How & Why Succulent Leaves Did Not Grow | Vlog #354 - Growing Succulents With Lizk

In the first few years of me growing succulents, someone asked me what is my favorite succulent at that time and I said Pearl Born Nunberg. I just love this plant because every time I see it, it just makes my heart stop and you can see why. It is just so beautiful. So this PVN, as I like to shorten it, because Pearl Born Nunberg is just such a long name, is a little bit hard to, or should I say tricky, to propagate because the best time to propagate them is at the end of summer basically. So these leaves here, I've actually taken them from this plant in October and I dumped them all in here hoping that they would grow roots and as you can see, this one's just dried up and also this one, this is from an inflorescence so it flowered and then the stalk has got some leaves on the stem and that's what I harvested and also put it there. I also put some aside and grew them inside and I'll show you those ones later on, see what they look like now. But this one doesn't really like to be propagated sort of outdoor during summer but since there's only two weeks left and it will be soon, is it all two weeks? Not even that, probably only a week. Yeah, that's right and it'll be autumn. That is the best time for them to grow and also these ones are, okay I'll just move back here so you can see better. So all of these ones here, the ones in the pot, you can see I also put a couple of dry leaves there. Well they are dry now but they weren't before but I harvested them from underneath here and of course they just dried up and I had been watering this as well so the pot is still quite heavy and the soil is still kind of moist so if you can see that. So it doesn't really need watering but the plant just sort of goes dormant when it gets too hot and also these ones, you can see that these ones as well got a few leaves that I put in there but they just wouldn't grow. So from springtime to through summer, these are the leaves that have dried up under this PVN here. So now it's time to clean it up and also so these ones, okay I'll just show you these ones first. So the big pot and also this couple of small pots, I grew them sort of outdoors open to the element so they get hit by the sun and all sorts of things, no protection at all and this one, I've grown this one in my 50% UV shade cloth area so these are basically sort of the same age plant and you can see that these ones now have started to grow some little pups. So you can see those little babies but underneath you can still also see that there are some leaves drying up. So they do like being watered compared to other succulents but when you do water them too much, what happens is if the soil is not really fast draining, this is what happens. They get these black spots on them so and then the other ones, they sort of get burned a little bit and that's the reason why they needed to be sort of in a protected area or grown in a protected area with lots of bright light. And this one here is a variegated form or I bought it as variegated PVN but I haven't seen any variegation at all. So I have this placed also in a 50% UV shade cloth area and now it has dried up. You can see a lot of dry leaves in there. So time to clean it up because also you can see inflorescence. So these two had had some, it flowered basically and those small ones are leaves that I harvested. So you can see the size difference. So these are much smaller but then it hasn't produced any pups at all. So they don't like to be kept outdoors, the leaves I mean, when you propagate them. So that spring all through summer. So this is a situation with this plant and now this one I'm cleaning it up because I am going to do something drastic. Okay so but wait a minute, we'll inspect this one. I can see some white fluffy bits in there. Those are mealybug and I'm going to get a piece of barbecue stick with pointy ends and I'm just going to go on the back here and roll it and mealybug off and of course there's a bit of mealy blood and there's still another mealybug there. There you go. Take that off. We'll just inspect this. Oh nasty because it's got some dry leaves and that's the reason why the mealybugs straight away run into the plant especially since it's this one is actually quite light so the soil is quite dry and dry soil equals mealybug attractant. Okay do you have more? Now I'm going to spray this with methyl before I do something drastic. Okay just poke the center. Any more mealybug? No more. Okay oh just more. Yeah there you go. So it's probably already dry but anyway but just in case I only had one mealybug and another small one here but anyway this one I'm going to spray this with my methyl. Squirt squirt squirt. There you go. Now that looks like a magic red. Isn't it beautiful? It is a beautiful plant. So I'm going to let this dry up in here at the back and these are the ones I have to inspect first to see if there's any nasties and it looks like there's none. So all of them anyway I haven't seen any nasties but any dry leaves like these ones here I'm just going to remove them and I am going to start with this one. Okay so my first accidental experience in propagating PVN is many years ago I bought one plant on a sale. It was actually like two dollars or a dollar something like that because one of the head broke off and then the other one doesn't look too hot crush so I got it on special basically or they put it on special so that's how I got it and then since it was only newly chopped off or broken off that was already late summer and then all through autumn it just grew so quickly and so that's how I observed that PVN is supposed to be propagated in summer so I thought so many years later every summertime I would chop their heads off and as you've seen all the leaves would just dry up and doesn't produce pups. Some succulents like the PVN do like to propagate when the weather is sort of cooler so they need summer I'll just chop this off now okay and I'll put that there so they do need a summer to dry up so let this dry up for a few days and then the other babies will just pop out encourage them to grow and also I'm hoping that a couple more will grow on the stem or the bare stem that you see there and the rest of the gang here I will do the same because the stem is already long so I don't want it to look leggy but needs to happen there you go so that's still enough room for new babies to grow and of course we'll do the same with this other one it looks drastic I know but this is the best way to grow this PVN. Now the big pot here I am going to do the same the big head or rosette that has formed here so this one is going to be off with its head and of course there's a little tiny mini bug in there I have to go clean that up. See that little white thing there I'll spray it and you got more so also dry leaves will take that off okay that's the only one so that's all good and then this other one here I'll do the same come here baby I'm doing you a favor you're gonna have more