Succulents and Violets

It's been a very long time since I posted about the state of my succulents and violets! I've recently re-potted both so I thought I'd share a little about my experience.

In short, I've had mixed results with my succulents. Succulents supposedly require very little care, but I've found that they're harder to grow than you'd think. It's very easy to over-water them, and they're sensitive to the amount of light they get each day -- although I haven't figured out what the "right" amount of light is! My succulents seem to be doing pretty well in the laundry room, so that's where they'll stay.

I recently added some new plants to the oval pot in the photo below. One plant had grown very leggy, so I removed it and put it in the small square pot to hopefully start afresh. It's already tipped over several times so I'd say the long-term chance of survival is slim! :)

I added the three plants at the left, back, and right of this pot to fill it up. After watching a few videos, it dawned on me that succulents do not grow quickly so they don't need a lot of extra space. Fuller planters look better to me. In fact, I probably could have squeezed a few more into this planter!

 Since I've moved the succulents to the laundry room, they seem to be doing better. I have a reminder set to water them every two weeks which seems to be just about right. We'll see how the new plants survive!

I've had better success with my violets...although I may have just ruined everything!

Recently I attempted to split two of my violets which had developed multiple crowns (new baby plants). I have only attempted this once (with Bailey) so this was the first time trying it on my own. I watched a couple of videos to learn the proper method and decided to give it a try. 

Here you can see how large this plant was! There were three or four plants in one.

I pulled it out of the pot and shook off the dirt. In retrospect, I should have done this when the plants were very dry.

I gently pulled apart the plants, trying to leave roots on each one. (This is probably where I failed...we'll see!)

 

 I placed the newly separated plants into small containers with violet potting mix. I use plastic containers with holes in the bottom, as violets are watered from the bottom.

 After splitting the violets, I had seven pots. I trimmed off some of the outside leaves to make them a little more balanced, watered them, and put them back in the dining room where they live for the time being.

 One week later, they're all still alive, but the leaves are not as "stiff" as I'd like them to be. When violets are thriving, their leaves stand out rather than flop down. I'm hoping they're just suffering from transplant shock and that this will improve over time. We'll see!

 

I really hope they live, but if these violets die, I'll be buying a few new ones at the grocery store. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

jp