#wouldnt be the fastest in finding the solutions but definitely are getting out of there without casualties or other damages

[succygirl]

Im moving into an apartment soon and will be able to have plenty of succulents and other plants again! One problem I always had was propogating... Id pop off the babies and lay them out, but theyd shrivel before they grew roots. Lay them on soil, same thing. Stick them in the soil and theyd seem to last longer, but wouldnt grow and eventually died after a couple weeks... Can you give a guide in how you grow new succulent babies?

Sure! I honestly don’t do much, though. (read more because I’m picture happy)

A lot of the time I’ll pull the leaves off and leave them laying around in my bathroom for awhile. My bathroom ends up being my work station a lot, I have counter space, it’s easy to clean up, and staying warm is a big thing for me so being inside is great. They don’t get any direct light in there mostly just indirect.

I find indirect light for a time when they’re first pulled helps, too much light and they have to work too fast to keep from using up their inner water reserves and succulents really aren’t the fastest of growers.

They might stay there a few days to a few weeks. It depends on if I’m pulling leaves from a cutting that I just brought home or not. Anything I just brought home gets to stay there for awhile in quarantine. I’ll spray them with a water/alcohol solution when I first get them to hopefully kill any bugs and then wait around to see if any bugs do pop up that I need to keep spraying for. Sometimes they’ll be there so long they start sprouting roots there, which is fine, they then get put under my grow light onto some dry soil (which you want gritty, gritty is key. Just as gritty as you’d use for adult succulents. The following pictures will show my soil mix a lot, do take notice of it.)

My Grow light set up. Putting them on the bottom shelf under my grow light would be akin to putting them in a sunny window with direct light, I think. The top shelf if definitely more intense and is more like being outside with no window glass blocking any light. If something needs more light than it’s getting at the bottom shelf the props I like the best get moved up to the higher shelf if I have room. Otherwise I now put them outside in my greenhouse.

Larger leaves get their own little cell, but when they’re small they can buddy up. Now, not all of these grow!! I put those beans up there under my grow light on Dec 1st, 2018. Within a few weeks some of them just up and shriveled. That’s fine. Nothing I could have done to prevent it, really, some leaves just don’t grow. So if you’re banking on getting 1 leaf and it growing you might end up disappointed. 

This is those same beans today, March 28th, 2019. A few got shuffled around as others died, that middle cell is probably the only one that wasn’t touched and there’s two leaves in there that are growing roots but not any leaves yet. (They’re also wanting more light, I’ve now moved them to my greenhouse since I don’t have any more real estate on the upper shelf of my grow light set-up.)

This is two different trays of leaves that I pulled at the same time from the same plant. The bigger leaves are going much faster than the smaller inner leaves I pulled! So when you’re pulling leaves big is good, though BIGGER isn’t always better. Sometimes when they’re too big they just up and rot from all the water that’s in them sitting around too long.

I also try and make sure any leaves I pull aren’t already being used up! You want plump and healthy. A few days after watering the plant you’re pulling the leaves from is the best time, that makes for plump leaves ripe for using up their inner juice for making babies.

You may have noticed I haven’t really said anything about watering them… That’s because I don’t really. I mean I do but not until they have roots at the very least. 

Roots! Hopefully they’re already making their way into the soil but sometimes they don’t. I try and just cover them with a bit of soil, maybe a few larger piece of perlite to encourage them down. At this point I do water them but not with spraying.

I have a bottle with a nice directional nozzle on it to just put water on the soil and not the leaf. (It was originally for hair coloring back when I was in cosmetology.) So I’ll give them a nice drink and leave them for a good while. Maybe water them again in a week? I honestly don’t keep track, I try and look at the mother leaves to determine if they need water, though that’s not always possible. 

When the roots are shallow, like the ones up above, getting just the top of the soil moist is fine but when they’re more established I like to give them even deeper soaks to encourage deeper rooting. I have a splash tray under all these cell trays when they’re under my grow light so it’s easy to just squirt water until it’s coming out the bottom without moving them anywhere else to water (and potentially dropping the entire tray on the way to the sink… which I’ve done MANY TIMES.)

For an even DEEPER watering I’ll take the whole cell tray and sit it in a bowl of water for awhile, so the soil can soak it up from the bottom and be completely saturated.

I water like this for all of my adult plants, which these basically are at this point even though they all still have their mother leaves still. If I really wanted those big leaves gone I just wait and don’t water for a bit longer (2-3 of those back ones are yellow-ish and will probably be used up regardless of this watering though). But I like to keep them as long as possible because it’s easier to see wrinkles, if the plants are thirsty, when they have bigger leaves. They float for awhile in this bowl but as the soil soaks up the water they get heavier and drop, which just pushes the water up into the soil further. Once the top of the soil looks wet I take them out to drain and then put them back where they live.

Look at how thirsty these succers are. I can bend the leaf! When it’s full of water these things are stiff and rigid! No way you can bend those without snapping them when they’re not thirsty.

I don’t even know where that little prop came from. That’s supposed to be a single plant cell! But it’s growing, and I’ve never watered it that I know of (specially since I just noticed it today??). It may have fallen off of something from the shelf above. I’ve got no clue what it is though. 

Anyway, That’s really all I do! I just ignore them most of the time when I’m not taking copious amounts of pictures. 

Try again in your new apartment, it could be your old environment just wasn’t good for them. Not everyone’s house is good for every type of plant so experiment and find what works for you! You could also try water propagation if laying them out really doesn’t work. Sometimes the higher humidity helps them. You just rubber band some plastic wrap to the top of a jar, or something, filled with water and then poke some holes in the plastic enough for the ends of your leaves to go through. You don’t want them directly in the water, though, just above it and not touching. 

You can also search my “succulent propagation” and “propagation” tags for more pictures and updates on all my props as they age (which I need to post some updates about now that I’m looking through them all. My E. Black Princes are much bigger and darker now!!)