Succulents are fascinating, and I hope to keep being crazy about them forever.

Foreword

Follow the Encyclopedia · Meet beauty (WeChat ID: duoroubaike)

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Thanks to the author [Yueji] for theoriginal submissionsharing

Submission date: 2018.06.09

Edited and organized by: Encyclopedia Jun

Location: Hengyang, Hunan

I have been following the Encyclopedia for a year now, and every time I feel the urge to submit something, but I just feel my writing is not good enough, that I cannot write gorgeous language or brilliant content. This time I finally made up my mind, summoned my courage, and held onto a give-it-a-try attitude.

I first came into contact with succulents in May 2016. At that time, I saw a friend posting succulents on WeChat Moments and thought succulents were so cute and adorable, so I went to a greenhouse and bought a dozen or so to grow. In the end, almost all of them died, and only the toughest one, the Portulacaria afra (elephant bush), survived. At that time, I had no understanding at all of succulents' habits, nothing about soil mixes, watering, or water control; I was completely a beginner. Back then, the greenhouse seller planted them for me using all-peat soil and told me that just watering less would be enough (now I think that seller either did not know how to grow succulents, or was just a shady seller). At that time, I saw my succulents growing like bean sprouts and still thought they were so beautiful and cute, and I kept posting them on WeChat Moments.

My real encounter with succulents was in May 2017. My best friend bought several pots of beautiful old-stem succulents, and then kept encouraging me to buy some. Last time, growing succulents had ended in heavy losses, and I originally did not want to grow them again, but I could not withstand my best friend's brainwashing, so I formally fell into the succulent pit and began the rhythm of buy, buy, buy, living a "vicious cycle" of buying pots, buying soil, and buying succulents. Whenever I had time, I would squat on the balcony watering the succulents, pulling off dead leaves, and taking photos. Now when I go out, I stare at other people's balconies to see whether anyone else loves succulents as much as I do.

In order to grow the succulents beautifully and reduce the casualty rate, I began continuously learning about growing succulents, reading the Encyclopedia and asking Baidu (if only I had studied this hard back in school...). As a balcony grower in Hunan, which is in the free-shipping region, I use a soil mix of granules to peat at 8:2, which is airy. Hunan is humid and muggy, and too much peat soil makes it not airy enough and prone to black rot. Experiments proved that this soil mix led to very few casualties last summer.

First, here is a set of comparison photos of my favorite Taodan (peach egg) over half a year.

And the Carola that I super love, beautiful in different seasons. The first photo is how it looked when it first arrived, the second is last winter, and the third is this spring right after rain. I personally prefer the fresh and refined look of the third one.

And comparison photos of the cute Luoqi.

Although the Ruby is not as red as other people's, I am already very satisfied. The first photo is how it looked just after finishing summer, and in half a year it became beautiful again.

Purple Card went through the test of the intense summer heat and Jack, and winter and spring gave me different kinds of beauty.

Purple Card

Prism was bought last October, and in half a year since then it has perfectly transformed.

Onslow was also bought last October. When I bought it, it was green, and by winter it became beautiful, but in our free-shipping region's spring with lots of rain, it turned green again. The leaves thickened quite a bit. The spring photos of Onslow were not beautiful, so I did not take any.

Xiaomixing (Little Rice Star) is two pots put together. One pot went through the intense heat of summer 2017, and one was given by the seller last autumn. Winter is when Xiaomixing is most beautiful.

There are still many comparison photos I will not post. I will just post some of the beautiful succulents I am fairly satisfied with.

Black Claw

Green Claw

Bian Te Snow Claw

My favorite Deng Meiren (light beauty)

Hongzhilian never shows its colors, maybe the variety is just not good.

The faded Orange Monroe

Beautiful succulents from last winter

A small group photo

This spring's vegetable-colored succulents

Another photo of my favorite rose.

Each succulent is a life. No matter beautiful or ugly, cherish life. I will always use my full love to let them transform!

Succulent culture needs you and me to promote it! Remember to share good articles more, so more people fall in love with succulents!

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