How to cultivate living stone flowers to make them bloom
Let me tell you about the topic of how to cultivate living stone flowers to make them bloom and the care essentials of succulent living stone flowers. Next, the editor will introduce to you.
Living stone flowers have a unique appearance and high ornamental value. Therefore, many flower enthusiasts are eager to try and grow a beautiful pot of living stone flowers. So, how do you plant a newly purchased living stone flower? Usually, we go through seven steps: inspection, root pruning, drying, pot selection, soil preparation, and planting, and then we can wait for it to root successfully.
I. Seven planting steps for newly purchased living stone flowers
1. Inspect the plant
When buying living stone flowers, pay attention to whether there is any damage or root loss. Timely detection is beneficial for prevention and avoiding secondary damage. Also, pay attention to observe whether the roots of living stone flowers have white fluffy objects, which are likely to be the adults and eggs of root mealybugs. We should deal with them promptly, scraping or cutting off the infected parts to avoid endangering the plant's growth.
2. Trim roots moderately
Usually, the living stone flowers we buy come with roots, but they may get damaged or contaminated during transportation or transplanting. Therefore, during planting, we should trim the diseased, bad, and excess roots. This can not only prevent the plant from being affected by pests and diseases during growth but also stimulate the development of new roots. When trimming the roots, we only need to leave about 7 millimeters of the main root to ensure the plant can grow and reproduce.
3. Dry as much as possible
Drying living stone flowers is very important. Many flower enthusiasts don't know how to plant newly purchased living stone flowers, so be careful. You cannot plant it immediately after buying. Usually, you need to place it in a ventilated area to dry for two days, allowing the wounds to scab and form a barrier to prevent bacterial invasion into the plant. Especially for severely damaged living stone flowers, if planted immediately after receiving them, it may lead to worsened conditions and the plant may struggle to survive.
4. Pot selection
Living stone flowers have shallow roots and are drought-resistant, and there are no requirements for the material and shape of the pot. When choosing a pot, we only need to pay attention to the width and depth of the pot, with a depth of about 10 centimeters to ensure the soil can cover the roots and store water. Living stone flowers are small, and a regular-sized black square pot can plant about 10 small living stone flowers or 5 mature ones. A too-large pot is not conducive to controlling the amount of water for the living stone flowers. Also, for better drainage, it's best to use a pot with holes.
5. Soil preparation
It's best to use breathable, well-draining granular media such as vermiculite, peat, red jade coal slag, and perlite. Living stone flowers prefer dry conditions and dislike excessive fertilizer. When preparing the soil, keep the potting mix dry to prevent root rot, and add a little peat and humus to the pot.
6. Planting in dry soil
Before planting living stone flowers, we need to inspect again and carry out pest and disease control measures, removing diseased roots and root mealybugs. When planting, gently bury the roots of the living stone flowers shallowly in the soil, leaving about two-thirds of the plant above the soil surface, and then spread round granular material between the plants.
7. Wait for the roots to grow