Aeonium tend to flop over a bit.

Or grow sideways out of the main stem.

Sometimes the rosette gets too heavy and the whole thing falls over or branches snap off.

I hope this next photo gives a better angle on this situation. All of the red circled areas were standing nearly vertical last week. The stem is a hard piece of wood. It has no give to it. This variety is more like a woody tree than a typical succulent. It's highly bizarre that these very stiff vertical stems suddenly droop over. You can even see the creases in the wood where they bent.

@Nil13 and that would be considered abnormal? Why would it happen?

I wouldn't say it's abnormal but it's not good. It's an adaptation to deal with some sort of stress, drought, mechanical damage, insect damage, sunburn, etc. I wuld just keep an eye on it.

@Nil13 Well knowing which of these stresses is causing this is the whole shooting match. That will help me to put the plant somewhere that reduces that kind of stress.

If it stays firm and the plant continues growing well then the flattening is more likely because of the fasciation. I have cristate sweet alyssum and the stems are oddly wide and flat.

Fasciation can do weird things.

You can see how rapidly this plant is deteriorating. The areas that bent over are becoming black and necrotic. Does anyone have any theory on what might cause this to happen so quickly? The plant was thriving actually. This started right after I started to fertilize, so I am wondering if this species might suffer from fertilizer burn easily and maybe I need to just stop fertilizing it until I understand its needs better. These sections of the plant look lost now.

I looked at your pic before I read the comment and my first thought was “Wow that looks like a lot of fertilizer”. Remember Aeoniums are winter growers, and mine are starting to show signs of summer dormancy so not the best time to fertilize. Now that I think about it I have never fertilized my Aeoniums;).

That would be my guess the plant has a fertilizer burn. Sometimes we want to give our succulents more when we see them not looking their best, and in my experience they do better with less fuss.

Also I think once you get a good hold on your mix I think you and your plants will be much happier.

@Kara so much is plant specific. Some container succulents look very malnourished without fertilizer and seem to just explode with growth when they get regular FoliagePro 9-3-6. Other plants show no response. Apparently, this plant might be the odd one that quickly overdoses and dies.

Getting experience with so many species is just slow and painful.

It’s all about knowing the plant. I agree it can be a painful process. I just bought one of my dream cactus Coleocephalocereus aureus and it is known to be a tricky cactus to grow. So fingers crossed. Another plant to walk on eggshells around, but I’m never going to become a better grower if I stay with what I’m comfortable growing.

I do know some crested type plants are little more finicky than others. Plus I have struggled with ‘Sunburst’, it’s only been the past two years that I’ve been able to keep them alive. In my experience variegated plants can be tricky and definitely a slow grower.

What have you discovered about the standard Sunburst? I found that one suffers root rot easily. I have some new ones in the gritty mix and I am giving weekly FoliagePro. They seem to be establishing but they are not thriving yet.

Did you say 2 tsp/gal of Foliage Pro?

@Nil13 Sorry, I meant 1.5 tsp/gallon. Believe it or not, 1.5 tsp/gallon is the once-a-week dose that @Tapla is using on his own plants. I know the label says 1/4 tsp/gallon for daily use. Al [says he finds that dose very underloaded[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/fertilizering-containerized-plants-iv-dsvw-vd~1389454) for weekly use.

1.5t should only be about 180ppm N. That a little high if given every watering but that shouldn't cause fertilizer burn.

Isn't Tapla's fertilizer regimen primarily for fruiting plants/edibles or is he actually using that much on succulents and other plants that typically grow in nutrient poor soils?

Are you using liquid fertilizer in addition to fertilizer pellets (or are those little balls in your mix something else)? Did you water before fertilizing with FoliagePro? I wrecked some Adeniums last year when I fertilized them with low dose FoliagePro after they dried out a bit too much, but have never had that problem otherwise.

@Liz I don't know if @Tapla uses a different fertilizer regimen on succulents. Anyone know?

I use Osmocote just to provide some basic nutrients, and I was experimenting with FoliagePro to see if it did anything incremental. I don't know why, but on many of my succulents they immediately took off as soon as I started to use FoliagePro once each weekend. It could be a dosing issue, or it could be some specific micronutrient. Osmocote may not be releasing its dose reliably.

Westes, I just had issues with Sunburst growing. They would never take off. I have yet to root a Sunburst cutting. What would happen is one by one all the leaves would dry up and fall off before the cutting would root and then the stem would die. I stopped trying to root Sunburst cuttings I’ve found it to be a waste of my time. These were not small cuttings either.

