Why do succulents look so beautiful in the greenhouse but lose their color shortly after you bring them home?
The greenhouse environment is of course the most suitable for succulent growth. Most of the time, succulents in the greenhouse get full sun, and the temperature difference is very large. With plenty of light and enough temperature variation, succulents naturally color up more easily. For the average home grower, succulents are basically kept on a balcony, where sunlight is limited and the temperature difference is not that great. Even with full sun, there is still a gap compared with a greenhouse. When you buy a succulent from a greenhouse and bring it home, it has changed environments, so of course it changes, such as fading and turning green. These are all normal changes, and you should treat them with a normal mindset. For those who want succulents in peak condition that never fade after coming home, only fake flowers can do that.
The longer the sunlight hours, the better, of course, rather than the stronger the light, the better. Light that is too intense easily causes sunburn. The main reason succulents in greenhouses and glasshouses have vivid colors is that the sunlight hours are long enough, and most can reach 6-8 hours. There is no need for more. Friends who turn on grow lights at night to keep lighting them, let your succulents rest.
The explanation of why succulents change color is a bit shallow, done this way to make it easier for gardening friends to understand. Interested gardening friends may want to look at the information below. The plants and leaves around us are all green. This is because the abundant chlorophyll in the leaves (its mass fraction can exceed 3% of leaf weight) makes it the most important pigment in the leaf. Its color covers the other pigments, making the leaf look green. There is also another type of pigment in leaves, namely carotenoids, which absorb excess blue-violet light. Because carotenoids strongly absorb blue-green light, they appear orange-yellow, and this is also the source of the color in yellow leaves and red leaves.
Ventilation has always been one of the most crucial elements in growing succulents well. In fact, its role is to speed up water evaporation and at the same time lower the temperature. Indoors with poor ventilation, water in the pot is harder to evaporate, and the succulent will keep absorbing water and growing, so it stays green. This is especially true at the leaf center, which is green while growing, and indoor temperatures are also relatively constant, so coloring up becomes even harder.
Even succulents grown by master growers change through the four seasons; it is impossible for them to stay in one state all the time. Those beautiful succulents you see online that make you gasp are the result of the owner spending many years and a lot of care on meticulous cultivation. You are only seeing one photo, and you do not see the effort the owner put in behind the scenes. Not everyone can grow succulents to peak condition. Coloring up requires many factors, including environmental influences and differences in each person's care methods.
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