New succulent containers are absolutely beautiful! Have you ever been lucky enough to have one of these and keep it around for several years? After a year or two you may find that it is time to refresh your succulent containers with a few simple steps. During a trip home to Iowa to see my family I decided to take on my Dad’s overgrown succulents for a little “refreshing”. Refreshing succulent containers is easy to do and a great way to save money– and plants!
Before
After
As you can see in this ‘Before’ photo, these plants were extremely overgrown and having issues with pests too. The after is nice and full and most of the parts with the pests were removed during the cleanup.
The first step is to go through and cut off all over grown plants. I didn’t have any pruners handy so I used a pair of kitchen scissors. Most of the stems on these overgrown succulents were fairly brittle so most of them could just be snapped off easily. Set the upper part of the plant to the side to use later, keeping approximately 3-6″ of clear stem for planting. Discard the lower part of the stems (for these pots these were the parts with the most pests).
When all of the plants were removed from the container the pot was dumped out, wiped with a sterilizing beach solution, and then refilled with a quality, light soil. The planting part is really easy! To do so, simply stick your cuttings directly into the soil. You don’t have to worry about mush other than getting the arrangement just the way you like it. After planting, let the container stay dry for 7-10 days before the first watering.
You might find that you have way too many overgrown plants to put back into your containers. Lucky you! Go ahead and stick these extra cuttings into pots of soil to share with friends or start your next succulent container. If your plants are pest free you can even keep the lower section of your overgrown plants since these will branch out and start growing quickly.
As you can see here, this was such a terrific refresher for these containers! We were considering trashing them all together but they now have a terrific, full look and the same great plants as when they were first planted. I would tell my dad that my bill is coming but I am pretty sure we made up for that in our plant shopping trip earlier in the day…
Before
After