They are unglazed, and the soil does dry out very quickly. Those are some interesting hairs on that root. I haven't noticed any hairs on my roots that have formed. Can you see the hairs on crassula roots with the naked eye?

I'll try standing a pot in water and seeing what happens. Should I expect the top to be noticeably more moist within a day?

Getting just the right moisture level seems kind of intimidating. But I imagine I have more leeway than I might think.

Once the leaf puts out roots do you think I would have to worry about rot if I gave the soil a little spritz every 2-3 days? Considering how much air the roots are exposed to and how quickly the potting mixture dries up, could 2-3 days be enough time between spritzing?

I know the mature plants prefer to be saturated and then dried out, but I'm thinking rooting leaves are different?

Whoops, let the topic slip. How are they doing now?

I don't recall seeing any root hairs, dead or alive, when pulling Jades out of the pot to look at them.

If you haven't tried putting them in water already, the top (maybe not the surface itself, sometimes when it dries out it becomes an insulating layer) probably will get moist within a day because the pot itself takes up moisture. Once they do put out roots, spritzing plus bottom water might be too much. The surface might be dry, but if they're standing in water then there's plenty underneath. Even if it is a little way down, so long as there's enough moisture for the roots to survive they'll roam around until they do find water. Spritzing without bottom water would work out, but you'd have to do it often to keep the whole pot slightly moist. If only the top ever gets wet, that's where the roots will concentrate, and it's the top that dries out first.

Rooting leaves would take being saturated and dried out, but there wouldn't be much margin for error because a leaf with a tiny bit of root doesn't have many resources to lose.

I wouldn't worry much about them. They get all the nutrients from the leaf. But you can lightly mist the soil every few days if you like. This was mentioned up top. Don't worry, the plants know what they are doing. I have seen a detached leaf that had fallen behind some pots send out roots and plants with no soil. This was behind the pots for about 6 months. The leaf that produced the plants was all but dried up, but we simply planted them and they were fine.

They seem to be doing good! I have 9 or ten leaves that have at least put out some rots, only about 2-3 have roots going into the soil though.

I think I may stick with just spritzing for now. I know bottom watering would work, but I'm afraid I'd still have the urge to spritz and may overdo it...

Everyday more leaves put out roots, it's really exciting. But so far none have put out any sort of foliage. just roots. Hopefully I'll start seeing some more leaf growth in the next few weeks.

BTW, has anyone noticed gollum/ET's fingers/Hobbit leaves taking longer to root? My crosby, argentea compacta, hummel's sunset, ovata, and one other regular looking leaf have already put out roots, while my ET's fingers, gollum, and perhaps a hobbit leaf have yet to do anything.

I've been spritzing about every other day. just a few squirts, covering the top layer with moisture. i've changed it from a mist to a jet though. so I'd imagine some water is getting down into the soil as well.

Hopefully this method will do me well.

So, now I currently have 18 different leaves producing roots! My Hummel's Sunset leaves are doing the best. All of them have produced multiple new roots. Of all the different varieties I have only two are not doing anything. My Propeller Jade leaves simply shriveled away to about nothing. My tri-color leaves haven't produced any roots but have not started to shrivel yet, so they may be coming soon.

I've found it interesting that on every single leaf root growth is coming before new leaf growth. I've read in multiple places that the first sign of new growth is generally new leaf growth, but I have found this to not be the case.

I have one pot with soil that has no leaves in it that I have been watering occasionally to see how the soil will behave over a period of time. I let it dry and then dumped all the soil right into another identical pot. I noticed a lot of dust and fine particles have accumulated on the bottom of the pot. sometimes the pot was getting slightly clogged but messing around with a paper clip always cleared it up. These pots do dry incredible fast though, so is it safe to assume this will be fine until next summer when I go through the process of making a proper gritty mix to repot all my plants in?

Excellent news!

How far did the Propeller Jade leaves shrivel and do you still have them (I'm guessing not, from the tense)? All it takes is a tiny bit of root, and then they can plump back up. Something I've found that helps in cases of shrivelling, if caught early, is not only shading the plant / cutting / leaf, but keeping it enclosed so that moisture it does lose doesn't go into the open air. Dry newspaper or something similar would be fine.

Since the pots are drying so fast it'll be okay to keep everything in there. Just keep an eye on the plants when they have decent root systems and want to grow; with so many of them in a small clay pot they'll drain it quite quickly.

Was the information about leaf vs. root growth specific, or for any plant? It would seem logical for the roots to always come out first, regardless of species. A leaf has the ability to photosynthesise but not the ability to take in water, so its limited resources are better spent on creating a water supply and not growing more of what it already has.

Cool, I'm glad that your leaves are doing so well..it gives me hope for mine! :D

When I recently bought a Gollum plant it had a fallen leaf already sprouting roots and new leaves. The 2 new leaves look like original jade leaves..that's very strange to me. I can't imagine how the genetics revert back like that!

