Pleiospilos nelii 'Rubra'

[Urchin1987]

Hello, I have a Pleiospilos nelii 'Rubra' and it looks pretty unhappy at the moment.

The outer leaves look to be rotting away which I was expecting, however, the other leaves now also look to be rotting and are pretty soft - it looks almost like a fungal infection.

The plant was repotted in a cactus mix with additional perlite about three months ago. It was last watered at the end of December 2015 so I really don't think I have overwatered.

Could anybody let me know whether this looks normally or if not, what the problem could be? Three pictures are attached...


Many thanks

[esp_imaging]

I'm afraid that looks like a goner. The central growing point is rotten.
These are extremely drought resistant succulents, and can rot very easily. Watering at the end of December was probably not a great idea, unfortunately.
Lots of on-line resourches are frustratingly vague about when to water these, but this person's perspective on these plants, may be useful:
http://waterwhendry.blogspot.co.uk/2007 ... nelii.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[esp_imaging]

"The outer leaves look to be rotting away which I was expecting"

I think "shrivelling up and drying out" would be a better description for a what would happen with a healthy plant.

[iann]

This plant can be watered regularly. What you can't do is water at the wrong time, grow it in the wrong soil, overpot, grow in too little sun, or persistently overwater so that it stacks too many leaves. All of these things will slowly, or quite quickly, build up to a plant that is just waiting for you to breath on it wrong and it dies. Then you tell all your friends that they are fragile and should never be watered, when in fact they are incredibly tough and almost impossible to kill.

I have no idea where you live, even whether it is summer or winter, so I'll just take a random guess that you're in the northern hemisphere (how many hemispheres could there be?) and that you grow your plant indoors. So this thing is supposedly a "winter grower". What you should take from the term "winter grower" is that it grows best when nights are quite cool, and that means anything from freezing (occasionally a little below, but don't tempt fate) to about 10C (50F). Anything above that and it will start to be less active and need less water. That makes growing them indoors less than ideal. Maybe you can find a porch or unheated room. Watering, at least watering too much or too often, will cause the plant to shed leaves or roots. The old leaves will basically rot off instead of slowly drying out. That is a clue that you have a problem, and you need to fix it before carrying on. Or ... well, you see what happens. You can water occasionally, or lightly, just about any time except maybe a tropical rainy season and an Arizona August, but plan on watering more when days and warm and sunny but nights are cool.

Another problem is that they are so good at storing water, they need some fantastic amounts of sun and heat to make them give it up. Yet you have to make them give it up to get rid of the old leaves each year. Your plant has one leaf left over from last year (or the year before), a sign that it has been treated a bit too gently over a long period. Watering even less isn't really an option because it will just stop growing and eventually lose the will to live. You can stack them and keep them alive, but it gets progressively more difficult each year, and the plant hardly looks good on it. Stacked plants also don't flower well. They have a well-defined annual growing cycle that includes one new pair of leaves and one set of flowers (up to three per leaf pair in ideal conditions) to go with them. If the plant doesn't know when the seasons are it will stop doing all that and you don't get to see the pretty flowers (pale orange on the standard species, but a nice pink on this cultivar).

And a quick mention about soil. Most mesembs, including this one, hate commercial cactus soils. Even with massive amounts of perlite. Maybe 90% perlite would be OK, but really you need to look for something that isn't based on peat or bark (or composted green waste). And maybe use a smaller pot. They don't have massive roots and using more soil than the roots will fill is a recipe for disaster, even in a porous clay pot.

I find the pink plants to be more touchy. Or maybe just slower. Or maybe they need more light? Or maybe I just learned to grow the green ones and something needs to be subtly different. I suspect it is the light, since they also look less compact than the fat round green ones.

[Aiko]

Pleiospilos nelii is one of those species I am having much trouble with growing myself. I know they are not that hard for many people, but for some reason they are hard for me. You would not believe how many times I have tried to keep a newly acquired P. nelii alive (although I am much convinced it does not like repotting a lot).

But unfortunately I know the sight on the pictures show above. This plant is dead, if not now it will soon be fully rotted in just a few days. No saving this one.

Iann, thanks for your explanation. You should write an article for the MSG on Pleiospilos nelii!