babies okay there you go off with his head and then of course remove the stalk that was the flower stalk and look how pretty it is it's so pink gorgeous gorgeous plant and of course because if you look at that there's already a leaf here that's already sort of too old I'm gonna remove this in the hope that it will give more room for babies maybe to pop out of there plus this is already too old so I doubt if this is going to grow any pups but still makes it look better isn't it or even damaged ones like this normally I would take them off as well but I'm not gonna bother because that looks so pretty anyway plus I've got so many now plus the ones I'm and of course this one's here I'm gonna do the same but I am gonna leave one in this one that way I know that this is a pvn that I chop chop chop and of course I have to put a label or else I forget and then I might throw it away if it's there's no rosette or head that's left okay so isn't it beautiful okay it's not even so let's remove that one there and also little fluffy mealy bug possibly hiding there so we were able to find and search and destroy or found and destroy anyway okay so that one no more mealy bug and you too there you go we'll put you away let you dry up and then I am going to put them up in a few days but I'm not going to leave them here like this poor things I'm going to bring that indoor over somewhere a little bit protected that way just in case tomorrow we hit the 32 or 34 degrees temperature they don't get burned I have beheaded a few succulents during summer and this is one of the ones that I beheaded so this is big red variegated so you can see all the little babies that has popped out and oh look see it's even variegated you can see that one there with a whiteness I just call it whiteness it's still too small to tell but you can see the edges it's got some sort of color and this one when did I oh 16 of December so it's now like just a bit over a month because I can't I think the 22nd today so anyway so that's only like a month old and look at them so now these are the big reds hang on and this one here I done the same I chopped this off I think and oh look roots already showing this I just baby I've harvested from the stem of this one here I can't remember what this is actually Beyonce I think no heart's delight it is heart's delight so that's 2021 is when I bought this and of course it hasn't been very delightful because it has suffered from the frost many many times so anyway hang on I'll put that one back there I found another victim here to mess with okay so this one is the same thing this is my I would just call this now imbricata okay so now this imbricata here you can see that that was harvested as well a few weeks ago and of course summer they don't like the summer they prefer imbricata as well I have noticed they prefer to grow see that one dry in sort of a temperate temperature in summer they seem to go dormant when they're supposed to grow they're not so even though they have thin leaves so that's why with every succulent even though they're of the same genera they can have different habits so this one now you can see that that tip there has dried up and there's another baby here I don't know I've just focused a little bit more so you can see better so that one there's a stump okay and that stump is growing some plants underneath there so I don't know if you can see that little thing right down in the bottom but this is just going to continue to die as shown by this plant here or the plantlet that has grown on the side of it that's just going to look at that that's just going to die so eventually there you go gone now but just to encourage the small one to grow in the bottom there I am going to chop the head off because the plant will try and survive if there's any life left okay so there you go cut it and you can see that it's not going to grow anymore but there might be a little bit further down so that's why it's important to just chop it off and take a gamble and hope that maybe that might still grow I have another should I say patient now because victim is like a bad thing in it so this one is longissima bumps let's take it to where it's not so shiny so we can see it better so this longissima bump is quite small so you see my hand it is tiny and it was growing bigger before but it just shrunk got smaller and smaller having experience winter and then I don't know if I have an age as to when I got this but I got this I know at least three years ago so before it's sort of the size of the pot here filled it up but now it just as time goes on I realized that it's going smaller and smaller just what it means okay I'm cleaning it up because I am going to do the same to encourage this to grow we have to take drastic measure I don't want to do this but I have to but you can see that there's two pups at least in the bottom there to encourage those two to grow faster and maybe hopefully grow some more longissima bumps we are gonna bump it off okay so off with its head there you go it's nice and healthy still so I'm gonna let this dry as well and of course in a couple of days time I am going to put this in soil to hasten it I could leave it there until it grows roots but the best way to I find anyway that the fastest way to encourage root growth is when you harvest a cutting or when you take cuttings and let it dry up it's best to put it in soil with sort of dry soil basically and half way of the soil is to dunk it in water so that way it's only that part that's wet and the rest of the soil is dry and then once you plonk the cutting on top of that that encourages the root to grow faster because it's going to try and reach down into the soil where there's water water the source of life it's now almost seven o'clock indoors and it's getting darker so that's why I've got this pvn okay let's see the date these are the leaves or inflorescent leaves that I actually harvested so there you go so the 21st of October 2025 is when these leaves here were harvested so you can see look how cute that is oh how cutie patootie so these are from the flower stalk so don't throw away the flower stalk because even the leaves will also grow ups anyway guys that's all I've got for you for this video hope I'm able to share something new again with you that I haven't shared before because I don't like repeating myself okay so there's a few in there so I've got a one two three four five six six babies six okay is that six and also I I planted three or I placed three on the soil here just to see if how fast it will grow and it is no faster than the other one is look at the difference oh my goodness okay let's pick that one there see look at that so that one on the right is just on dry and those three are on the soil that's also kept wet or moist and look there's babies growing definitely but it's not as fast as these other ones okay guys thank you so much again and hope I'll see you on the next video and this oxalis now look at this one it's closing off it's saying night night sweet dreams see you in the morning