Soft main stems / 'trunks' on different succulents

[Low Altitude]

Echeverias flop no matter what you do. It's just what they do.

It took me too long to figure this one out, despite Jewell's helpful info. I'm embarrassed that I was 'fooled by appearances': it looked like it wanted to be a tree, so I assumed I was doing something wrong.

Anyway, wiser, I divided it - actually five ways as it turned out: 1. 'cap' section, 2. mid section, 3. a bit of bare stem, 4. the base with roots but no leaves and (5) a lot of individual leaves. Two weeks on, it's interesting: the cap section and the mid section look healthy (on the right / foreground in the pic, with other buddies to their left) and the individual leaves look fine in another container, presumably prepareing to do their amazing propagation thing; but the bare stem section died quickly and it looks like the former base, with the former roots, has also died.

 

[vwatts44]

Curious how the five-way division is going! I received a succulent from a friend and recently noticed it had become so leggy that it’s tipped over - I think it requires intervention. This makes me think your chopping it up approach might work for me too? So hoping for an update!

 

[vwatts44]

Adding pics for reference!

 

[cpp gardener]

You need to put it closer to the window. Decapitating and making cuttings is the best way to keep it small. You could make several cuttings of the long stem and also any leaves that fall off.

 

[Low Altitude]

That's interesting. Goodness me 4+ years have gone by!

The five sections and their fates:

1. 'cap' section, – survived and flourished
2. mid section, – survived only for a few weeks
3. a bit of bare stem, – died and shrivelled within days – no real surprise
4. the base with roots but no leaves – also died quickly, which was the big surprise.
5. a lot of individual leaves – mostly propagated fine. As ever, the bigger the leaves, the better the success rate. Tiny ones don't work.

Here's the photo of the mini trough planter from 2017 and the same one, seen from both sides, now, Feb 2022:

I'm interested in the one that has flopped over the side and is now hanging. Attractive in its own way, i suppose, but it doesn't look too robust. I've been experimenting periodically to see whether being sparing with water encourages the stems to stiffen, to 'wooden', but it seems not: even when echeveria shows signs of drought distress, the stems don't stiffen. As cppgardener wrote above in Nov 2019, "Echeverias flop no matter what you do. It's just what they do".

Also of interest, these variants (ignore the other species in the trough, the greener plumper guy whom I think may be a kind of Sedum) grow fairly rapidly from the leaf 'cutttings' (just dropped leaves) but the rate of growth slows enormously once the tops get an inch or so off the ground.

Below, on a cheerful note, a trough of the same size, populated entirely by the propagated leaves of the 'dismembered' echeveria (and maybe a couple of interlopers and more recent additions).

So these guys must be about four years old now.