I have it planted in a very loose, well draining mix. I don't water it except when it starts vining, which it has each year I've had it. It is vining out of season this year (usually I don't see green until winter) so it got its first watering today.
I think it's happy? It has grown each year, originally it was very thin. But I feel like it hasn't put any roots out and that's concerning. I used to bottom water exclusively, but got away from that last year.
by 8636396
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These are weird. I only have one so I can’t speak too much on how to treat it. I am AMAZED at what mine survived though. I bought it in the middle of moving my entire collection from one house to another, and my entire collection sat outside on a thankfully covered porch through a particularly brutal winter that saw temps around 20°f a few times. I bought it in maybe September, watered it a few times before the cold came, and then proceeded to forget about it for… Maybe five months? Bone dry, sub freezing temps. I thought it was for sure a goner.
Anyway, I finally finished my greenhouse and planted the little guy (maybe in May of the following year), who was surprisingly still alive, in my planter bed where it gets absolutely drenched multiple times a week in the warm months. It’s in a soil mix that I crafted specifically for succulents, so the drainage is quite exquisite if I do say so myself. That being said, it gets pretty wet in winter since I can’t just stop watering, and this most recent winter I didn’t take very good care of the planter bed and some vines were really ridiculously overgrown and smothering the half of the bed where the Matalea was. I did not think it was going to survive the past winter, but to my surprise it just recently started putting out a new vine. I lost a few things to neglect and overgrowth in the bed this past winter, small minor experimental things but losses nonetheless which are quite a rarity in general in my greenhouse, so this little weirdo pulling through really surprised me. I have mine planted quite deeply as well, the papery “bark” is very much under the soil line which I was surprised to find out this last week when I checked on it after spotting the new vine. It definitely hasn’t grown anywhere near as much as some other vining caudex plants I have in the exact same location receiving the same treatment, so it’s definitely a weirdo, but holy crap has it survived. I respect the thing.
My import has been struggling for months too🙈