I had a great weekend last week. Our two-year wedding anniversary was Saturday, and Sunday was hubby’s 33th birthday. I spent both mornings gardening while hubby spent these mornings in his favorite way – snoring in bed. 🙂 It was also cooler last weekend after a couple weeks of hot days, so all of our dogs were outside snoring next to my veggie pad. It was really no better way to spend my weekend mornings.

 

One thing I did was to re-pot and to fertilize my succulents. They finally started to grow faster and could use some encouragement. They were all from tiny cuttings – hubby ordered them online for me on V’day this year. And we were cheap so that we ordered the smallest cuttings. It takes forever for them to grow! Now I understand why big, gorgeous succulents cost – given how slow they grow, the price is totally justified.

 

These cuttings were also in bad shape when they came in – the package was delayed because of snow storms everywhere. Instead of five days, these cuttings were on road, in god-knows-where-probably-cold-temp for three weeks. They arrived super sad-looking, and most of them had their little leaves falling all over. I was also away from home when it was arrived, so hubby tried to “save” them by planting them in moist-control soil and totally over watered them – like treating a regular plant. But for succulent cuttings, it must have been a nightmare – Some of them had mold growing when I arrived home a few days later.

 

Fortunately they were strong little fighters. Except one, all of them survived. They grew very very slow though – After I move them onto fast-drain soil, it took them a couple weeks to dry out and maybe another month to have little root extending out. They have been in the same shallow pot for a good three months before they could stand without each other’s support by their little root. Then around late April, some of them finally put out a couple leaves here and there. It was so painful to watch since I am not a patient person.

 

I also noticed that even they were all succulent/cactus kind, they each required different amount of water and different degree of drainage. Each time I watered them, certain ones grew a bit all the suddenly, where some other ones seemed to sadden a bit. So separating them became a must. Around mid-May, I separated some of them and lined them up on the south-facing window sow at my work. Then it has been a trial-and-error kind of a couple months to figure out when amount of water each of them like.

 

 

My succulent grow so slowly probably because they are kept indoors. The building I work in is so over air-conditioned that I wear sweater most of the time. The “direct” sun beam is also filtered by energy-sufficient windows. Moreover, there is also no air flow near these pots, so the soil dry very slowly. Cold temp + slow dry soil + not much watering = slow growth.

 

Finally it is summer, the season that succulents are supposed to grow. They definitely stand taller, have new growth, and some of them even started to put more babies. Cannot wait to see how the fertilizer help them in the next a couple weeks!