourself warm and cozy during this period of the year!
I rarely spoke about my passion for plants and gardening, there being a single article written in the past with this purpose but which was more focused on the DIY activity of how to build a terrarium at home. So I thought that it was a pretty good idea to share how I enlarged my collection of succulents in just a few seconds.
I was actually randomly scrolling on TikTok when I got a lot of videos with this kind of activity and since I had succulents at home and intended to enlarge my collection because they are easy to maintain and always look nice anywhere they are placed, I thought about giving it a try.
My first succulent was bought one or two years ago during the Christmas shopping but as soon as I moved the plant in a larger flower pot, this one started growing up a lot in height instead of remaining short with lots of leaves coming up from top to bottom. I tried cutting it in half and replanting it but the same thing happened which made it hard to grow straight due to becoming heavier with each passing day.
There was also a baby flower coming out from the soil which I intended to move in a separate flower pot, so I took advantage of this moment to also detach some leaves from the body of the main succulent and then replant just the top of it.
After moving the main succulent, I started my TikTok experiment which I was very curious to find out whether it would work or not.
I know there are a lot of leaves as that was also my first thought, but being the first time I was trying something like this, I was thinking that it's better to have more than just a few because I was expecting to lose some of these on the way due to various reasons, so I wanted to make sure that at the end of the experiment, I will still have a few more plants to add to my collection of succulents.
I picked the leaves that were a bit shorter than the rest and arranged them around the baby succulent detached from the main plant, thinking that would create an environment that would help both sides grow up nice and steady.
The rest of the leaves I arranged in my baking pan since I intended to replace it with a new one and didn't have anything better to use at that time, lol.
While the flower pot had a lot of soil because of the plant that was going to grow up there from that moment on, it's not the same situation with the baking pan which only has a slight layer of soil of just a few millimeters.
I've seen people not using soil at all, but actually placing the leaves on a normal plate, but wanted to make sure my plants won't have this missing at all. The explanation for not needing soil especially that they were just at the stadium of leaves, is that the plants will grow up only from their own resources, the water that can be found within the leaves being enough for this activity.
However, as you can see, I still sprayed them with water, again, to make sure that they would survive.
- This activity happened on 15th May 2023.
After just 1-2 weeks, I started noticing tiny roots coming out of the leaves from the side that was attached to the main plant, being followed by small and adorable tiny leaves.
During this whole process, I didn't add any extra water, but only kept them at room temperature and in light but not in the direction of the sun's rays which were quite powerful in the summer.
- The pictures were taken on 13th June 2023.
The next 5 weeks passed fast, with just a few moments to monitor my plants but only take a quick picture to analyze the progress later on. But noticing that most of the leaves have either roots or leaves coming out of them, I could breathe easily that I am on the right way to enlarge my collection of succulents.
- Picture taken on 28th June 2023.
- Picture taken on 4th July 2023.
- Picture taken on 21th July 2023.
Since the roots were already quite long and they had no connection with the soil, I started being in doubt if the moment to finally plant them came, but I waited a few more days until the weekend was coming by and had a lot more time for research and do the next move.
Even though most of the leaves had both roots and tiny leaves coming out of them, there were two situations that I met and I had to find an explanation for them.
- The first image shows a leaf perfectly normal which was still resisting after two months since it was detached from the main plant, but which only had roots coming out of it, which is a sign that the new plant didn't make it out of the leaf, but only the roots of it, ending up with a fail.
- The second case is about a leaf that at first might seem like it's slowly dying, but in comparison with the first case, this one had both roots and a fresh new flower formed. The color of the leaf is a sign of dehydration and that the new plant consumed almost all the resources of the leaf it was born from.
This is actually the moment when it's recommended the most to move the new plants in a pot and plant them properly but only had a few looking like this one, while the rest were still green. Since I wanted to make the move for all of them at the same time and not wait any longer, I began the next step.
Adding the soil
Still not a proper flower pot, but actually the first litter box of my cat, lol. Anyway, since he got two new and larger ones, I found this perfect for my new collection of plants until they are big enough to have each his own flower pot.
In comparison with the previous case, the soil was quite important this time because the plants had roots that should be entirely buried in the ground. So I added plenty of it from the beginning.
Preparing the holes for planting
There are special gardening tools that you can use for digging the holes depending on the sizes and how deep they need to be made, but personally, I used my finger which ended up being enough, haha.
I had around 28 leaves so I thought about arranging them equally so they all would enjoy the same space and environment rather than planting them randomly, but I think that could work too.
Cutting the leaves
For this step, I've seen a lot of options being used by people who took advantage of this activity to enlarge their collection of succulents. One of the options was the one I also used, namely, to cut the tip of the leaf and leave just 1-2 cm of it that will be buried in the soil along with the roots.
Another option I've seen being used was to detach the flower with its roots entirely from the leaf, but since it was my first time trying this, I didn't want to risk anything.
Another method that it's the easiest one, is to dig the entire leaf in the ground and only leave on the surface the new flower. But this one comes with risks too, because I've heard that the new plants are not stimulated enough to take their roots outside of the main leaf and might continue to get the water needed from this one which once it doesn't have anything to offer anymore, it dies.
Planting and watering
After cutting all the tips of the leaves, I started planting these in the holes created before, then carefully surrounding the plant with soil so it would keep it closed and safe to ensure a good environment from now on.
I also added some water for a fresh start from all points of view, but since succulents don't require a lot of water in general, I usually only spray water once every 10-14 days.
- Detaching the baby succulents from leaves and planting them, happened on 25th July 2023.
Time passed, and knowing that my experiment came to an end, only brought me happiness and a long wait to see them grow and figure out how many of them made it to life, so down below it's a picture taken today, 15th November 2023:
As you can see, most of them have grown up and look healthy, the single exceptions being those that only had roots coming out of the leaf which I explained a bit earlier. I knew that these wouldn't make it, but wanted to give them another chance rather than throwing them to the trash can and feeling guilty thinking if I made the right move or not.
So from a total of 28 possible plants, I ended up with 22, which is a lot more than I thought, but yet enough to not worry anymore about buying succulents from now on, lol.
Now, I'm just going to wait until they are big enough to be moved each in a separate flower pot and start putting them all around the house!
NOTE: You can do this process to any echeveria plant no matter the shape or size of the leaves it comes with.
Have you done something like this before? Let me know!
If not, I hope this guide/article will come in handy one day. 😀
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additonally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.
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