Wow!!!love your string of pearls,sorry couldn't give you any advice

You haven't gotten a reply here, so I'll try to offer some suggestions.

Maybe you've repotted already, but anyway....

Good looking plant! This would be a good time to repot because the strands aren't too long yet.

It looks like you would have to cut it out of the "pot," handling it as gently as possible. If you want to save and re-use the pot, you'd have to clip off the tangled strands. Not sure that's the best style of pot, with moss.

Did you get a new pot? Did you do it yet?

I would repot if my plant, I don't like that plastic liner. There is nothing one can do, some 'beads' will fall off, some branches get broken. Just put them on top of new potting mix and they will grow.

I have burros tail that is much older to repot, and I am sorry I didn't do it some time ago - branches were shorter, easier to manage.

Hi! Thanks for replying. I appreciate it!! :)

No, I haven't done a thing yet! It's still on top of a planter.. Chilling out while I decide what to do with it.

I've tried taking a closer look at it.. I keep on thinking.. I can do this.. Find a strand, find the end of it... But seriously.. It seems quite impossible! It's a mess on top.. Many of the strands are actually short so it looks like a hundred short strands in there.. I feel like if I endeavor to take them out I will lose about half of them.

But I won't give up. I'll study them some more tomorrow and see if taking them out is doable.

I did not buy a new pot yet. I have never had a hanging plant so I was googling how to do it (what liner to use, what potting mix, etc). I even need to study how and where to hang it! I know it needs sun but no rain so I'm still finding that right spot.. Maybe I'll end up with a super tall planter instead.. I need to see what's available here for sale. Maybe over the next few days I can browse around.

My safest bet is to cut strands from the mother plant and propagate them "properly" in a "proper" pot and mix.. And to leave the mother mess alone. I don't know.. I was hoping those with experience can offer suggestions :)

Beautiful plant :) I've repotted my string of pearls a couple of times because they keep outgrowing their pot. My experience with string of anything I don't usually have to be gentle, they grow roots pretty easily.

@Rina, you gave me a great idea! I should repot my pearls AND burros tail also! They could have matching hanging pots! (I'll pot them separately, their own pot each)

@Kara, I'm relieved to hear I don't need to be uber gentle!

I'll post updates when I have them. First order of business is buying a hanging pot or wall pot or super tall planters!

Nice pearls, after removing as much of the plastic liner as you can is there any chance you wait until a later time when they aren't as active ?

@Kathi, that.. sounds... Brilliant!!! It really does!! I think your outlined procedure is the best way to go! The good news is that I studied the "pot" properly and the net is not wire.. It's just mesh net! So I can cut the entire net out easily too! Yeah this is getting to feel less daunting now.

@nomen, yes I can wait of course. In fact I will have to because I won't have time to get to any garden center or mall soon and I still need to buy a new hanging planter or pot or whatever for this guy. But then again I think you meant to wait for a dormant cycle? If that's the case, I wouldn't know how it works. I live in the Philippines where we mostly have only two seasons - summer or rainy season. And both seasons are pretty much the same, temperature wise.. So I never knew what to make of cycles with cacti and succulents in my country.

Its the rainy season now (started in June) and will end around December. That means medium rains every day (usually at night). how long to do you recommend I wait before repotting?

PS I haven't done a thing to the plant yet. Waiting to buy a new planter before I proceed with the "extraction" :)

I would re pot it. Like above said cut the wire and I would scoop it out the best I could. If bits fall off re plant them :) good luck

Lovely plant. Can't wait to see what you decide to do. Love how your green sandals and red toes match your green garden and red pots. :)

I noticed the matches to the flip flops and toes as well,too funny !!!!

I'll be the desenter here .... I'd probly just leave it in that pot. An open mesh like that will likely dry out easily as opposed to staying too wet. But then, I'm also not living with the high humidity you likely are.

If it is left and grows bigger it will be even more difficult to repot, more damage. The pot looks a little messy, moss and plastic?

Nice job on growing your string of pearls. They're difficult for me to keep alive once our summer arrives. So far I have one that's still alive

UPDATE!!

I will chronicle my progress at repotting this baby!!!