Good luck with your new plants

My propeller leaves are long gone... =/ I'll keep that advice in mind for next time though.

I heard, and even saw many pictures of jade leaves producing leaves before roots. Out of 20 leaves I have that are growing, only one is starting with leaves first. I'd often heard that new leaves were the best sign of new growth, "easier to see than the tiny roots growing under the leaf".

I hope your leaves do well too, potato! Maybe the leaves just haven't matured enough to look like gollum leaves? I was told farther up in this post that my gollum should produce gollum offspring. But maybe that's not the case?

I do have one or two tiny roots that have turned brown and shriveled up on the ends. Any suggestions on how to identify the difference between rot and drying out? It's only one or two tiny roots, so maybe it's natural for some to shrivel up? Especially ones that are in the air and not reaching the soil right away.

But after looking at a few more roots I think the brown ones may be rot.... I guess I'll have to go a little easier on the spritzing....

Just a reminder ;-)
Jade leaves and cuttings will root without any water....

Josh

Yea... I know it in my head, but when I walk in the room and see all those tiny roots in that dry soil it's so easy to think, "oh, I haven't sprayed these since two days ago, maybe they could use a little squirt!"

Maybe I should take that spray bottle out of there... Pull it out once a week if I feel the need. I never expected it to be so hard to hold back on the water. But now it's easy to see how so many people can kill their cuttings/leaves with too much water. Doesn't take much...

Hi Nallred,

Now that you mention it, maybe that's a good idea to remove the mister from the room. The plants really don't need the water. Pls. be reminded they are succulents, the main characteristic of which is the ability to STORE WATER in their own tissues. That's why you really don't help them (& may even harm them) by continuing to water when not needed.

I know it's hard, I struggled w/ it early on too. I've told folks I had to train myself to hold my hands behind my back while I looked at my plants. I had to learn to look but not water. In the end, the plants'll thank you for it.

I agree, I'm going to have to train myself to do the same...

Going along with hands behind backs, do you think it is necessary to adjust the leaf as it grows roots? My soil is very rocky and I sometimes feel the need to adjust the leaf so that it is in a more (or atleast what appears to me as) advantageous position for growing? Is this necessary? Will the plants eventually settle in non-awkward spots? Or is it helpful for me to readjust the rooting leaves? I'll put up some pictures later today to show what I mean. It's just I'm not sure the plants wil be able to move the bigger pebbles as they grow.

Those roots will dig through the pebbles just fine ;-)

Josh

It's better to cover existing roots than to manouevre the leaf so that it's pointing at a gap between the rocks. Less chance of breakage, less confusing for the plant roots.

Thanks, that answered my question exactly. Pointing the roots at gaps was exactly what I was doing... I guess all of that isn't really necessary. Just another reason to hold my hands behind my back

Would you say covering up is necessary though? Or as the plant ages will its "stalk" naturally extend down into the soil and situate itself, as well as lose the roots above the surface and start making roots at the correct level. Rooting things in this gritty mix is different from rooting things in a standard potting soil. But I guess this mix is more similar to the native environment, so I should probably just trust that over time the plants will figure themselves out.

Hi Nall,

"so I should probably just trust that over time the plants will figure themselves out".

You've got it. Really, think about it in the wild, these plants have been doing this for a long time before people ever came along to help the right themselves.

Now that you've done so well establishing all the plants, comes the hard part. Remembering that less is more for succulents, these in particular, just to give them time & watch them grow. They do well with benign neglect, enjoy.

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Here are two pictures of some of my leaves. You can see a few of them are starting to get some new leaf growth. but you can also see that some of the roots are growing in odd directions, and the size of the pebbles compared to the leaves.

Although the mix is working well for my mature jades, I constantly feel like it's to coarse for these leaves.... I guess they'll surprise me though!?

Obsession can be a wonderful thing, but with succulents, you'll find the benign neglect approach the most efficacious for your plants, if not for yourself....

Hello!

Although your mix is a touch course, I don't think you'll have a problem with these leaves.
If you scroll through the attached Thread, you'll see the course mix that I used to start my
Jade Forest. My leaves were planted a bit deeper, but that was for support primarily.

Plucked my Jade's leaves (pics)

Josh

Nah, they'll be fine. None of the leaf ends are perched on rocks, so the roots will find their way down quickly enough. The longish root in the first pic could be barely covered with a pinch of sand or some of the dark stuff (bark?) to insure it against unexpected drying, but at this point it's probably okay to leave alone.

As for the stalk extending down... No, it won't move down by itself, because Jades don't have contractile roots. But as the plant above it grows the weight will slowly push it down, and as the base turns from a point into a small area it'll find its own level. Heaping some more mix around the base will keep the roots cool, but won't necessarily have a significant effect on water loss or support the plant any more, especially in a loose mix.

