Transcript:
hi guys! Welcome to my channel, lush gardener. I hope you guys are fine and are safe at home. So in my last video, guys, we spoke about stressing succulents with little bit about dormancy and non-dormancy and guy’s. Dorman period is equally important as the growing period. So today we’ll be talking about these things in detail now. The most important thing is to identify your succulent. If you’re not able to get the exact ID of the succulent no issue. But at least it’s important that you get to know what succulent variety it is, for example. Is it a serum, Graftovaria or echeveria? For instance, you have two succulents, Oreo. Both look very similar in terms of the leaf structure and the appearance, But one is a graptoveria and the other one is echeveria now. Why is it so important to know because one goes dormant in summer and the other one goes dormant in winter, meaning both have different care requirements in terms of watering in terms of adding nutrients to the soil. So guys, it’s always better that either. You keep the same variety. Together or at least majority of the varieties of the same succulent should be kept together. This will make things much easy for you, or if you have space, you can keep one succulent in an individual pot, like usually what you see people doing or you can club two or three varieties of the same variety of succulent together like over here you can see. I have clubbed two varieties together. Here you can see. There is sedum. Adolfi and Krasula campfire both are summer dormant succulents and growing together. So guys, this is how it currently looks you can see. There has been a good amount of growth on both the crassula as well as sedi’m. Also, if you notice the roots have started to latch onto the pot, which means it’s time to repot the succulent, however, guys as it is still in their dormancy period. I will be not repotting them right now. So guys, remember? Whenever your succulent is in the dormant period, do not repot it. You do not want to disturb the resting succulent. Wait until it’s growing period and then repot. You can also notice, guys. There has been not much growth right now because it’s in a dormant period, but there is not much color because the succulent was kept in shade and it was not receiving much light. Hence there is not much color So guys, the next most important thing is you need to have full control over your soil. If you have seen my DIY, succulent, potting mix video, I didn’t add any nutrients to the soil, and a lot of people have asked me Why so the reason is guys you need to have full control over the soil. You must be the one to decide when to add nutrients to the soil, and when not to, for example, let’s assume you prepared a soil mix containing these materials. Now I’m not saying you might have used all these materials. It’s just an example I’m referring to these things because I have seen people use these things in their succulent soil mix, for example, sand garden soil pearlite pumice cinder. These are things that are okay to be added to the succulent potting mix, but then things get little tricky and complicated when people use cocopeat compost. Vermicompost neem Kali cowdung. Now I won’t be talking in detail about this. I don’t want to confuse you guys. I will be making a separate video on how and when to add fertilizers or nutrients to the soil in this video, we will stick to only how to take care of succulents during dormancy. So why am I even talking about soil control? For example, guys, let’s assume you have purchased some succulents like sedum Crussula Achuvaria Seduvaria. Because these are very common succulents. Now that you have received the succulents as always, You’re gonna put them in the potting. Mix that you had prepared. Let’s say you got them at the end of october now. From November onwards, winter dormancy starts now, Echeveria will go dormant, meaning your soil mix is serving no purpose so because of excess nutrients in the soil, it might harm the succulent or it might harm the succulent roots. Now this was being said about winter dormant succulents, now imagine getting succulents in the month of April, or May, wherein all the dormant succulents will hit their dormancy. So basically, over here, you have lost control over the soil because the soil was already premixed with so much of nutrients that even when the succulent was dormant, it was still receiving the nutrients so over here. Succulents that are non-dormant will be benefiting from the soil and succulents that are dormant will not be benefiting from this soil. Now I don’t know to what extent excess nutrients in the soil can harm your succulents. Because when there is excess nutrients in the soil, it’s also called as nutrient pollution. Maybe it might harm the roots. There might be rapid growth of weeds. They might be molds or they might be fungi as well because there is a lot of nutrients in the soil, so that’s. Why, guys, when I made the DIY potting mix for my succulents? I did not add any organic matter to the soil. Now here you can see my soil. It’s loose, not compact. It’s slightly moist because it rained. You can