How to Water Succulents | Succulent Care Tips & Tricks

one of the questions i constantly get is how to water succulents so we're going to cover that in this video [Music] for those of you familiar with this channel you'll know that i love succulents they're some of my favorite plants to grow and to propagate and sometimes they're called easy care plants but i think that is a bit of a misnomer because there is a little bit of an art to growing succulents when they are happy they can be some of those satisfying plants with the range of color and texture that they can give you but they can be a little bit fussy and different succulents have different needs and while succulents are considered drought-tolerant plants it can be hard to know exactly when to water them and how much to water them because the danger of course is if you over water them they are susceptible to rot generally when you are caring for succulents you're going to want to keep the soil dry they like it dry their leaves are full of moisture that's what makes them drought tolerant and they can handle long bouts of dryness for me i always think of a plant how does that plant behave in nature when there's no human intervention so succulents are used to living in dry arid desert-like conditions so they have these built-in moisture keepers in their leaves and in their stems however low water doesn't mean no water so while these plants are designed to tolerate very low water or seasons of drought when you do water them you want to give them a very good soak so the first thing you're going to do is check your soil the soil should be fully fully dry before you even consider watering your succulents sometimes it's hard to check if the soil is completely dry i usually like to stick my finger in some people use a moisture meter i don't find them super reliable if there is any moisture leave it they don't need to be watered the second step is not only uh check the soil but also check the plant is the plant showing signs of thirst you'll start to be able to notice the difference so these plants are nice and thick there's no wrinkling they're not looking thirsty here's this is a little crassula jade plant there's a little bit of wrinkling on this leaf but i just recently watered this plant but compare that to say this one where there's a lot more wrinkling here's another type of crassula this wrinkling is the water being used from the plant to sustain it so it's starting to drain its water reserves to stay alive here's another good example of this very little dry pot see those leaves they're almost ready to fall off they are so dry so this plant needs a really good soak they also tend to lose their color when they're thirsty so this is a aeonium kiwi it's looking a little bit dull um the leaves are getting very dry falling off like that so this is what it would look like if it was full of water see the difference in the color it's lost the brightness it's looking a little bit dull so if i give this one a very good soaking it should return to this here's another arrangement that has been ignored for a while you'll see it's losing lots of leaves so as you can see how wrinkled those bottom leaves look the top isn't too bad it's just doing a good job of going into survival mode and saving that water this is the same plant i gave this this one was looking the same i gave it a really good soak so here's the difference in the leaves full of water nice and shriveled up so that's the difference there so let's water some of these shall we so i'm here picking out the ones that are looking particularly thirsty and they haven't been watered in a while i can see they're very dry the leaves are a little bit shriveled and i'm gonna put them in this drip tray and hopefully they should all fit there we go and i'm gonna give i'm gonna use an actual uh watering can to make sure i'm really getting in there i'm gonna fill that all the way up fill that all the way up this one has some like decorative moss on top but i'm making sure that's nice and filled up same for this i could also probably wouldn't hurt to clean up some of those dried up dead leaves out of there and really this one probably could do with a trim and a repot but for now i'm gonna leave it i think it'll start to come back to life and you'll notice it kind of bubbling away it's soaking through since these all have drainage the water is going through and then i'm going to give it more water i really want to soak these [Music] okay and i'm going to leave them now to let all of that moisture soak in and let those plants come back to life over watering is just as bad for your succulents as is underwatering and the reason for this is that they have very sensitive very small roots that can be susceptible to rot and if they do get rot in their roots or their stems they will just sort of start to disintegrate the leaves will fall off they'll get squishy and it's not a good way for them to go the container that you keep your succulents in is also really important it is very important to have drainage holes for your succulents i also like terra cotta pots because they are permeable they wick the water away so it means after these have had a nice good soak they are not sitting in soggy wet soil the roots are getting lots of air and that's really important for them to prevent rot so while it's important to talk about the amount of water and how to water and the type of pot that your succulent is in um if it's in any pot at all it's also really important to talk about the soil that your succulent is in because that is part of the watering process one way to prevent rot is to use a soil that is specially formulated for cactus or succulents as you see here cactus are kind of technically a form of succulent so when you take a look at the soil you'll see it's very loose it's very gritty this one in particular has a lot of sand added i believe there's perlite and lava rock not as much organic material as say like an indoor tropical potting mix soil that succulents definitely do not like is clay this is my garden we have a lot of clay soil so if i'm going to be planting my succulents into the soil i make sure and supplement this clay with the cactus mix for example this whole area this is outdoors you can kind of see there is some clay back behind but i mostly added all cactus mix here before putting these succulents in and the reason that's important is that this soil it kind of lets the moisture pass through it it'll stay a little bit moist but it won't lock in or hold the moisture clay soil stays soggy stays wet it gets very hard and that is like a death knell for succulent type plants they want the water to pass through i also want to mention my what i call my dry propagation tray this is where i if i find a succulent leaf that i want to propagate i throw it into this tray until i either find space for it or until it starts to grow there you go a little uh baby succulent i'm often asked do i water this do i mist it no i absolutely do not this stays completely dry this does not get watered at all i um just keep things in here they will start to grow aerial roots because they are looking for moisture and it will encourage them to start growing little pups i do not add any moisture to this as i do find it encourages pests it looks like i've got a little bit of a pest issue that i need to address anyway but when you add any sort of moisture in this situation it's more likely that things will rot or it'll attract things like mealybugs once those little leaf propagations have been planted and have grown roots that's when i water them and this i will either water or i might mist it just because they're sort of delicately in there but i don't generally mist plants so i might mist them just to prevent them like from coming up out of the soil but once they get a little bit bigger say to the size of this you'll see these are well rooted in here these i don't miss these i use a normal shower hose head my final note is about succulent dormancy some succulents such as these aeoniums for example they go dormant here in the summertime in california you'll notice they'll drop a lot of their lower leaves they'll start to curl up and retain their moisture it's a protective measure for surviving drought it doesn't mean your succulent is dying or dead it just means it's going through seasons it's a little bit like a deciduous tree losing its leaves i've got a good example of this here in my front yard it is july right now these aeoniums are on a drip irrigation they are protected from a lot of the direct sunlight we've got some bird of paradise trees here so they're a little bit out of the direct sunlight wow these aeoniums they are also on a little bit of irrigation but they get a lot more direct sunlight you'll notice they have dropped a lot of leaves they're kind of shriveled up a little bit so these plants are basically doing whatever they can to just survive the hot july summer if your succulent has gone dormant this is not something to worry about you don't want to over water it as it is still susceptible to rot just monitor the soil when the soil is fully dry give it a water then and just be patient it's just going through seasons and it will come back it is also worth looking up your specific succulent as say aeoniums go dormant in the summertime but there are other succulents that go dormant in the winter again it's just different seasons for different plants hopefully this has been helpful for your succulent care if you have any questions please be sure and put them in the comments i'm happy to help out where i can and don't forget to follow me on my other social media channels i'm on tick tock and instagram and don't forget to subscribe [Music] you

Channel: Free Plants Forever

Views: 256,103

Keywords: plant tips and tricks, plant hacks, tiktok plant hacks, leaf propagation, succulent propagation, houseplant propagation, how to water succulents, succulent watering, drought watering, watering during drought, succulent watering tips, how to not kill succulents, succulent care, cactus watering, succulent watering guide, succulent plants watering guide, over watering succulent plants, succulent plants watering, plant watering guide, succulent tips and tricks

Id: 1pK12wuBJDM

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 02 2022