Here's one more pic. It's the side that gets the most light which really isn't much.

Yea i think it's a little on the UN happy side, I'd suggest removing the pups abs keep them inside by assunny window after repotting them with NEW soil , prob the type of soil you And every ones been hounding me to use for my plants. You can try and save the mom plant but I'm not sure it will live for long especially if its mushy...might be cause of Sun burn??...

But then again I'm sure more knowledgeable people will tell YOU what you can do to try and save it.

Goodluck

Correction... summer before was hubby's surgeries, so It didn't get moved out of the peat junk it's in, but did get watered plenty.. last summer hardly watered.. It's been a bumpy 2 yrs here. :-/

Trust me i know ALL to well about that, between cancer, car accidents, heart attacks. Pulling the plug, addiction, jail and Burying more and more family each year something's just aren't at the top of your list

I said a little soft. Not mushy. A little soft could just be under watered. We've been in the 90's .

If it's been 2 years in the original medium it was bought in, I'm pretty sure that's what is making it struggle. Sometimes the peat/soil holds too much water in the center of the old mix while outer dries out and roots die off and you have a dehydrated plant, that is if it's more soil proportion. Or as Sundewd pointed just won't absorb water at all when peat based and has dried out..
I found it's easier to recover a plant and gage watering better with an open fast draining mix. Pups also will root while attached to mom, which means, it needs a wider pot in any case. Right about now is a great time to repot it while it enters into its growing phase.

This post was edited by aztcqn on Mon, May 19, 14 at 21:58

I agree it needs water due to the red hue it is giving off. Many succulents do that when dehydrated. I have found the standard peat mix tends to get so firm that it will not accept water in the middle. You water it, then remove the plant and the edges and below the surface are still dry. I don't have experience with this exact genus but here is what I would as a starting point.

Remove from pot, with thick paper to avoid being stuck or damaging the spines. With a hose gently rinse off as much media as you can then set on a towel and allow to dry for a bit. Don't let the roots get hit with sun. Carefully spread the roots out a bit so they don't get bunched up, then repot in a deeper pot. I bet you will find it is rootbound once investigated.

For the mix, go for 2 parts small pea pebbles. This is about $3 at Home Depot somewhere outside in Gardening. Mix in 1-1.5 parts cactus soil or just whatever soil you can find but use it if it is "woody" which is why I recommend Miracle Grow or similar.

aztcqn, sundewd.. thank you.
I got it re potted today.. I removed the pups and put it back in it's original pot. Even though they would root if in a bigger pot, I wanted mom to have all her energy to herself. I think it's a 4" . The roots, were ok.. not great.. but I think it may spring back. We'll see.
The soil was pumice, and peat that had turned to powder which is the opposite end of the nightmare the product is! so the water ran out so fast the poor thing didn't get any!

aztcqn.. yes, I feel BAD it was in such horrible mix all this time. Wont go into my "story" but lets just say things came up. I spent today getting the last of my babies into new mix.

Sundewd,
I felt the red was stress of some sort.. thank you for that info and narrowing it down.
I moved it into a fast draining gritty mix. I don't like any bagged mix unless the plant really needs it.

It's granite, turface and bark. (the 3rd picture) One i've used for a few years now and love it for all sorts of pants. Herbs included. It's what I call the "crunchy mix" :-) with another grower here who helped me to learn the mix.

This post was edited by jojosplants on Mon, May 19, 14 at 21:52

Hope it works well for you and best of luck with it. :) I don't have access to turface or granite chips or pumice to play with so I like to keep my mixes pretty simple nowadays. :)

Thanks Sundewd~ I've had great success with this mix. I found my turface at a John Deere tractor supply and pumice at our local feed store. Do you have access to either type place?
Granite I gave up on trying to find a good one. lol...

It turns out this had bloomed. Must have been in the summer of 2012.

{{gwi:25014}}

{{gwi:25015}}

This post was edited by jojosplants on Fri, May 23, 14 at 18:36