Plants in a coarse mix take a while to dig in because the individual bits of the 'soil' slide right past each other if they're not caught in a net of roots. Depending on the layout of the root system, a plant can be established in a coarse mix but still fall right out of the pot if it's tipped over. This happened to one of my E. obesas. The roots had a spread equal to the plant itself, but because they were thick and relatively unbranching the plant did a forward roll as it followed the mix pouring out of the pot. It was completely unharmed by this and the mix went back in as easily as it came out.

So just an update,

The leaves seem to be either hit or miss in how well they're doing. A few are doing great and are putting out new leaves that are getting bigger all the time. On the other hand, some leaves that put out roots have lost their roots. Some have started producing new leaves but just seem to have stalled...

And my crosby's keep shriveling up one by one. Although, it seems like the leaves may be sick. It's a very sudden thing with them. One day they look fine, two days later they're gone.

I've had to move to another location, so I'm hoping a South-East facing window will be ok for them. I'm hoping soon some of these slower developing leaves will have a growth spurt and catch up with the more developed ones, but I guess their isn't much I can do besides let them be!

At least it appears I'll have 6 or 7 different types of jades, even if I don't get the abundance I'd hoped for.

I've decided to switch my plants to a 100% turface rooting medium based on the good results i saw from jade_man. the root system on some leaves are getting quite large. I've put my leaves in a liner with 32 cells and I'm currently using between 24 and 28 cells, each with only one leaf. Hopefully the turface will do me well. we'll see =)

Doug (Jade man) does have great results with Turface.

I don't have the best Jade growth with pure Turface, however.
That said, I recommend that you screen and rinse your Turface so that the particles
are larger than 1/16 of an inch. Turface holds a lot of moisture internally, and water
will perch in the lower layers, so you must pay attention to your watering.

Maybe you could leave a few plants in the older mix just to compare.

Josh

Do you just have slower growth? Or is it a higher death rate?

I've found initially when the plants were introduced to the turface the root growth sped up substantially for all plants. Foliage, however, only sped up for a few, while most haven't seem to grow much at all.

However, now some of the roots that started thriving when introduced to the turface are now a little soggy and no longer have the root hairs they used to. So I'm going to follow your advice and really try to get them all dried out. maybe that will help speed up growth all around. If I can just get a good handle on figuring out with I should water I think everything will be good.

I'm thinking I should have gone with a granite/turface mix, but it's a little late for that now. Since these plants can be rooted in a peaty bagged mix I'm confident they'll grow big enough by next summer that i'll be able to repot them into either the real gritty mix or a granite/turface mix.

On a side note, the Variegated leaf is just starting to put out a plantlet. As of now I can't tell what it will look like, but I'm excited to see!

Hello!

In the Turface, I had slower rooting on cuttings.
I was surprised because I'd expected a much faster response from the cuttings.
That said, the cuttings are quite happy now, though they grow slowly.

Congrats on the variegated plantlet!

Josh

Interesting. Did you add any fertilizer? maybe a touch of fertilizer would encourage some growth in the turface. I'm pretty sure that's what doug was doing.

What is your normal medium for rooting cuttings?

I do, indeed fertigate.
I've been using Foliage Pro 9-3-6 for almost two years now.

I actually linked you to a Thread just a few posts above ("Plucked my Jade's Leaves")
where I show pics of my bark, perlite, pumice rooting medium. These ingredients are
not absolute, of course, and I often mix bark, turface, perlite, pumice, quartz, et cetera,
to make a porous, open mix for leaves, cuttings, and well-rooted plants.

Josh

I just purchased some FP for my mature plants, maybe I'll try a tiny bit on my leaves and cuttings.

I do recall seeing your rooting medium, especially the jade forest and the gollum in that tiny pot. It was late and it slipped my mind, sorry.

The gollum in the small pot, did you just mist the surface every few days at first? Until a trunk was developed and the mother leaf shriveled, then begin watering it like you would water mature plants? However, wouldn't this cause the bulk of the roots to gather at the top and the ones that do extend down to dry up and die? Perhaps this is a misconception I have about the hardiness of the new roots. Or a misunderstanding of how much water I should add when I mist.

After looking over all your pictures again I'm going to try following all your advice as well as I can from this point forward.

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Here's a few pictures of some of the progress. A clavata, hummels sunset, crosby's compact, and ET's Fingers. At least these were the names given to me by the vendor off ebay...

They're looking very good!

Don't fertilize the leaves or rooting cuttings...not just yet.
They should be fine until the Spring season. For your mature succulents,
a very light dose - 1/8 teaspoon per gallon - would be fine to add during the Winter.

