u/plantguy13

I recently purchased a mixed pot, mostly jades, meant as a hanging pot - plastic, of course, and completely dripping wet peat under the dense mound of foliage without a square centimeter free for evaporation

Obviously it came from a big box store (Home Depot, but the collection was actually from Altman Plants, who absolutely know better than to abuse succulents this way)

It had some 3 Echeveria, 1 large (relatively) Sedum adolphi, 3 ripple jades, 4-5 common jades, 2 very small Crassula ovata minima, and 3 tiny (one 1.5” high, 2”x1.5” wide/deep, the other two only an inch or so in all axes) Crassula ovata v. Gollum

One Echeveria turned to brown mush as I was drying the mess

One Echeveria was severely etiolated and had all of 3 leaves remaining

The third Echeveria came apart when I tried to remove it from the peat - as in, it held so much water that each leaf I touched popped off - at pressure, some flying feet away from the slightest contact. I knew this was from water pressure and that those leaves were likely dead, but I saved all 11 anyway. Last week the 10th started showing a pink root. The rest all are rooted and planted except for one that rotted

The sedum is fine, added to a Sedum adolphi pot I already had

As for the jades…

I separated them and gave them 60% perlite and terracotta pots with drains, all in shallow and wide pots

The plan was to let them settle for the rest of summer and repot in spring

One of the tiny Gollum disintegrated into mush

But all of the jades are rooted and actively growing with the combination of west window proximity and a cheap grow light or two

The larger Gollum needed support at first, so it had a heavy rock over the roots and a thin one supporting it on the other side, so it didn’t lean on the rim

Yesterday I removed the no-longer-necessary supporting rocks, since all of the jades are showing new, healthy growth

But there was something odd on the larger Gollum

Every part was covered in 1/4” white roots hanging down

I assume that’s because the rocks blocked side light and the top has dense foliage, so the undersides rooted

So now, I need advice

Do I leave it alone, let these roots dry out, allow it to grow large enough to feel confident when I’m sure cuttings will grow well?

Or do I use these unexpected roots to cut off a branch or two and establish new, small plants?

My West light will weaken as autumn progresses into winter, especially here in New York

But as I said, I’ve got supplemental LEDs that may not be the best quality, but they certainly are enough that my plants aren’t etiolated, rooted firmly after enough abuse to kill most succulents (including its pot-mates, one of which was a rotted Gollum), and show active foliage growth in both expected places and at multiple forks and leaf axils

Some growth might be an attempt to get more photons but with so many, and not one stretched out or thin, with nice, fat leaves everywhere?

So here are the best images of the Gollum in question

As far as I can see my choices are:

(1) leave it alone, let it grow as the winter dormancy grows ever closer

(2) cut the branch to the right where the roots are most densely growing, let that callus, and plant the already rooted segment as a third Gollum plant - because I LOVE the Gollum look and am really hoping that they grow well enough over the next year to have an amazing mixed jade pot, with a shaped common jade linked by the best of the Gollum and minima selections

Or (3) build up a mound of my perlite/soil next to the trunk but with a spacer to maintain air circulation around the trunk, while the roots grow down into the built-up soil and that way, the roots essentially double nutrient flow while simultaneously preparing that branch to be separated cleanly in spring?

Any suggestions would be appreciated and any ideas other than the three I mentioned will be appreciated as well

Just please be kind. These jades aren’t my first - or only - succulents, but I’ve no experience with such tiny jades (other than common jades grown from leaf cuttings) and no experience whatsoever with the Gollums, which I understand that because of their leaf shape and the density of the foliage in plants like this are more likely to hold humidity in a microclimate (which is why I removed the stones as soon as new foliage convinced me the plant had rooted and was stable)

Thanks for any and all positive advice!

