Why do succulents need their dead leaves cleaned up in summer

Friends who have grown succulents surely know that getting succulents through the summer is really difficult. Especially for those who do not like dealing with dead leaves, it means you will have a lot more trouble, particularly in the stuffy, hot and humid environment of the rainy season, when dead leaves easily trap moisture and create a stuffy, damp, poorly ventilated environment.

In fact, whether fungi or pests, they all especially love this kind of stuffy, hot and humid environment, and sometimes in an extremely short time they can build a little empire that shocks you. Most succulent fans probably know these dead leaves should be cleaned up, but some succulent fans are just too lazy to do it.

Some succulent fans may think that succulents in the natural environment all survive this way, so whether or not you clean up the dead leaves does not matter. But we should know that for succulents in the natural environment (most of which live in dry environments), these dead leaves at the base can serve to store a small amount of water and sustain the succulent's necessary growth. But the succulents we grow on indoor balconies are not short of water.

Especially in the south, where summers often bring the rainy season and the growing environment is stuffy, hot and humid, we may cause the plant to become infected with disease because of one wrong watering method. Solution: before pulling off the plant's dead leaves, first steady the succulent, then start cleaning, so as not to disturb the plant's root system. Some leaves that are hard to pull off by hand can be removed with sterilised tweezers.

Note: when cleaning up a succulent's dead leaves, you need to get close to the base of the leaf and pull it off with a back-and-forth motion. After cleaning the dead leaves, if you find the succulent cannot stand steady, you can prop it up with a small object for now, and once the succulent has grown new roots it will be fine (the wound should be sprayed with diluted carbendazim solution to prevent the plant from becoming infected with black rot).