There is no problem if some plants rot. Well, there are obvious losses and we can be upset about that but at the same time, that is the opportunity to get more cuttings and more pots.
I arrived home yesterday evening from a journey and at first sight, all the plants were fine. The community pot was already so nice and full of plants and I anyway planned to take out some of them, those that would grow too big. I also knew it would be tricky not to damage any plants while taking them out so I was postponing this reorganization of the plants in pots for a while. It seems that the time has come to do the repotting, as I saw the following...
I saw the sticky white cotton-like thing in some plants, which is a clear sign that mealybugs came to a longer visit. They were on the little pots and in the community pot too.
The best and only way of getting rid of mealybugs is to touch them with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol. This is everything you need to fight them.
I also started to take out some plants from the soil. As I was not here my friend was in charge to water the plants. They got a bit too much water, so apart from these white sticky cotton spots...
...we had also the combination of rotten parts of the plants and mealybugs.
One by one, all the plants got checked and taken out. The number of rotten leaves and roots was surprising...
All these plants had rotten leaves!
This was a disaster. All rotten roots
The top of the plants seemed ok but apparently, they had no roots anymore
I took out every single plant from the community pot, cut off the rotten parts, put aside the healthy cuttings (some had roots and some not) and planted everything again, in different pots. These were fine, saved from the rotten parts and ready to get a new home.
They jumped into the soil. Let's hope that all of them will get roots and survive the surgery.
I also had two other pots with Echeveria that needed some care. I cut off the good stems, some with a root and others without it and all went to the pot where just some hours ago we had all those different plants from the first photo.
The result?
From three pots of plants, we get nine.
I am not sure about all those Echeveria cuttings I put in the two bigger pots. Time will say if they want to survive or not.
