The correct way to water succulents and trim their roots

  A few years ago I asked a veteran grower in the succulent community: how should succulents be fertilized? The veteran said he basically doesn't use fertilizer; succulents mostly come from arid regions where the soil is poor, and he had never heard of anyone fertilizing them. With annual root trimming, watering, and the little bit of fertilizer in the soil, that is enough for them to grow.

  If anyone else had told me this, I would basically have laughed it off, but looking at this grower's 10-plus years of experience and his collection of over a thousand pots, believe it or not, I believe it.

  In the past two years we have also tried trimming the roots of a very small number of succulents (the greenhouse doesn't have the manpower to trim every single one), and we did indeed find that these plants grow better.

  Of course, not trimming the roots doesn't necessarily mean the succulent will die; it just absorbs poorly, and only in extreme cases will death or damage occur. The more common situation is that when the root system is poor, no matter how you water it, the succulent just looks shriveled and half-dead.

  When should roots be trimmed? And how should it be done?

  Usually the best time to trim roots is right when the growing season begins, which is also why we are publishing this article today. Spring and autumn are the growing seasons after all~~~~

  Plant root systems are usually divided into taproot systems and fibrous root systems. A taproot system is like a radish's root, with one main root and fibrous roots growing around it; a fibrous root system, like that of the narcissus, has no thick main root at all, only fine fibrous roots. Among succulents, I have not yet seen any authoritative institution publish a classification into taproot and fibrous root systems, but from everyday observation I have found some similar ones; whether they can be placed into these categories we do not know, but in any case we understand what kind of roots need trimming. (An image from an encyclopedia is cited here)

  What usually needs trimming is the aged root system whose absorption is blocked. These roots all share one thing in common: there is no longer any fleshy tissue in the center of the root, it has either dried up or become severely woody.