see some perlite. Some small rocks. Basically, the soil is porous and well draining now. The next most important thing is how to identify dormant supplements now. This is where identifying your succulent plays a very important role. This is why you must know what variety of succulent You have that will help. Let’s assume that you have sedum adolfi, but you’re not sure about the entire name, but you are aware that it’s a serum variety, and you know that it is summer dormant now talking about physical appearance, the leaves will look different circles that once had open leaves like the picture on your right and on your left, you can see that the succulent is more compact and tight. The leaves are pressing inwards. You will also notice that they really have vibrant colors, succulents. That didn’t have freckles earlier. Will start showing up during the dormancy. What usually looked green is now completely the opposite in color. Also, another important thing is, you will see that the succulent is losing the growth, it is slowly getting into dormant. Hence there will be minimum or almost nil growth, so we have spoken about dormancy and non-dormancy. So what exactly is semi-dormancy? Let’s take Delhi as an example because Delhi has extremely high temperatures during summer. Now I’m taking Echivaria as an example because it’s a very common succulent. Ideally, February is the dormancy period that ends foreign, but we all know that it’s already so hot in February, but generally speaking so the echeveria, which was dormant all this while now it’s time for it to come out of its dormancy and start growing now in other cities, it will start to grow, but because Delhi has so much of heat and the temperature is so extreme, the succulent cannot bear the heat and it will again get into dormancy, but this dormancy is semi dormancy. So now you know why guys succulents don’t do quite well in Delhi. What was supposed to be? Their growing season is now their semi-dormancy season. So you know that there is very, very little time for them to grow now because of this semi-dominancy it does not mean that the succulent will not grow. The succulent will grow, but at a very, very slow pace so guys as mentioned in my last video, I said in the succulent world there are only two seasons one is summer and one is winter. Based on this is how they tend to go dormant and non-dormant. Now, what about monsoon season because we receive a fair amount of rain, which can last for a couple of months, so this is where experts say that succulents are opportunistic growers when they find the conditions are suitable, they will grow if they find the conditions are not idle, they will not grow so ideally. My city receives a good amount of rain and it’s pretty cool, but still, I have noticed my echeveria tends to thrive, which means that it tends to like those conditions so here. I have my echeveria imbricata. You can see this is during the summer season, It’s supposed to be the growing season, but unfortunately, because it was exposed to too much of sun, the succulent leaves started to get burnt and you can also see how deformed the leaves are. What was supposed to be the growing season? Unfortunately, it was not growing quite well because it was exposed to too much of sun due to which most of the leaves started to get burnt and deformed and now during the monsoon season. Guys, you can see how beautiful the succulent looks. I happen to remove all those deformed leaves, and now you can see the new leaves look much healthy and much, fuller, so basically what the experts said about opportunistic growers is very, very accurate because this is what I noticed that they found the monsoon season as an ideal condition to grow and hence it is growing so well, even though the monsoon season is quite cool in my city, I was expecting it to go semi-dormant, but it found this conditions to be suitable and rather than growing. During the summer season, it started growing much healthy during the monsoon season. So when I realized that the strong sun was harming the succulent, it was damaging the leaves, I went ahead and used a green net. Now, by using the green net, it’s protected the succulent from the strong sun does making the idle condition a complete and suitable condition for the succulent to grow. And you can see the proof, so you might have often heard people saying, ignore your succulents, and they will do quite well. Now, guys, that literally does not mean that you ignore your succulents completely. They basically mean that succulents need less care and maintenance, which means they don’t need much nutrients in the soil and they don’t need regular watering. But guys, that does not mean that you completely ignore your sublimes because succulents will give you plenty of signs about their well-beings. For example, my achu area was getting burnt in the sun and just by using a green net. You can see how much of difference it has done to the succulent, and you can see how well it has been growing since so. I hope that this video was helpful to you if it was please consider subscribing to my channel until then. Take care. Stay safe bye.