Baby Jade Super Slow Leaf Propagation

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but this 'Baby Jade' [Crassula argentea] is propagating SUPER SLOW from a leaf I wiggled away back in February. For real!



Here are some progress photos, you'll have to look closely because there is very little changing!

Day 10

Day 24

Day 50

Echeveria pulidonis Propagation Week 8

Echeveria pulidonis after 8 weeks, and 'Baby Jade' [Crassula argentea] after 24 days

This is my photo update for Echeveria pulidonis propagation. Tomorrow it will be 8 weeks since I carefully plucked leaves off this succulent and placed them on top of the soil. To simplify, here are photos from the 8 week progress so far, but I also have blog posts at Week 3, Week 4, and Week 6 if you want to get more in-depth.



When I re-potted the babies last week, I noticed they had single longer white roots below the soil. I didn't want to up-root them just for a photo - so perhaps more is going on underground. On top, the 'leaves' are getting fuller and larger ever so slowly. They are taking a loooong time!

Flashback: Week 0

Flashback: Week 3

Flashback: Week 4

Flashback: Week 6

Echeveria pulidonis after 8 weeks!

Baby Jade [Crassula argentea] after 24 days

Baby Succulents with iPhone Macro Lens

Check out these macro photos of my baby succulents. I got up close and personal for super detailed shots using just my iPhone 6 and these inexpensive clip on lenses. The kit comes with a macro lens and two fish eye lenses. They're surprisingly good quality considering how cheap they are!



My Aeonium haworthii Echeveria pulidonis after 6 weeks are still very tiny, but with many more leaves and roots than before. Flashback to Week 3 and Week 4.They're growing quite slow, but filling in a little more and more each day. Most of the roots are pointing toward the soil and might be growing more underneath.

A tiny Aeonium haworthii Echeveria pulidonis - 6 weeks old

This Aeonium haworthii Echeveria pulidonis baby already has pink tips on the leaves just like the parent plant

A detail I didn't notice before, the tiny red tip to the emerging root on this Crassula argentea

Crassula argentea 10 Day Propagation Progress

I got this 'Baby Jade' [Crassula argentea] back in January, but it wasn't until 10 days ago that I decided to try making Jade babies through leaf propagation. I pulled off a couple tiny leaves that wouldn't be missed.

Jade succulent plant [Crassula argentea] leaf babies after zero days, February 5, 2015

10 days later, one of my Jade leaves is sprouting a little white root

I have high hopes for the larger Jade leaf that I plucked off, because I used a very careful wiggle method - rocking it back and forth slowly - to make sure I got the entire base of the leaf. Some websites even suggest cutting with a knife a tiny portion of the stem in addition to the leaf to make sure you get the entire regenerative tissue at the base of the leaf.

The parent plant is doing fine as well, I didn't re-pot it yet but I did hide the brown plastic pot it came in inside a coffee mug I don't use anymore. Of course I'd like to have a nice set of matching white ceramic succulent pots on my windowsill, but for now it's coffee mugs and ramekins.

Identifying my Succulents with Google Images

I'm pretty handy with Google, but it still takes me a looooong time to search around until I've found pictures of plants that match the plants I'm trying to identify. For example, without too much prior knowledge of conifer varieties, I was able to more or less pin down the different types of trees I saw around my hotel.



Granted, I'm a bit anal when it comes to getting it right. I don't want to perpetuate mis-identifications, and I want to be as precise as possible. Sometimes, when I get plants that are labeled "various succulents" this is harder to do because it's up to me to search out the true identity.

So here is the challenge, this pot of 4 different types of succulent plants. Let's begin!

Four 'various succulent' plants sold in a pot with no plant tags

I found a great gallery of succulent plants to browse through, looking for general characteristics such as the leaf shape. This actually helped a lot, and I was able to narrow down two of the plants: A and D with just this gallery.

A - looks most similar to Aeonium, but I wasn't sure what kind. The leaves are rather long and slim compared to others that are very fat and juicy. My best guess at this point is some variety of Aeonium haworthii. Update: After I found a labeled individual plant that looks exactly like mine at Lowe's, I discovered it was actually Echeveria pulidonis.

D - was a little more straight forward, the succulent plant gallery had one that looked pretty dead on - it's Haworthia limifolia. When I found it on Dave's Garden called "fairy washboard" I knew this was it from the description and the other photos. It's hard green ridges would make a perfect washboard for a fairy!

C - was easier because I sort of cheated - I saw a similar plant at Lowe's that was obviously the same species but a pink variety. I took a photo of the plant tag to remind myself what it was later, and when I looked it up online I knew it was some variety of Cryptanthus bivittatus.

B - took the longest to identify because it could be one of about 3 different things. It didn't look like any of the plants in the succulent gallery. I was just Googling around for common succulent houseplants and saw one that looked similar but it had red tips and mine clearly does not. It's some kind of Paddle Plant, and goes by many other names. Finally when I read an article that distinguished between the ones with red tips and the one that has "chalky green leaves" I was convinced that this was the one: Kalanchoe thyrsiflora.

I wish all plants came with tags like my Baby Jade [Crassula argentea]

But wait! What's this? There's a tiny green sprout coming up in the very center of my succulent patch! What could it be? A mystery succulent baby!

But wait, what's this in the soil?

Mystery baby succulent coming up in the middle

My guess is that this will turn out to be a Haworthia limifolia 'fairy washboard' growing off of the roots of the other plant. The Haworthia limifolia has the largest root system of any of these succulents, which I discovered when I re-potted them. That is my best guess but time will surely tell!