Sans roots tend to be orange, at least for the kind I have. Breaking them is not a problem. More will grow, and I usually remove at least half of them on purpose anyway when repotting. If there are any that are mushy, get rid of them - those are rotting. Root rot = mushy roots. If there is some kind of sour odor, that's not good - somethings's decomposing. Hopefully it was something in the old soil, not your plant. Let it get VERY dry before watering again, the fresh soil should help. Did you wash off the old soil before repotting? If not, you may want to do that, then let it dry for a day or two before putting it back in its' pot. Let the soil get dry every time before you water when it's cooler. Only when it's in tons of sun and heat will it need much water, but at no time will it tolerate sitting in soggy, stagnant soil.

You've never watered it, since Xmas? That's somewhat of a problem. Why not? It may be a succulent, but still in approx. 6 wks time it needed at least one drink. But right now, mushy growth is the problem. Am sorry to tell you but mushy growth indicates rot & is not usually salvageable. If you bought it, I'd return it to the Vendor & show them the soft spot of mush at the base of the plant; that's rot in the making & likely to spread. The only save I can offer is to cut the base of the plant off, root too, cut it back to healthy green growth. Pls. use a sterile knife & sterilize it AGAIN after cutting off the rot. Sprinkle the newly cut bottom of the plant w/ cinnamon & shake off the excess (acts as an antifungal & hopefully to slow down the spread of the rot). These can be re-rooted if the rot stops. No telling if it's too late or not, one can only try, so sorry. Best of luck, it seems an otherwise nice plant.

Susan - Tiffany is pointing you in the right direction with her comments pertaining to root health. You simply can't hope for a healthy plant unless you can provide an environment conducive to a healthy root system; and even if you could make every other cultural factor that influences your plant perfect, it wouldn't make up for or counteract the limitations imposed by a sick roots. Using rocks as a drainage layer can be counter-productive or it can be helpful, depending on what's going on in the bottom of the pot. Used as a drainage layer, they are almost certainly counter-productive. Used as ballast, they can range from somewhat helpful to very helpful, depending on how they are situated in the pot. I'll try to illustrate with a little science. In the picture above, PWT means perched water table. Perched water is water the soil holds so tightly, it won't drain from the pot by the force of gravity alone. Most commercially prepared soils hold from 3-6" of perched water, meaning that if you water fully, until water is exiting the drain hole, after the pot stops draining, the bottom of the pot is fully saturated with water. Since water and nutrient uptake is energy driven and requires oxygen, you can easily imagine what effect the lack of oxygen has on root function. If you add a "drainage layer" water simply perches in the soil above the drainage layer (see the middle picture). Obviously, that's worse than the first picture because there is considerably less 'healthy' soil for the roots to use in the middle pic than in the first pic. Using ballast correctly reduces the amount of soil that the PWT can occupy. There is less soggy soil, so less excess water in the picture with ballast than in either picture, so even more ballast would be helpful. The problem is, the ballast doesn't fix the soil that causes the excess water to be retained. It just uses physics to reduce the amount of excess water the soil CAN hold. Are you still with me? What we CAN do, if you're up for it, is put together a strategy that will help you rid your planting of SOME of the limitations causing the problems that are related to water retention. The links that Tiffany left are good primers and can provide something of a framework of knowledge that can be expanded upon. With a little effort, you can very quickly learn to avoid all the most common pitfalls that bring people here, looking for help. I don't want to assume anything, so I'll keep an eye out for a reply and what you think of what I said. Thanks for the referral (thread you linked to), Tiff. ;-) I DO notice when you do that, and want you to know I appreciate it. Al

Magdalena, I hate to be a Terrarium Nazi, but however much "drainage" typed components you have set up in a glass bowl with no drainage holes, the plant's roots is set up for rot and failure. Some really robust succulents can survive such torture, but for the more specially sensitive to water succulents such as your Pleiospilos/living stone plant, will just die due to extreme moisture trapped in the under layer of the bowl because there is no air flow. Worse, if under intense light or heat, becomes cooked - hence becoming jelly. Repotting 2 times within a few months is as good as killing the plant. Living stones have very sensitive root systems, the moment they are disturbed, your plant can go into shock for months on end before it starts trying to establish itself. Throughout the time of shock, no amount of water will do the plant good, because it just shuts down itself until it thinks danger is out of the way before it lay its new roots. So you have to be extremely careful when watering newly repotted plants. You have to understand these stone plants grow in the windy and arid conditions of south Africa, sometimes on cliffs and rocks collecting water only through morning/night moistures. They can survive the harsh/extreme cold and heat conditions for months, or years even without the rain, but the minute you put them in a moist/tropical condition such as a terranium, I'm afraid the poor plant can only go into shock and die by not being to adapt quick enough to the humidity. I do not grow Pleiospilos, but I grow Lithops and fenestraria, and they are of the same "living stone" family genus. I never water them until I see signs of wrinkles or limping, then I dripple water into the soil surrounding the plant, never on top of or have water touch the plant. I always make sure I dripple enough water to see them drain, then I know the water had touched the lower roots, that is where I pour away the excess drained water in the dish and stop watering till the next time the plant is thirsty again. They sit by on a south west facing windowsills with alot of natural light, and so far they just do their thing. These guys are very slow growers, so don't expect to see movements happen within weeks. Lastly, they are all grown in very gritty soil in long deep pots. So girtty that, there is actually no "soil" in the mix. It's 1 part each perlite, growstones, turface, grits and very little vermiculite. These plants have very long tap roots that are engineered to burrow deeper for water. My advise is ditch the peat, buy some grits/turface and mix it with your perlite. you'll be with the results. I do not personally grow with sand, but you have to make sure there is no salt in your sand (aka beach sand) - salt instantly kills succulents too, because of excessive minerals that makes it inhabitable for the roots. So my next best tip is, toss the poor fella, buy a new one and try again in some pots with drainage holes. There are a wealth of info here, and I'm sure many other fellow forumers here have some secret tip or two that they are more than willing to share with you. Happy Growing! Bernard