Take advantage of the summer sun and be wowed by your color-changing succulents!
When you first hear about “stressed” succulents, you might be immediately concerned. Save the succulents! They should get more sleep! They should do yoga! But don’t worry, stressed succulents aren’t actually stressed out in the way humans get stressed. In fact, stressed succulents are colorful and will turn gorgeous shades of pink, red, orange, purple, or copper.
Which Succulents Can Be Stressed?
Most aloes, crassulas, sedums, echeveria, kalanchoes, and aeoniums will stress. We recommend stressing more mature succulents, rather than new little bbs, because they are more established and less likely to get sunburned.
Stressing succs does not harm the plant, they are showing off their brilliant colors! “Stressed” succulents use the water in their leaves to survive and are healthy and happy. To know which plants are worth trying to stress, take a closer look at the plant. If you see red tipped leaves, there is a good chance that it’ll stress nicely. If you notice the excess heat or sun is causing tips to shrivel and turn grayish, it is suffering.
How to Stress Succulents
- Introduce more sunlight. Embrace that amazing summer sunshine! Move your succulents outside if you want to see brighter colors in less time. Especially this time of year, the hot daytime sun and cool nights are the perfect combo for seeing fast results. If you’d rather keep them inside, move your bbs to an unobstructed south or west-facing window if they’re not already.
- Cut back on water. In order for succulents to stress, water them even less than you do now. Once a month at most.
- Start slow. If you’re wondering how to toe the line between stress and sunburn, the answer is by gradually introducing your succulents to more intense sunlight over a few days, especially if you’re moving them outside. Start them in bright shade, then if they look good after 3 to 4 days (no sunburn), move them into direct sunlight for a few hours a day. After a few days, your succulents will be able to tolerate a day’s worth of full sun without burning!
Pro tip: Think you spotted sunburn? If the tops of your succulent’s leaves are starting to show dry or dark patches, that’s sunburn. Move your succulent to a shadier spot.
Colorful succulents coming right up! Tag us @sucstu to show us your color-changing succulents on social!
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