It’s time we talked about something every plant parent has to go through at one point or another: the death of a succulent. They say no parent should ever have to bury their child, and although technically you had to bury your child when you planted it, the same holds true for plant parents.
I don’t think I had ever really had a plant before I got my succulents, but for some reason, I had it in my mind that I wouldn’t make a good plant parent, I didn’t have a green thumb, and I couldn’t keep a plant alive. I don’t really know what I was thinking — I jumped right in and bought almost 30 succulents at once. I put my cute little plant babies in the most adorable glass bowls with little rock decorations, and I loved them like my own. I realized pretty soon that I had a problem and those little glass bowls were not helping!
“I am an over waterer”
Now if you know anything about succulents you know that they don’t really need too much water. They actually do better and grow stronger when they are forced to “starve” a little bit. I didn’t know any of this in the beginning, I hadn’t really read any articles or instructions. I overwatered my new succulents and caused a few of them to start rotting because their roots were basically sitting in water.
Just a few months ago I had this massive plant. It was ridiculously tall so I decided to cut the top off and try and get it to grow into its own separate plant. I was actually successful in this and I was able to get the cutting to take root and it grew really well! Sadly, the original plant died. I had no idea how and I still have no idea. I was really grateful I had split it into two and essentially had another plant to replace it. The plant in the image is actually that cutting and it has tripled in size since it took root. It’s about time I split this one into two, but I’m worried the same thing will happen!
I’ve lost several plants to poor watering habits and even more to causes which I still haven’t identified. The moral of the story is that the death of a plant is hard, especially when you have no idea what went wrong. If you’re over-watering, it’s pretty easy to see. If the plant is looking sad, it probably isn’t getting enough sunlight. So what do you do when you lose a plant?
How to recover?
Recovery depends on the person and how attached to your plants you are. Sometimes you just have to rearrange your window sill because of the extra space. Some people may want to replace their plant as soon as possible. If that was your only plant, you may feel discouraged and worry about replacing your plant when it’s very possible that you may end up losing it as well.
My Advice
Get another plant! Use what you just read to try and figure out what went wrong with the first plant. If I gave up after I lost my first succulent I wouldn’t have three window sills full of succulents today.
My last pro-tip: the more succulents you have, the better your loss/succulent ratio is if you lose one. You feel me? Check out this post on some easy to keep and hard to kill succulent types.
November 18, 2017
beautifully expressed