Cryptanthus bivittatus Turning Red

I re-potted my Cryptanthus bivittatus into a ramekin on the windowsill in fresh brand new succulent mix potting soil and covered the top with quartz chips. Shortly thereafter, I noticed the Cryptanthus bivittatus turning pinkish. Now I've seen pink varieties in the store, so I thought - maybe it's supposed to be pink and it's happy to have new soil?



As they weeks go by, the Cryptanthus bivittatus is turning redder and redder. It's a dark maroon red now, and my denial is fading. I'm pretty sure I over-watered the little sucker. The quartz chips not only make it harder to see when the soil is dry, but it holds the moisture in longer as well. I think I flooded it out, and it's basically sitting there half dead and bright red. I'll let it go a bit longer, because actually it's quite striking, but I'm not very optimistic.

Cryptanthus bivittatus - Thursday, March 19, 2015

The 'before' photo - February 22, 2015

Windowsill Succulents Changing Colors

I noticed my windowsill succulents changing color - and in these bleak snowy times I have the luxury of over-analyzing the smallest change in my house plants. So let's take a closer look at these color changes and try to figure out what's going on.



First up, my Echeveria pulidonis (a popular blog post topic these days) is not only getting bigger, but the parent leaf is starting to turn yellow. Presumably, the nutrients in this mommy leaf are about used up, and the new baby succulent has developed underground roots of its own. It really seems to be speeding up in growth these past couple weeks. My only question is why the other leaves aren't turning yellow yet since they were all plucked around the same time.

The mommy leaf is yellowing and shrinking, and the growth of the baby succulent has sped up

Echeveria pulidonis parent leaf turning yellow

Next, check out what is happening to my Cryptanthus bivittatus on the windowsill. The leaves are turning pink in some spots. While I have seen varieties of Cryptanthus bivittatus that are pink intentionally, I think this might be attributed to over-watering and possibly triggered by the fact that more direct sunlight is coming in. If you look closely, the only spots that are pink are the ones that are getting direct sun - so maybe that's the answer. I'm going to hold off watering for a week and see if there's a change.

Check out the before and after, notice the pink on the leaves. But also, see below, the pink seems to be in the exact spots that get direct sunbeams in the morning.

Cryptanthus bivittatus turning pink in the sun, possibly aggravated by overwatering

Re-potting With Proper Soil, I Hope

This post is going to be one that is more of a personal plant journal for future me, and presumably less useful for a worldwide web audience. But we'll see, sometimes I find it useful to dig through others' garden journals for bits of information on what does (and doesn't) work.



So it turns out the potting soil Chris brought me, left over from a school project, was about 2 years old. That might explain the fungus that started growing on the surface, and why the soil barely absorbs any water - it's very hydrophobic, when I water my succulents the water beads on the surface. So these probably aren't hallmarks of great soil!

I consolidated some of my windowsill plants with fewer succulent ramekins, a larger pot for my Jade [Crassula argentea], and much larger pot for my bamboo [Fargesia rufa 'Green Panda'] - which hopefully grows quickly so I can transplant it outside this Spring.

I went to the store and got some actual succulent soil, and some fresh potting soil. I picked up a larger black plastic pot for my bamboo to give its roots room to grow before the Spring. I could have bought another for my Jade, but I found a glass jar we used to keep a candle in.

I took the quartz chips from the bonsai tray and repurposed them as a top dressing for my succulents. I used river rocks we had from a candle tray to fill in the drip tray, and also in the bottom of the Jade plant's new glass jar.

Bamboo re-potted with layer of quartz chips on bottom, 1 inch of succulent mix, and the rest regular potting soil. The original root ball is in peat moss. Hopefully this mix works out!

Cryptanthus bivittatus in succulent potting soil with quartz chips on top

Baby Kalanchoe thyrsiflora growing on a plucked naked stem, also in succulent mix topped with quartz chips

I put some quartz chips in the bottom of the bamboo pot, and filled the bottom 1 inch or so with succulent mix. I read that bamboo loves loamy organic soil, so I put normal rich potting soil in the top part, but I figured the slightly sandy ratio of the succulent mix toward the bottom might help with drainage - but I kinda just pulled that idea out of my rear end. The soil that came with the bamboo certainly is loamy, and looks like it has a lot of peat moss... hopefully the fresh regular mix is fine for now.

Golden Gate Ficus [Ficus microcarpa]. River rocks from an old candle display now in the bonsai tray, and a thin layer of succulent mix over the top of the bonsai soil. Hopefully this wasn't a major mistake! It looks a lot more attractive because before the perlite exposed on top of the bonsai soil looked like a tray of gravel.

So keeping in mind that the succulent soil is 'fast draining' I put a very thin layer of it just over the top of the bonsai soil because it cleans up the look a great deal. The bonsai pot had an entire layer of perlite on top that looked like gravel. It looked like they had been watering it and maybe all the top soil washed away over time. I'll keep an eye on it and hopefully succulent soil won't hold too much water to make it rot - these things are supposed to love damp soil after all. Instructions say to soak it every third day or so.

I also gave my succulent propagation babies some proper succulent soil and consolidated them into one ramekin. When I uprooted one of them, I noticed that in addition to little pink roots it had a fairly long white root growing down into the soil as well. I don't know how that compares with where they should be after 7 weeks, but hey!

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!