Ok sun is out. Monsoon has stopped.. I check my plants and my string of pearls looks a tiny bit thirsty (it's not as round as the other day.. My signal for water). I don't want to repot and work with mud so I decide to undergo his extraction today! He can get a drink in a few days! (He can wait, right?) Oh nevermind.. Let's re-pot!!!

I take a seat in my balcony and proceed to cut out the hideous wire basket while a red and pink dragonfly hovers around me.

Snip snip snip...

I encounter branches entwined in mesh. I imagine I'm a surgeon and work carefully.. Snip snip snip..

In no time at all.. Behold!! He is FREE!

I feel so proud and hold him up while saying, "IN MY HANDS! IS A PILE OF PEARLS!"

Yes. Not a single pearl lost at this point! I now remove the black plastic around him.. Dust and dirt flies everywhere!!

Plastic all gone! (Ironically I am now using plastic bags as my gloves to hold him)!

AND so I begin to try to get to the roots and remove all old dirt. And "dirt" it was. Tons of long (3 inch) branches of twigs and garbage! A lot fall off but I'm working gently.. Carefully.. I see some roots now..

I poke and squeeze. Poke and squeeze. I contemplate the meaning of life and wonder what's for dinner tonight.. Dirt falling nonstop into the garbage can in front of me.

And then I get very tired. Phew. An hour has gone by and my back hurts. I put everything down for now and take a break!!

The red and pink dragonfly was watching me the whole time!! I've never seen such a creature. I wonder if he is dangerous.. Hmm.. Anyway, let me show you all a photo.. He loves the camera..

Thats all for now. I'm so tired. I'll continue later on!!

STAY TUNED!!!

This is great! Can't wait for the next episode!

How nice of you to share the process. I'm really enjoying the pictures, and it only confirms that you are doing the right thing. Kind of a nice hanging basket, but it had to go.

Dragonflies are not dangerous, I would like to see many, many more. Is there any water around - even the birdbath? They like that too.

Great job so far with 'the pearls' :)

Beautiful job Violet :). We have dragonflies here, but they're more blue green. I've never seen pink ones before!

Thanks, guys! Giant monsoon here today. City even called off classes. I just checked on my plants. All safe under their ugly plastic rain cover. Well.. I think they're safe. I should really bring my lithops in now since it's rainy season.

My big jades and p. afra are wet but they're sorta used to it. If (and when) the sun comes up they'll be dry in a jiffy.

My pearls are the only ones safe indoors from the rain. I brought them in yesterday because I had no space in my wire shelves for a mess of pearls. So that's good news. I'll continue my repotting saga when sun is out!

Keep checking in for more updates!

Over and out from the middle of a typhoon!

You have inspired me to repot my mess of string of pearls. Long overdue!

Lol I love your update "meaning of life and what's for dinner" .

im looking forward to seeing it potted up and I'm glad to see you pulled it out of the hanger.

Nice out of the pot procedure

Your dragon fly reminds me of a different type of one I had here, it took a chunk out the side of my E. Obesa I really felt sorry for the fly but they're short lived I still have the bite marks it left on one of the sides six years later and still feel bad for the fly

A one mile pond connecting three rivers provides plenty of em to be seen here They can smell and often perch while trying to get water out that's in a concert wall, stone figures and maybe even that plastic.

Typhoon "Butchoy" (international name: "Nepartak") has left the Philippines. It has left a trail of monsoon rains that is predicted to last till after the weekend.

The past two nights have been horrid. Rain NONSTOP. Strong winds too. Oh the hassles of growing desert plants in the tropics!

I moved my lithops and baby toes inside. The rest I covered with a giant drop cloth (I use it when I do my acrylic paintings).. Note that these wire racks are deep under an awning! They usually NEVER get a drop of rain on them. But nooo. this typhoon was nasty.. It had rain sideways and all ways and every single nook and cranny was wet. I bust out the drop cloth in the middle of a giant downpour yesterday. Good thing too because it rained straight for about 14 hours! Check out how my setup looks this morning when the rain slowed down:

Every time there's a let up in the rain I run out and remove the covers to get some air in. Air can still flow anyway through the back and top of the wire racks. I have tall cacti on the top racks so it's not fully covered at all. Oh I hate this plastic cover. But what can I do? I have no room to move all my babies indoors. Le sigh.

