A repot I’d done carelessly, rushed because I was trying to fit it into a narrow window before guests arrived, left a rare Astrophytum with visibly damaged roots and a noticeable list to one side within days. I’d been too hasty pulling it from its old pot, too rough settling it into the new soil, … Read more
I spent nearly a month treating a spotting problem on one of my Echeverias with a fungicide that did essentially nothing, watching the dark, water-soaked lesions continue spreading despite consistent, correctly applied treatment. It wasn’t until I finally asked in a collector forum, posting close-up photos, that someone pointed out the spots had the wrong … Read more
I introduced a fungal infection into a healthy, established Conophytum using the exact same blade I’d used minutes earlier to trim a rotting root off a completely different plant. At the time, it genuinely didn’t occur to me that a quick wipe on my jeans counted as adequate cleaning between cuts. Within about two weeks, … Read more
A collector friend once sent me a panicked message with photos of small, raised, blister-like bumps that had appeared almost overnight on the leaves of her Echeveria, convinced she was looking at some kind of aggressive fungal infection or pest damage she’d never encountered before. The bumps looked genuinely alarming, slightly translucent, faintly discolored, scattered … Read more
I lost most of an Echeveria’s fresh growth before I even realized spider mites were the cause. What I actually noticed first was a faint, dusty discoloration on the newer leaves, subtle enough that I initially dismissed it as normal mineral buildup from tap water, the kind of thing I’d seen plenty of times before … Read more
There’s a specific moment familiar to anyone who’s kept succulents seriously: standing over a plant that looks genuinely, seriously bad, trying to decide whether it’s worth attempting a rescue or whether you’re just delaying an inevitable loss. I’ve made both calls at different times, sometimes successfully reviving a plant I’d nearly given up on, and … Read more
Nutrient deficiency is probably the least discussed problem in the entire succulent hobby, and for a long time I assumed that was because it simply didn’t matter much for these plants. Succulents have a reputation for thriving on neglect, and that reputation isn’t entirely wrong when it comes to watering frequency, but it’s led a … Read more
There’s a particular kind of disappointment that comes from watching a once-tight, compact rosette slowly stretch into something long, thin, and unrecognizable, especially when it happens gradually enough that you don’t notice until the change is already significant. I went through exactly this with an Echeveria that had been living happily on a shelf for … Read more
I used to skip quarantine entirely, mostly out of impatience. A new rare specimen would arrive and I’d want it displayed with the rest of the collection immediately, proud of the addition rather than treating it with any real caution. It took a mealybug infestation spreading from a single new arrival to three other plants, … Read more
Somewhere along the way, after treating a particularly stubborn mealybug infestation with progressively stronger products that left one of my Echeverias looking worse than the pests themselves had, I started reconsidering my whole approach to pest management. Not every infestation needs an aggressive chemical response, and for a lot of the milder, earlier-stage problems that … Read more