When you be head a succulent to hopefully continue its li...
Hey everyone! I recently beheaded my succulent since it was dying at the roots to save it. I cut off about an inch of the top and let it sit on a paper towel for 3 days to callous. Do I set it on the soil to grow roots or do I plant it?
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For succulents I usually just rest them on top of dry succulent soil in bright light, I use grow lights and keep it about a foot away.
Don’t water it until you notice roots growing and then water sparingly. Might take up to three weeks.
You can also plant it, but looks awfully small and might tip over, so placing on top is better in my estimation.
Good luck!
Don’t water it until you notice roots growing and then water sparingly. Might take up to three weeks.
You can also plant it, but looks awfully small and might tip over, so placing on top is better in my estimation.
Good luck!
@Succulent_Soul As @FamedGymealily laying on top of soil is easier to keep track of growth . Personally I throw out all succulent rules and use an eye dropper daily so it roots. Letting it dry out is for mature succulents. Here’s one that I just got planted . I dip in rooting hormone and kept it moist as stated above. It took about 3 months to catch the roots and soil but is now thriving and back to normal succulent care .With the size of yours you could probably plant just covering the tip of bottoms and a bit of water daily. This was you can pull out to see how the roots are growing. But as stated above I always use rooting hormone’s to start .
Echoing others, the main way I’ve propagated succulents is by resting a cutting with a growth node atop relatively dry cactus soil. The cutting should have enough water and nutrients inside of it already to be able to recognize there is dirt underneath it and start slowly growing roots into the dirt in search of more water within a few weeks. My cuttings never seemed to shrivel more than halfway, and they seemed to re-plump / be able to absorb even the tiniest amount of water from the soil/air even before growing roots… so I do suspect they are able to absorb micro amounts of water through skin from ambient humidity but they just can’t be resting against anything damp/wet (bc smothering/rot), so I would recommend resting the cutting on top of a little cactus soil and placing it in a high light area (or under a grow light) adjacent to a much larger plant(s) that will exude some extra humidity your succulent cutting can steal (do not mist your cutting — misting does not create humidity).
Example, they really don’t need much, they will just start growing the right things in the right directions from just sitting on top of soil. The cuttings in these photos are maybe 9 months old and were just petals from the two mature plants in the first photo (which were given to me as cuttings that had been calloused for at least 2 weeks before I just stuck them in the dirt, but for the petals themselves I just rested them on top of the dirt)
Last time I tried it with a petal and it quickly shriveled up and nothing ever became of it. 😢