Deadheading: SUCCESS!

Original Blog Entry on Deadheading

It took about three weeks, but the deadheading experiment was beyond successful, and let me share how:

The smaller of the two butterfly kalanchoes.

Toes!

First, the two "heads" of the pink butterfly kalanchoe I had decapitated grew nice roots and I successfully put them in the garden. Both plants are now independent and will continue to grow on their own. This was exciting enough, and you can see how well they're doing by the number of pink plantlets they've grown!

Now for the really exciting part... the "leftovers" proved regenerative as well! Every single piece of plant was growing something new!

The larger of the "head" plants.

The two bits of stem that still had "leaves" are growing tiny Audrey II's! Okay, here's what we're really seeing. Kalanchoes always grow with opposite-pair leaves. The "mouth" shape is the first two leaves of A NEW PLANT. Yup, at each of those spots a brand-new pink butterfly kalanchoe grows!

"I'm a MEAN GREEN MOTHER FROM OUTER SPACE!"

All of the new growth on the plant starts out pink!

Growers of a particular and very picky plant would probably refer to these future plants as "clones." When you reproduce a succulent with cuttings, you are creating "clones" of the original plant. Yeah, term doesn't sound as cool now, does it? Think of all the cloning you've probably done!

I'm not sure how the sticks will turn out, even the ones with roots still intact. I popped 'em all in the ground which I saturated with water. I use the shady area at the rear of my succulent patch as a sort of nursery/grow spot for delicate plants I want to put in full sun.

All plant pieces were planted, some just shoved, in the always-shady area, where they will grow, and my pink butterfly kalanchoes will takeover the garden!

You can see that the stem itself is near-death and dried out.

Pink plantlets!

The closest photo I could get with the iPhone. Those pink zits are tiny, wee baby plants.

Mother of Thousands: The Saga Continues

There was one patch of soil on my property that hadn't been cultivated. This was a strange rectangular piece at the top of the driveway. It often strikes me that my property has way too much space for plants and not enough space for the actual house itself. I also had the job of potting the mother of thousands tubiflora plant I had been given and ignorantly put into the actual ground.

I put about twelve plants in a smaller pot inside my house, these are the rest of the offspring.

The first job was to plant the remaining mother of thousands baby plants into a pot that coordinated a little more with the house. I stuffed all of the plants into a large blue pot, and I'm already thinking I should have just dragged the huge, white pot they were in out to the front and kept them there. This pot won't be large enough for very long. The bright-green plants will turn the same beige and pink shade as the other plant.

The tubiflora version has already grown much larger than I anticipated and will need a larger pot.

Second, I uprooted the tubiflora and planted it in another dark blue pot I had. This plant has already grown enough so that I can easily see I'm going to have to put it in a much larger pot. Sigh. Oh well, at least I've moved it from the direct soil.

Now at the top of the drive I have two baby agave marginitas and two pots of slightly-different mother of thousands plants. The passion-flower that covers the wall, as you can see, is actually a very small part of the entire plot, and I have one more area to put an agave or another similarly large succulent. Since I have extra ground cover from the planters in back, I'm going to cover the soil with with it. Since I also have extra lining from putting rocks down, I think I'll prep for weeds by laying that down first.

Deadheading: It's Not As Bad As It Sounds

There comes a time in most succulent's lives where you're going to have to cut off their heads. Don't worry, it sounds a lot worse than it really is.

Grew under some portulaca, was reaching for the sun.

Most succulent plants look best without long stems. However, most succulents will grow extremely long stems the longer they are alive, which can look awkward. There are also conditions a plant may grow in which cause it to stretch when it should be dish-shaped, and dead-heading is great for these plants, too.

I used a dead stem to prop up the plant heads so they'll grow straight.

Today, I finally cut off the heads of my pink butterfly kalanchoes. This plant, which originally was one, is now three (I gave one to my mother), and the two remaining had stems nearly two feet long. The stems reached horizontally along the ground so the plants could get into the bright sunshine. Not very attractive, so, I cut them off.

The bottom of the stem is close to, but not touching the soil.

You want to use a very sharp knife, preferably as clean as possible. Once you've beheaded your plant, place it in a pot hovering JUST ABOVE some moist soil. This encourages the plant to grow roots to reach that soil. With this plant, the long "leaves" provide a prop to keep the stem from touching.

It usually takes a few weeks for the plant to grow new roots. Yes, you can just cut some heads off and stick them in the ground, but they won't necessarily root that way, and they may rot. For plants you really love, take it slow.

There's a tiny pink plantlet to the right of the pot!

The "leftovers" aren't necessarily useless, either. The rooted stem, once the head of the plant is removed, might begin growing small plantlets where leaves formerly grew, or even at the top where the "head" was removed. Since I had to cut the stem into more than one piece (it was THAT LONG), I threw them all in a pot together with the rooted bits to give them a chance to make some babies.


I don't know how this will turn out, but I'm hoping that at least the "heads" of the plants will root successfully, as they are some of my favorite. The little pink plantlets are just gorgeous, and unlike other mother-of-thousands plants, cannot grow into plants themselves.

The two rooted stems and the other cut pieces.

The Results!

Mother-of-Thousands Part II, the Mistake.

Whoops. It had no plantlets when it was given to me. It seemed so harmless, but it would appear that my kalanchoe tubiflora is just as feculent as it's more common, mother-of-thousands cousin. Hopefully this version, called a chandelier plant, will have less plantlets simply because they grow on the tips of the "leaves" instead of along the sides of the entire.

I didn't even bother looking it up before planting it among the other succulents in the large front garden. It seems a shame to move it, and now I'm committed to having one of these propagating things in the ground. Maybe it'll be okay. Perhaps it's better to have to deal with offshoots than regular grassy weeds.

There are still alternatives if you want a mother-of-thousands but don't want to deal with plantlets growing around it. The pink butterfly kalanchoe produces beautiful pink plantlets that aren't actually plantlets. They don't grow on their own, and the plant itself can only be reproduced through cuttings. It's one of my favorites, and if you can find it, I highly recommend adding it to your succulent garden for its pop of pink color. After searching for one for a few years I was pleasantly surprised to find them in stock at my local Home Depot a couple of seasons ago, so it IS possible to get hold of.