Welcome Nae, from Springfield Ma. you can buy all the books you want, but the best info is right here, there are so many friendly people and they love to help, I'm some what new to succulents and cactus, only been growing them for about a year, I do grow many epiphyllum and found that the main reason for many of then dieing is from over watering, most of them can go a few weeks with out water and do just fine, some one told me that you can't kill a succulent or cactus from under watering it but you can from over watering it, this has worked for me so far, every one of my cactus and succulents are growing well and I even had some of them bloom for me

Bear

> some one told me that you can't kill a succulent or cactus from under watering

They will certainly die if they don't get any water at all, but it takes time.

I don't agree with the over/under watering statement myself. You really have to learn how to water right, which comes with researching each plant and a certain amount of trial and error. The "better too litle than too much" is a common way of thinking with succulents, so Bear's not alone. But a few years ago, my C&S club had Out of Africa at our annual show and sale. When someone commented on how nice his plants were, the owner (who's name escapes me right now - Mike I think?) said that succulent growers tend to vastly underwater their plants, thus stunting them. After that, I made it a point to water most of my actively growing succulents regularly, not letting them become bone-dry as I had in the past. They are much nicer plants since I've been less stingy with the water...

However, I'd say that it is still probably more likely that you killed them with too much water for a couple of reasons. First, newbies tend to hover over their plants and give them too much TLC. If you're this kind of grower, you might be better off with tropicals. Second, you have to figure out what plants will grow well where you live. I don't have enough strong light to grow (for example) Kalanchoes through the winter, so I just gave up growing them at all. And third, most newbies leave the plants in the awful soil they come in from the store. The very first thing I do when I get a new plant is repot it. It gives me the opportunity to look at the root system, and get it into the soil that works for my watering methods.

HTH... Denise in Omaha

Bear we are neighbors sort of speak. Thank you for the welcome. I believe you and Denise are right about me over watering the plants. Another thing I agree with Denise is on how in the past I was not repoting my plants. However, I started doing this with my new plants. I will post pictures of my jade and the other succulents I used to have. Denise thank you for the important point of repoting the plants, this will teach me to look for problems early in any plants.

thanks so much.
nae boston