Everyone looks ok. Green and dry.

i have potted port. afra and jade that I'm worried about. They were under an awning on the balcony ledge but i know they got wet good. I pray their extra gritty perlite/pumice mix does its job.

The pearls repotting will have to wait for a little more! Good thing it's still in a thick layer of soil and not bare root. I'm gonna wait for the sun to break and see if I can work today!

STAY TUNED! :)

You are SOOOOO neat when you work. I would have dirt and gravel everywhere......Oh , I do have dirt and gravel everywhere from my repotting.

UPDATE!

REPOTTING MESS OF PEARLS PART 2!

So sun came back hard in the morning and by afternoon, my balcony was dry! Yay! I grab a seat, play some music and get back to work. Where was I?

Ah yes.. Back to removing old dirt from the plant.. Everything seems even more dry now so things move fast. Dirt falls willingly. It takes very little coaxing from me to eventually get to an inch of soil left.

Im struggling to hold everything now. Trying not to break anything. I keep on thinking, "Now what?!" How am I seriously going to repot this all? And I wonder if I'll ever find a "gap" in the mess.. And then..

Aha! A chunk severed off! Finally! But no.. Wait.. It's not separating! Grr.. It's still connected by a root or branch or I don't know what.. Gah. Must hold on to everything as I work!

Finally.. I get to this point. Almost all soil is gone! Yay! There's a big chunk of wood there. See it on the left? Roots grew through and around it. I slowly crush it with my hand and pick it off..

OK! Now all the soil is gone. All I have is bare plant. My next step is trying to untangle the plant so I can have an easier time planting.

UMMMM.. Ok.. Seriously.. I cannot find the beginning of it all. I see tons of ends.. No beginnings. I feel like a Mensa student taking a puzzle test.. I flip branches around.. I try to find a single string..

That on top there.. That is a replica of how it was planted originally in the old hanger. Haha. I cannot find a single string. And I really looked! Could this really just be ONE plant? Is that possible?

Anyway the rains start again so I move inside. I bring my new planter and soil and I work in the bathroom (long story but basically it was near the balcony door). I didn't take photos of the process but I pretty much laid it out on top of the new pot and slowly buried any root I saw. It was actually quite time-consuming. When I was done I think I recreated the original position but in a new pot! It was easy to recreate the position because of the trail of roots.

So without furter ado.. Here is the finished product! I took photos back outside because the rain has stopped again!

He's in a big terracotta pot now! Yay! Bigger than before so you see the soil this time.. Not so impressive yet until I fill the pot up with growth. I used perlite and pumice 70% and soil 30%. I picked out all visible perlite from the top so it stays a sleek grey.

1 liter Coke bottle for scale:

And here's the cool thing.. I'm gonna put that bowl on top of this other stand! Here is the finished product:

Isn't that awesome?! I'm so happy with it when he grows super long he will cover the base.. I can't wait!

REPOTTING DONE! -bows-

If you had hung the pearls out in the rain, the typhoon might have washed away all the dirt for you! Heh

Paul True but I tend to think most don't like to water in a rain fall form or other heavy actions Not sure why some would resist such watering chances during growing seasons , maybe they have fears of root rot or something

This is a great thread Violet, I am enjoying the process of potting with you! I'm sorry you're dealing with those rains, what a pain - but thank you for documenting your process of trying to protect your plants, it's very informative! LOVE LOVE LOVE your dragonfly!

The typhoon we just had was not "Singing in the Rain" type of weather.. It was more like "The Perfect Storm" so leaving the pearls out would have meant they would probably be swept by the wind and flung up a tree in another city! Ha!

I suddenly miss my dragonfly. Where oh where did he go? What adventures is he on?

A suspicious mushroom sprouted in the pot of one of my bougainvilleas after the storm. Really odd. Super Mario brown. Must double glove and get rid of it.

Great job. I like what you did with it. It was a lot of work

You can surely be proud. You did a great job, and people here enjoyed your pix and narrative. Thank you.

Beautiful! I totally enjoyed watching you work. Thanks for sharing.

You've done a great job,so beautiful,and I enjoyed watching and reading your adventure in repotting your pearls.....thanks for sharing.

Violet, lovely repotting. Do you have an update on how it looks now? Thinking of doing something similar with mine...

ez