I bought this string of pearls from Trader Joe’s 2 weeks ago, and I noticed that the soil had baby spiders and was growing moss. Not to mention some of the pearls were turning mushy under all the strings. I took out all that soil, sorted the good strings from bad, let them dry out for a day, then repotted it and replaced the soil with a succulent plant mix from this plant store, and sorted out all the bad mushy strings with all the healthy ones. I tried propagating the ones I had to cut, and the ones that had roots I buried their roots. I did this in multiple pots since I tried my best to lay them flat. I placed a little humidity dome on top that also had holes for aeration. It’s been 4 days and I noticed that so many pearls are now mushy and rotting even more. I don’t know what to do??? They didn’t even root, and I bottom watered the new soil just to get started. The picture looks all messed up because I was rummaging trying to pick out all the rotten pearls 🙁
by CabinetDry8486
2 Comments
In my experience, they don’t really like humidity. They’re native to South Africa, in more arid areas. The added moisture while they’re trying to heal will likely cause more moss or fungus issues. Everything else you did seems great, you’ll have some people telling you all store-bought succulent mix needs added aeration but I’ve had fine luck with my strings in succulent mix. I’d just take off the dome and let the soil completely dry out between waterings, but when you do water, make sure it’s dripping out the bottom.
The substrate is extremely rich. Unless you just watered before taking the pics, the soil looks wet as opposed to moist or damp. Does your pot have a drainage hole?
The dense organic soil holds onto moisture for too long and the few roots can’t soak up all the water in a pot full of moisture retaining soil, thus leading to root rot.
You need to pull out the healthy strings, cut off all dark and mushy roots. You can spray diluted hydrogen peroxide on the roots to kill the microbes that cause root rot. Then repot in new soil and don’t water right away – the roots are shocked and won’t take up water right after this repot. In about a week, check that the soil is completely dry AND the leaves are thirsty. Thirsty pearls become slightly deflated, shaped more like footballs or Hershey’s kisses and the thin vertical translucent band on each pearl will not be as prominent (“the windows are closed”).
When repotting the healthy strings, use a smaller pot and fresh substrate. You don’t want too much soil because it will take longer to dry out, causing further root damage. I use a very chunky, fast draining substrate of equal parts coir, perlite, and decomposed granite (chicken grit) for my succulents, including SOP.