This is my Echeveria gibbiflora 'Louis XlV'. The first photo is from August 2024, which is the middle of Brazil's winter. Weather's dry and chilly, almost never below 0°C/32°F.
A week before spring started I used NPK 10 10 10 fertilizer on my plants, to give that extra push in growth for spring. Well, after three weeks of non stop heavy rain and a bit of heavy hand with the fertilizer, my plant went from the first photo to the second. The third and fourth photo shows the progression of the plant as the fertilizer got consumed along the next months and the plant got more compact. The last photo shows how the plant looks now, May 2025, halfway through our autumn.
Gibbiflora hybrids usually have hard leaves when they grow at a slower pace. Using the fertilizer made it go through a growth spurt, but the leaves became flacid and prone to sun burns and dehydration during the heat waves.
After that experience, I got much more careful with how I use fertilizer on my plants 🤣
by DatSnowFlake
2 Comments
Did you use a liquid or slow release fertilizer? I am using a slow release fertilizer and hope that this way the plants will grow evenly with their needed nutritions.
This has been my experience with fertilizing indoor plants. They even etiolated 🙁 Nowadays, I only use it when the plant is very clearly stunted.