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Cacti & Succulents

Can you help with this?

8 years ago

My best friend had succulents in her wedding bouquet! We planted them into soil and they looked good until they were attacked by gnats! The succulent looks...very sad but it has little babies growing on the bottom of the stem. Should i cut the upper half off so the plant can focus on the new growth on the bottom?

Featured Answer

rina_Ontario,Canada 5a

8 years ago

Kim has very good advice to combat gnats!
Gnats may not be the main problem but result of too much moisture in mix that has lots of organic content.
I would suspect first over-watering (and gnats follow) to be main reason for loss of leaves. Check if the darker spots are soft - hopefully not.
It is good sign that there are babies growing from the stem - enough life in the stem. Plants that are suffering try to grow babies to replace itself.
Replacing the soil or amending it considerably with lots of gritty, inorganic ingredients would help a lot in my opinion. You'll see gnats population to decrease too.
As for watering, succulents will survive under-watering better than over-watering.
How much light is plant receiving?
Rina

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Comments (7)

Kim
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Ooh! I might be helpful here, haha. I did a big research project all last year in one of my schools greenhouses, with some 200 flats with a couple other students. We had a bad infestation of fungus gnats, and took a three pronged approach... Someone may have better ideas, but here was what we came up with (couldn't use any chemicals in there)

Less watering, the succulents don't like to be over watered anyways, let them dry between waterings to avoid other issues. The larvae need moisture to survive.

Chunks of potato, fleshy side down on the soil. You want to change them daily, they attract all the wormy larvae and you can toss them in the trash. We bagged ours before pitching.

Small dishes of apple cider vinegar to catch and drown adult gnats.

And diatamaceous earth. Looks like a bottle of talcum powder exploded, but was much more effective at long term maintenance than 200 chunks of potato. The potato approach did knock out a huge amount of larvae though. Hope this helps, someone with more experience in houseplants will probably be along shortly with other advice.
Kim
8 years ago
As for cutting it back, I would. Let the cut bit dry for a day or two before starting the rooting process.
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divelli
Original Author
8 years ago
Yeeey! Thank you!! So the upper part, once I cut it, will shoot roots? Do I put the cutting in soil or water?
Kim
8 years ago
As for beheading, check this link out. There is one more from this forum I will pull up but my phone wont save the links for me to do in one post. And thank you Rina! Happy to be useful, instead of pelting all the forums with my own questions for a change. ;

http://needlesandleaves.net/blog/2013/5/31/propagating-leggy-succulents
Kim
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
And the other link, with beautifully detailed explanations and some excellent photos. These should help!

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3098830/echeveria-opalina-beheading?n=26

Rina is completely right on the substrate too. It is good advice I plan to follow myself when I repot my succulents, starting with a jade I got at my friends wedding last August that is finally recovering from my black thumb over the winter. Aaand with no small amount of advice from this forum I must add. ;)
rina_Ontario,Canada 5a
8 years ago
As for gnats - in my opinion, in long run, it is best to work toward eliminating them by depriving them of their favorable conditions.

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