So I inherited a large Euphorbia lactea with my apartment 28 years ago. Some years it barely grows, and others it explodes with new growth. This spring it stalled but after braking up old, compacted soil and adding a surfactant, it exploded with new growth

And I realized that while some of the new growth is quite odd, those oddities have been present on other branches for years

It’s been suggested that my plant is a chimeric mutant, and in times of stress it displays either cristate changes (mostly by having twice the number of growth nodes per vertical inch, but also by flattening and widening stems that go from three ribs to two, and 2-4 inches up return to normal) or monstrose changes (which are located in a spot under grow lights that I can’t easily take pics of due to my physical disability) that range from palpable nodes on the flat surfaces to oddly bulbous and twisting stems. One branch developed both before its growth tip died and it has branches that are phenotypically normal, as well as one that appeared cristate and began to ripple before the main tip reverted to normal (I cut it; am waiting to see what happens next!) and even one branch that is rounded in cross section, bulbous near growth nodes, thin despite grow lights, and packed with nodes (at least five per vertical inch) that retain leaves longer than usual - and the leaves are larger, 3 mm instead of 1-2 mm.

Has anyone seen this before? The branches almost always revert back to normal and I can’t prove that I have either true cristate or monstrose growth, unless the node stacking and rounded cross section with twisting stems is enough to prove it. I don’t dare try to propagate these sections; they are thin despite grow lights and a west window. They have always reverted to normal growth on other branches and I’d really love a true monstrose branch that can be propagated as well as a cristate piece I can keep on my old, stron stems/roots to grow

I’ve seen several people trying to sell a gorgeous variety of snake plant

I wanted to identify the exact genus and species - and it’s a fake. The plant doesn’t exist and the image was generated in a way that I am not allowed to mention here but let’s say that a human did not generate the image

So I found what looked too good to be true on E tsy.

Seller “the Green Es cape” had a great find - a Euphorbia submammillaris with both monstrose and crested mutations. It was for sale as “exact plant,” but they didn’t ship it for seaveral days. They require two plants, so I got a trio of Euphorbia trigona rubra that was a deep burgundy, 4” tall, 3 pieces spread in a 4” pot, also “exact plant.”

I messaged them to be certain I would get those exact plants as pictured and they assured me I would. Said they are exactly as they appear in the pictures they posted.

They delayed shipping for four days after I got the notification they’ve made the shipping label

The plants arrived on a Friday afternoon. I tried to reach them almost immediately, but got a notification that they are closed on weekends. It was (if I recall correctly) about 3:30 in the afternoon (we are in the same time zone) when they sent the response - but I asked E tsy for urgent help and then the seller responded - mostly to ask me to wait 3 days and not give them a bad review until we spoke Monday morning. And they didn’t respond on Monday until after about 4 pm, by which time I assumed they were closed, and all they said was they’ll return all of my money because I opened a formal complaint. This is why:

When the plants arrived, the trigona was 3 unrooted 6-8” pieces tightly bunched with vaguely purplish brown at the bottom and unstable - fresh cuttings barely callused, and thin stems, very etiolated, too thin to support future branching without me cutting them once they root strongly and growing the cuttings

But worse, they cut off half of that beautiful crested monstrose piece I ordered, then after it callused, they packed it in polyfil and left it in the dark box with the trigona for days

By the time I got it, the main stem and most of the plant was rotten. Not just roots.

They sold me “exact plants” - one of which they mutilated to keep a piece of an expensive double mutation, and the other was fresh cuttings of much lower quality

I’m not a lawyer but this seems like fraud, theft (I paid for the piece they kept and presumably propagated), and bait-and-switch. I bought three fully rooted thick-stemmed trigona rubra and got 3 fresh cuttings

Beware - they tried to argue with me that the fresh cuttings were “salvageable” and they refused to reimburse me for 3 days until I opened a formal complaint

Only after I opened a complaint did they reimburse me for both pieces, though I have yet to see the payment returned on my credit card (I was told it may take up to 7 business days)

But they kept that double mutation piece and denied they cut it off - even though I have before and after pics of both plants they sent me. It’s easily visible in the shop pics of the item

Now I’m trying to grow some of the cuttings from the monstrose submammillaris and hoping that the small piece of crested monstrose will survive

Any advice? It’s about an inch long, dusted with rooting hormone (very lightly) to speed callus and cinnamon to control rot. AI keeps giving me conflicting advice about how best to get this to survive and root.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks, and I hope nobody else gets suckered by these guys