Hi guys
New to this kind of thing
I have had this plant for a few years and has been moved around a bit, it has never looked this bad though. I live in a reasonably warm house and water it about once or twice a week.
Every now and then I give it some plant food as well
Is there any thing I can do to save it?
It use to live in my grandma's concervetry until she passed away.
Any help is greatly appreciated
Can you get a better picture of a small section of the stem with some healthy leaves and a blackened part?
To do this put a sheet of paper behind it, with the light coming over your shoulder or a bit more to the side. Then the camera will focus on the leaves.
I think I would take some cuttings from the healthiest part.
In the conservatory, was it heated in the winter? Well ventilated in the summer?
Perhaps the current temperatures are not suiting it?
Most succulents want to go pretty dry between watering, but should be thoroughly soaked when you do water. When the soil is really dry the water can run around the root ball between the soil and the pot and not actually soak the soil. To fix this you can plunge the whole plant and pot into a bucket of water and keep it there until the bubbling stops. Then let it go fairly dry again. See how long that takes.
This message was edited Jul 14, 2015 5:31 AM
Excellent advice on showing the plant better, propagating and watering it. Whatever went brown will not green up again. So try to propagate the healthy part of the plant in brand new, clean soil.
Best of luck with that.
Sylvain.
Soil choice, watering habits, and the level of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil solution form almost a closed triangle that exerts primary influence on root health, which is the foundation that supports the planting. In order to water correctly, the soil has to 'allow' you to do so w/o punishing the plant. When you can water correctly, the level of dissolved solids in the soil solution becomes a nonissue, unless you make an over-fertilizing error. Growers can try chasing away the demons, but nothing really comes together like it CAN until you get the triangle that most significantly influences root health in the sweet spot.
I'm not being intentionally vague, but I don't want to overload you with info, either, if you're not that interested. If you want to be more specific, I'll follow your lead, but the underlying problem is almost certainly located in the rhizosphere (root zone).
Al
