WHY DID YOU BUY IT? It looked like something tough (succulents do), and yes: if treated as such, they are.
But that’s where it gets tricky since then you go on watering all those things sitting on your shelf together, no matter what species they are, thinking they’ll all be happy with the same routine…wrong! It is a little mistake, but it is worse then not watering at all because it kills plant.
Summer Growers and Winter Growers
Growers often wrongly believe that plants starts growing again when it gets warm, but while this is true for some, it is bad news for others. Splitting up the collection visually into summer growers and winter growers helps; they’re on opposite internal clocks.
About seven out of 10 popular houseplants are what I call summer growers; they follow the sun. They’re active in the spring, putting on new leaves (even in the heat of summer), then slow down again as daylight shortens. Jade plants and echeverias falls into this category. Water them when they get dry and when it starts to warm up outside, and fertilize lightly as they grow.
Many lithops and other succulents with a Mediterranean schedule is winter growers. They want cool, but not hot and humid, weather. This tendency are easily misunderstood. Don’t think of starving your winter growers in winter, or giving them extra water if it’s been raining, for example.
Consider your shelf like a tenanted building where the tenants have opposite sleep schedules. You don’t want to douse everyone when they’re asleep! That’s what the chart means; in high summer, the summer guys run at full speed, ninety-five percent, and the winter ones at just fifteen percent. That’s why the winter things just sit there and save up their energy.
When you water them in summer, you’re putting water into a system that no longer want it. There’s nowhere for the roots to take it up. It will rot fast. It is not that anything dislikes being dry; it is about timing.
Don’t overlook transition times, both the busy times and those between them. What happens when plants turns off their engines doesn’t happen overnight. There is a slow-down period where things overlap. Prepare for this by gradually decreasing water and letting the pot fully dry between drinks. An aloe might want a thorough soaking first, then nothing till spring; a lithops will want to be stone-cold dry as it sheds its skin.
Follow the plant, not the calendar. Usualy the sign of thirsty plants is softening, wrinkling of the foliage, but that can also signal cold stress in winter if the plant hails from a summery climate. It’s always about context. Tagging your containers will save you guessing later.
When you buy the thing, jot down if it’s a summer or winter pot, for instance. Doesn’t seem like much, but what happens when you have a mixed tray of sedum and succulents like haworthias and aloes? Who gets wet and who goes dry and rests in the cool? Writing the word “winter” or “summer” on a tag will remind you.
The more you can group things by their type of season, the easier they are to grow. Put all those summer guys where they get bright light and some warmth; stash the winter ones in shadier, cooler spots as the heat rises. Physical separation also helps with resisting the urge to overwater the dormant ones.
In early fall, it’s the opposite. Winter growers starts growing again as nights cool. You begin to feed them (water lightly) to store up reserves for the next several months. At this point you stop watering summer growers, as the air starts getting crisp, and get them ready for their rest period.
And on it goes every year, not according to the fixed calendar month but according to daylight and temperature. This makes a crazy mix of plants make sense.
Allowing yourself to go along with their natural inclinations, instead of fighting against them, is what they need (and once you understand the rhythm), it’s no big deal. You should of watched more carefuly.