Hello, dedicated caretaker. We, the Echeveria, are resilient beings, but our plump leaves and elegant rosettes can sometimes signal distress. We cannot speak your language, so we communicate through our appearance. Please, learn to read our signs so we may thrive together.
This is our greatest fear. You mean well with your watering can, but our roots need to breathe! When we sit in constantly wet soil, our roots suffocate and begin to decay. The first sign we show is soft, mushy, and often translucent leaves, starting at the bottom of our rosette. They may turn yellow or brown and fall off at the slightest touch. If the stem turns black and soft, the rot has spread upwards. This is a cry for help—a plea for you to unpot us, remove all the soft, dark roots and leaves with a sterile tool, and let us dry out completely before replanting us in fresh, dry, gritty soil.
While we are drought-tolerant, we are not invincible. We store water in our leaves to survive dry periods. When our reserves run dangerously low, we must pull moisture from our own leaves to survive. This causes our normally plump leaves to become thin, wrinkled, and limp. They may curl inwards or feel soft and flexible instead of firm. This is not an immediate emergency like rot, but it is a clear request for a deep, thorough drink. Please water us until it runs from the drainage holes, and we will plump back up within a day or two.
We crave the sun. It gives us our strength and our beautiful, compact form. When we are kept in a place that is too dark, we become desperate. We will begin to stretch out, growing abnormally tall and leggy as we reach for any available light source. Our stem elongates, our leaves become spaced out, and our once-tight rosette becomes loose and open. We lose our vibrant stress colors and turn pale green. This stretching is permanent. You can give us more light to stop it from getting worse, and eventually behead us to start a new, compact rosette.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, especially if introduced too quickly. Our leaves can get sunburned. If we are moved from a shady spot directly into intense, direct sunlight without a gradual transition, the harsh rays will damage our leaf tissues. This appears as flat, brown, or white scorch marks on the upper surfaces of our leaves, typically on the side facing the sun. These scars are permanent but not fatal. Simply move us to a spot with bright but indirect light and acclimate us to more sun very slowly over several weeks.
We can play host to tiny invaders. Mealybugs appear as small, white, cotton-like masses in our leaf axils and on our stems, sucking our sap and weakening us. Aphids cluster on our new growth and flower stalks. They leave behind a sticky residue. If you see these signs, please isolate us from other plants. You can remove these pests by dabbing them with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol or by spraying us with a diluted neem oil solution. Your vigilance is our best defense.
