Buying succulents in autumn is more suitable, and getting them now is just the right time
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Text and images: This girl is a bit sweet
Actually, after writing back and forth, succulents are just that little bit of stuff~ plants, pots, soil, bugs, buying, planting, beauty, death~ repotting, changing soil, all kinds of fussing~
Recently, there is a group of people who, after enduring the torment of summer, have finally looked forward to the cool autumn. Unable to wait for Double 11, they open their various shopping carts every day, look again and again, choose again and again, and, in order to take revenge for the mental losses brought by summer, cannot control themselves and buy, buy, buy. They are such a lovely group of people - the Succulent Avengers!
After experiencing the intense heat, especially for friends in the free-shipping region, who would dare say there were no casualties among Crassulaceae succulents in summer?! Oh well, whether a succulent lives or dies is up to fate! After feeling heartache for a while, it passes. Autumn has come, and the old habit kicks in again~
Because too many passed away in summer, you have to tidy up the empty nests left behind by the departed succulents. The empty flower pots on the balcony look like a street stall, so wash them clean, pack them up, and box them.
But looking at the various pots in that cardboard box, the ones you once put thought into buying and painting, as if they had been cast into the cold palace, do they live up to the fondness you felt back then? What reason is there not to let them be put to full use? Just buy some more succulents!
The plants are gone, but the soil is still there, right? Are you willing to just throw it away like that? Think about it, it is all peat plus various granules. At least you spent money on it, and the courier worked hard to bring it from all over the country. The river sand was also washed back only after you dried it in the sun yourself, and the coal ball ash was begged from the breakfast shop owner at the community gate while risking your face. If you really do not use it, would that live up to the hardship you once went through?
To deal with the leftover soil, expose it to the hot sun for a few days, then mix in carbendazim and soil-insect granules, add diluted nitrogen fertilizer water, stir it into moist soil, and continue sunning it for two more sunny days. After that, it can be set aside for later use.
Pots and soil are all ready, so just buy some more succulents! The key point is that, looking around, the remaining succulents on the flower rack, after being tidied up, are uneven and still a patch of green. Then look at the beautiful succulents posted in Moments, on Tieba, and on various succulent apps, everywhere bewitching your eyes and tempting your heart, making you feel that even if you have to chop off your hands, you still have to buy some to replenish your stock.
So you forget that in summer, when putting away the succulents, you earnestly thought you would not buy more and would just keep the living ones alive! But the love of beauty and the intensity of desire are sometimes truly beyond your control. Fortunately, I still had some sense and starting from the end of August replenished some that I wanted. My rationality is still there, and my hands are still there. But it is not yet October, so how low my rationality will sink is hard to say. By then, whether the hands need to be chopped off is another matter!
Rational buying, buying, buying. Details to note when chopping off hands, for reference only:
1. Pests
The optimal temperature for pest (insect) activity is between 20-30 degrees, so the transition stage from autumn to winter is exactly when the insect armies are rampant. Because the climate is cool, there is no need to worry about smothering succulents, so it is recommended to buy succulents without soil (though considering their own weight and cost, ordinary merchants will not bring soil with them for you -,-). This is because succulents grown in greenhouses inevitably carry some small insects in the soil, and shipping them to you together is like placing a time bomb, is it not?
Then if bugs do appear, use Huahuashen (to be honest, this pesticide can kill most pests, and the key point is that it is also cheap and easy to use) to deal with them.
Someone will again say that I already killed the bugs, but they still keep popping out! Actually, the root cause is that your pest elimination was not thorough enough. The order of elimination to follow when dealing with bugs is: soil, roots, stems, leaves. Succulents handled in this way basically bid farewell to pest troubles.
2. Diseased succulents
We divide disease into two types: one is artificially caused disease (caused by innate medication and growth); the other is natural disease (caused by later care). The former means the plant's own "constitution" already has problems, while the latter is the cause of illness that we are more familiar with. I will not talk about the first type for now (note: not for now, haha!). As for the latter, just like with people, the root causes of illness are nothing more than three situations: fungal infection, bacterial infection, and viral infection. Succulents are the same.
In autumn, the diseases with the highest incidence are those caused by bacterial and viral infections (for fungal-caused black rot, you can temporarily breathe a sigh of relief), such as sooty mold, black spot, and powdery mildew. How do you deal with these difficult problems? The most widely used answer is carbendazim. Its principle is to create an environment in which various fungi, bacteria, and viruses find it hard to survive, causing them to lose activity, but it has no effect on fungi, bacteria, and viruses that have already invaded the plant body (suddenly thinking of injections and intravenous drips, which I have not tried, but it feels quite difficult). So when it is time to remove or cut off the diseased parts, do not be soft-hearted at all! One reminder: identifying the root cause and location of the disease is the key to curing it!
Note: in summer, because succulents are close to a dormant state, their physiological activity level decreases, and the corresponding disease symptoms also lessen. But once autumn arrives, the disease symptoms will revive along with the succulents' recovery. That is why repotting, trimming roots, and changing soil in early autumn is very important: it allows you to check for "hidden dangers" in places you cannot see. This is also one of the reasons why many succulents survive summer but fall in autumn!
3. Leggy growth
With the arrival of autumn, besides the drop in temperature, there is another factor we may overlook, namely that the duration and intensity of light also decrease accordingly, especially in regions and environments where the light conditions themselves are already poor.
At this time, leggy succulents are also easy to handle; it is nothing more than beheading. Compared with the harsh environment of summer, the risk of operating at this time is much lower, so succulent friends with experience can go ahead and do it boldly!
Note: insufficient light is only one of the reasons succulents become leggy. Others include too much nitrogen fertilizer, too much watering, and poor root respiration. But as long as the succulent itself shows nothing unusual in its growth condition, generally speaking, light is the highly likely suspect.
Give yourself the best reason to buy, buy, buy: because you like them! Even if they can only be beautiful in autumn, winter, and spring, that is still very good! Moreover, every bit of happiness and every bit of touching emotion succulents bring you is more real and precious only when personally experienced! Friendly reminder: please "show off your wealth" in a civilized way and "chop off your hands" rationally!
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