The thing that helped with growth was finding the right spot for them in my yard. The ones that have done the best have filtered sun, they’re protected by a tree or another plant. There’s a house down the street from me that has a huge Sunburst Aeonium and that plant is protected by a big tree.

Osmocote, like all CRF, is temperature sensitive. At 60F they don't release much fertilizer. Iirc, the listed duration is at 70F. At higher temps it can be exhausted quickly. So you might have been seeing the immediately available liquid fert making up for a limited release from the CRF.

I agree with Kara, they don't like sun. They can get sun burn pretty easily.

@Kara, I find when rooting Sunburst that it wants shade. The one success I had with Sunburst was when it got root rot and the head just fell off. It was a perfectly attached rosette with an attached group of leaves and literally no stem. I placed that on top of ordinary garden soil and protected it from the rain with a screen and left in the shade. For eight months it did nothing, but the pedals did not die either. It was very strange. Suddenly one day about 10 months after I first set the rosette down, it had a tap root about one inch long into the soil. I tried to transplant it to gritty mix in the sun and it started to shrivel. I put it back in its home and it is coming back. Once it reaches maturity I will baby it out into the elements.

So the entire plant in my original post is not dying off quickly. Whatever I did to this thing caused quite an overwhelming shock. I tried to flush out any remaining fertilizer but it may be too late.

I water much less than you are doing. If the plant looks to be wilting or losing too many leaves I will water. Some near a hose might get watered twice a month. Plants not near a hose are lucky to get water once a month or less. These plants are tougher than they look.

Unfortunately, the plant is now totally dead. The last update above I meant to say "...is NOW dying off quickly" and somehow I typed "NOT" which inverted the entire meaning. The plant died in just a matter of weeks and went from my most healthy plant to completely dead. This must have been some catastrophic fertilizer issue, but all the other succulents that received the same fertilizer batch thrived. I am really confused.

@aloebot I have no doubt that succulents are tough. I had a sedum I did not water for a year that was completely shriveled up, and after a year in good soil and with watering, it is a bush. They can come back from near death.

That said, I have been putting paired succulents in peat moss mixes versus gritty mixes, and it looks pretty much night and day difference in terms of health of the plant. The succulents that go in a peat mix (30% peat, 40% Turface, and 30% lava) immediately thrive, particularly if they get water twice a week. The succulents that go into a gritty mix (30% bark, 40% Turface, and 30% rock) can take more than six months to really acclimate and until they do never look even half as healthy as the same plant in the peat mix. In the gritty mix you have to water a new plant frequently just because the root system does not appear to be efficient in the gritty mix until it starts growing. But if you overwater you risk root rot. I find this really frustrating.

Don't feel bad. I think crested Aeoniums are difficult to begin with. As someone mentioned earlier, they don't seem to need fertilizer. Mine currently are multiplying like rabbits without my help. I think if you get another one you will be surprised to find if you ignore it, it will start to thrive. One other thing with these plants is they like to grow in cooler weather. That is good for you in the Bay area. I think you would need to put in Very well draining media if you leave outside because of the wetter climate there. This time of year they are going to start to fade. It is normal. They go semi-dormant in the heat.

Maybe in your climate you could start your plants in the peaty mix until they have good roots. At that time I would switch to the gritty mix for long term health. Different climates require different methods. If I leave plants in peaty mix down here they will usually die. They sort of go into suspended animation until I can clean off their roots and get them into my usual mix. I use 60+% perlite (or pumice), 20 % compost from the dump (gets finer over time), 20 % dirt (mine is very decomposed DG). I really should water more so my plants would look optimum. I realistically have too many plants to keep them looking their best. Here it is survival of the fittest.

@aloebot I agree that some species might not do well in the peat mix once we get to a rainy season. That is completely untested at this point.

I did design the peat mix to have 30% or less of the soil mix as an organic substrate (i.e., 30% peat). That effectively makes my peat mix a gritty mix, just using peat instead of bark. It is certainly more moisture retentive, but it is also fast draining. I suspect it will be a great soil for most plants and for succulents that thrive in Winter like aeoniums. For those species that go dormant in Winter, it might promote root rot. I will find out.

For cactus and euphorbia, at this point, I am going to try raising them in 100% inorganic soils. The root rot problem with those has been too severe, even in the gritty mix, if I leave them outdoors.

Could you update your profile to include zone information and your rough geographic coordinates? Notice how others here do that. It really helps to understand climate issues for different posters without constantly asking for that information.