Hi Jason,

We have briefly discussed this before here about a specific succulent blogger based in Malaysia whom relentlessly cut 85% of his Haworthia's roots and water them daily.

Most of our were intrigued with his ruthless method of enforcing the plant to put forth new roots. Perhaps looking through and using his blog as a reference might produce similar results for you too, since the climate for Florida in terms of humidity is pretty much similar to Malaysia.

Hope this helps.

Bernard

Hi,

The plants will do ok.

Maybe it is not wise to buy plants (and give them this treatment) when they almost florish.

That will take a lot energy of the plant and he/she cannot feed itself in the best way.

I should cut out the flowering stems and try later again to bring them to florish.

Harry

Most of what I did was wash away the old soil to remove the peat. That indicates the plants were already off to a poor start with so few roots. Any opinions?

Bernard, I looked into the blogger from Malaysia and found his reasons were similar to mine. With our rain, no succulents thrive outdoors in the high PWT mix supplied by the stores. I'll comb through the thread on GW and look for some pointers.

Harry, I apologize for the misunderstanding. By florish, do mean 'in bloom'? If so, that is good insight, because I'm still trying to determine my growing season. Some growers say the subtropics have two growing seasons with a dormancy during the summer. I'm still confused about this and trying to determine which plants are winter or summer dormant. And what that means to me. Perhaps, I should have waited? Or done this earlier?

Thanks Again for the help.

Harry (or anyone else),

I have some other Echeverias I purchased which are growing in similar media. It stays wet, and I contribute the poor mix to my growing challenges. Any advice to how to keep them healthy until I can move them to better mixes? So many people endorse homemade mixes and advise to get plants out of these peaty mixes. Is this true in your opinion?

Jason

I think it depends on the specific mix and how it was amended, but try to keep it out of the rain between waterings. I've been using peat-based mixes for years, mixed 1:1 with perlite or pumice, and it worked fine. The downside is what Al describes in his article though, which is that plants stop growing after 3-5 years and then become more susceptible to problems because they're not as strong as they could be. I'm slowly switching everything to gritty mix. So far the results have been good but frankly that's true of any repot; it's really the results three or four years out that I'm interested in. Aside from generally better health due to better root aeration, the benefits I'm looking for are less frequent repotting due to the mix being very stable, and when I do repot it should be a lot easier because the gritty mix should fall right off the root ball.

Thank you. My big issue is the FL summer which are not conducive to C&S growing. If I could control the water supply and shade more in my environment, I might have less challenges. I appreciate your insight regarding the long term health of gritty mixes. I've just been focused on PWT since we have some much rain.

JC
I am quite sure that Harry was referring to blooms /flowers (and cutting off the flower stalks to direct all the plant energy to growing).
Harry, hope you don't mind me answering...Rina

Hi Rina, ofcourse not. You have a difficult language .

harry

Harry - I think I understand you 'better' since English isn't my first language either!
Rina

If you can't keep them out of the rain then I'd definitely try gritty mix and terra cotta pots and see how it goes. I've never lived in FL though so I'm just guessing - maybe some other FL folks will chime in.

Harry & Rina, thank you for the clarification. I understand Harry is a very knowledgeable grower and appreciate his input. I was trying to understand if he observed the plants "thriving" or "blooming" (which it's clearly blooming). I'm not sure it's thriving though. The stalk cutting is very helpful. I did not understand the energy concept regarding flowering stalks.

Andy, I will get them in the gritty mix asap despite the timing. Another grower said, "I'd rather see plants die in good mix, than suffer in poor mix" (something like that). So I'll get them in the good stuff.

Thanks Again

Jason