My greenhouse buddy at the garden center called me out on watering wrong

This old guy at the local nursery in Portland told me I was drowning my succulents. He said I was watering like they were thirsty petunias instead of desert plants. I cut back to once every 10 days and stopped misting the leaves completely. Now they actually keep their color instead of going mushy. Anyone else get told they were way off on something basic like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.ruby3d ago

@spencer_bell that 70s book was probably written before anyone really understood succulents. Misting jade plants basically guarantees rot, learned that the hard way myself. Ten days is solid advice though, just make sure the soil is bone dry before you water again.

spencer_bell3d ago

Good heavens, wait a minute. You were misting your succulents? I had no idea people even did that with cacti and stonecrops. That explains a lot about my own sad little jade plant I killed a few years back, I was treating it like a fern from the rainforest. I remember reading a book from the 70s that said to mist everything green in your house, but that book was way off base for desert plants. Your greenhouse buddy sounds like he knew his stuff, ten days between waterings sounds about right for most of those indoor desert types.