Swimming Succulents – Lemonade Season

So we had a *bit* of a rainstorm overnight here in Toronto in the early part of the Victoria Day weekend. Woke up to this:

succulent planter filled with water — My succulents just swimming in rainwater 🙁

Succulents into surgery, STAT!

Now, I’ll admit freely that this particular bowl did not have a drainage hole, and I’d been careful to water it only very sparingly the past few months as I (attempted to) overwinter them on my windowsill. My apartment windows face east and west, but the east side doesn’t really get enough sun, so they spent the cold season getting just enough afternoon sun through the shallow bedroom window…

pic of bedroom window — Hazy, fancy-filtered ‘artist rendition’ of the afternoon sun coming in my bedroom window.

Of course the echevaria all got etoliated (leggy and weird-looking) but the aloe, haworthia, and suchlike made it through reasonably unscathed. However, they’d not yet been exposed to a spring deluge.

(okay, if I’m honest I’ll admit it — I completely forgot there was no drainage hole in this particular succulent pot when I sent them out for their summer vacation.)

First order of business: get the plants out of the soup posthaste to prevent root rot.

succulents drying in bowl — I’m so sorry guys. I’m a bad plant mom.

Next, dump the earth to dry for future use and put a drainage hole in the pot. Better late than never, right? This is a pretty easy procedure, but you will need a couple masonry bits to do the job – they’re designed to scrape through masonry, which (loosely speaking) is exactly what pottery is.

Supplies overall: A drill, two masonry bits (one small to make the first hole, one larger to make it bigger), some masking tape, and your pot.

supplies for this project — What you will need…

Mark the spot where you plan to drill with masking tape – this will help prevent busting the whole darn container, and makes it a bit easier to dig through the glaze. Be forewarned: the first hole is gonna take A WHILE to drill. Use continuous pressure but be prepared that when it finally cuts through the drill will drop abruptly. Make sure whatever is underneath the drill bit is something that you don’t care much about damaging (hence my cutting board).

Drilling process images — See how the drill makes a little pile of dust? That means it’s working — keep at it! Then , in the second image, I’d completed the first hole, and opened it out further with the larger drill bit.

At this point I went back to my succulents, from which I’d rinsed most/all of the damp earth, and confirmed no root rot (yay!). They had a little relax on some paper towel to absorb excess moisture.

bare root haworthia drying on paper towel — Haworthia nekkid and air-drying.

Then I cleaned up the other two succulents, peeled off the dead leaves,a nd repotted the whole herd in fresh dry (preferably succulent-specific) potting soil. I did not water them yet, as dry earth seemed like the number one priority after the munchkin monsoon they’d been through.

succulents repotted with dry earth — Much better! Added some rocks as top dressing to finish off the whole kit and kaboodle.

And back out they went to rejoin the rest of the succulent village.

group of small healthy succulents — A much happier — and drier! — succulent village.

I should probably mention that I am 100% NOT a succulent expert. I’d never had any until last summer. I lost a few along the way, mostly to inadequate indoor light over the winter months. I’ve learned my apartment and porch can do haworthia, aloe, jades, snakes, and other “green” succulents quite well. Echevaria are gonna need some substantial surgery every year, but they’re so pretty I’ll probably continue to allow myself to be seduced into adopting them.