I don't mist. I dribble water a half-inch away from the leaves or stems,
until I'm satisfied that moisture has hit the root-zone. Depending on the
time of year, the temperature, the light, et cetera, I might dribble water
every 2 - 3 days or maybe once a week (during the grey trough of winter).

If your plantlets become pale or yellowish, back off on the water.
Otherwise, you seem to be doing quite well!

Josh

Awesome. I'll post more pictures in a month or whenever there's som substantial growth to speak of. Thanks for the advice!

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So here's my results about 4 months out. Seems like mixed results to me. I've moved all of my plants under some grow lights and seem to have gotten some burn on some of the mother leaves.

Also, the picture with the mother leaf completely shriveled up has VERY little roots. I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

So do these results look ok for 4 months out? I'm afraid the turface may be inhibiting growth?

on another side note, the plant in picture 2 is sending out an aerial root headed toward the turface. Is this normal? could it be a sign of underwatering?

And also, I did leave one plant in the original mix and it seems to be doing about the same. So maybe the turface isn't inhibiting growth?

Any suggestions for encouraging more growth?

Hey Nick, great to see you!

Are you still providing lots of sunlight? If so, yes you are under watering and not feeding enough:-)

If you want to see ever better results since they are young and in growth stage, FEED and water as long as they are getting lots of sunlight and drying out rather quickly which in your case I think they are between waterings.

Great job by the way:-)

Excellento.

Mike

I am! I have the same light as you, let me check how long I keep it on for....

13 hours a day. These plants are 9 inches from the light.

I am between waterings, was planning on watering tomorrow morning. Its hard to keep track of how much I water since I have a spray bottle right here and I occasionally give the plants a few squirts. Maybe it'd be better to do more frequent full waterings and less squirts?

They're looking great...super cute! Thanks for the update!

Hey, Nick! (and Mike and Nancy!)

Nick, I agree with Mike - looks like more water is in order, just don't overdo it!
And don't worry about the shriveling mother leaves....they're all doomed in the end.

Josh

Hello nallred;

I was reading this thread and I am wondering how are your seedlings doing?
Could you post some up-to-date photos? Thnx.
Rina

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So things are coming along! Kinda disappointed about the ET's fingers and Hobbit leaves not growing new plants that are true to form... I guess I'll need to get on ebay and see if i can buy some cuttings...

But i'm thinking about moving all of this outside in a few weeks. I'm concerned about animals and the weather though (wind/rain). Any opinions on that?

nallred91,

I send you email

Inna

ok! its nallred91@gmail.com

I send you email again fr. ifarber7@hotmail.com

Great info from everyone! But hoping I can pick your genius propagating brains! I love succulents, but am fairly new to the world of propagating. I used to live in San Diego so I pretty much ignored them and they thrived, now I live in the desert and my babies just don't seem as happy!

About 2 months ago I began trying to propagate from both single leaves, as well as smaller cuttings (is that the correct name for the tiny plants that had grown from the main stems?). My succulents include a few varieties from the Echeveria family, Aeonium family, as well as a few others with leaves that aren't quite as swollen (water filled) that I'm not sure of the name.

I've have been going about it based on slightly different method with mixed results (advice I read before stumbling across this incredible forum!) -- I took the cuttings with a sharp, clean knife (without cutting into the large, main stems - leaving anywhere from 3-4 cm to 3 inches of stem) and twisted off the extra leaves (where I got the majority of my individual leaves, others were from fallen soldiers!). I let the root end of both the single leaves and cuttings callous over(about 3-4 days in a paper bag). And then I planted them all (burying the end of the leaf or calloused over stem). I planted some in a bark, pebble mixture (no soil) and some in a cacti soil. Most all of the leaves / cuttings in the bark and pebble mixture have grown little roots (with the exception of those in the Aeonium family). Although those in the potting soil have indeed shown a tiny bit of growth, they seem to be staying too wet.

My questions (finally!!):
1. From the various pictures, it looks like everyone is using a small gravel mixture. What is it exactly?

2. Do you really just lay the leaves on top of the planting medium?? I really want to bury them! Am I inhibiting growth by burying them?

3. Should I re-pot to the mixture you guys are using or would this upset them at this point (it's been a few months)? I'm totally in the dark about how long this process takes, not sure if my 2-6cm of root growth is normal or below normal because stuff is staying too wet.

4. Do you ever re-pot to a different mixture or simply keep them in the gravel medium?

5. Somebody mentioned that a typical growth period from a single leaf is about 1 year. Is that normal, fast, slow? Under what conditions? I'm in the dessert (it will get very hot in the summer, 110+), but I definitely plan bring my plants inside to a South facing window once temps are consistently above 90. I was hoping to use them for my wedding in late September, so I'm praying even if they aren't big that there will be decent growth by then. Am I crazy to think I'll have anything at the rate I'm going now?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! I can post pictures tomorrow if that is helpful.
Many thanks,
Kristol