hey all! i’ve had this string of pearls a few months now and keep it on the windowsill of my wide south facing window. i kept it in the nursery pot for a while (pics 3 and 4) but moved it to the terracotta. since repotting, it’s been growing new pearls like crazy! in the past few days, several pearls have gotten a little sunken shape going on (flatter towards the string if that makes sense?). is this shape change due to not enough water? too much water??
i’ve tried squishing pearls to see how thirsty they are and they always kinda feel the same to me. i last watered two-ish weeks ago and i usually top water. the roots are still pretty shallow in the pot, should i switch to bottom watering? thank you!!
by overkillsgal
5 Comments
In my experience those are dry ones. Give it a nice thorough bottom-watering and they should perk back into little ball form. Let it dry out between watering but you still want to water a string of pearls more often than other succulents to make them happy.
Thanks for asking this. Am doing the same in the same pot (gotta love Walmart) and had similar questions.
I would take it out of the plastic inner lining. What’s the bark like stuff? If it holds too much water, it might not be suitable for your strings. Maybe the best thing to do will be take out the whole thing and place it in a different pot. Fill that nice terracotta pot with well draining potting mix (shouldn’t contain bark or anything that holds a lot of water). Prop some strings off the original plant into this potting mix. That way you can safely grow a new plant and you’re not shocking this plant too much as well, just in case.
They’re not really on soil there, just dry bark. I’d not have used bark but SOP seems fairly hardy as long as the medium dries out. As it gets bigger it will need more water, it will also need more water when it’s hot outside.
Top watering is fine, and may be essential given your choice of potting medium
I [am a barbarian and so] place “heavy” pumice rocks on top of my strings to get them in contact with the soil and encourage rooting. Or small river rocks, whatever works.
If your medium is gritty enough, you won’t rot them by doing this, although they may feel a bit depressed. 😉