Most succulents are not houseplants, and you can tell by the stretched-out look of the plant (the big distance between the leaves, which isn't normal) and the leaves curling under that the plant is starving for light, light that a window can't provide. This looks to me like a type of Echeveria, and they do not die after flowering. If areas of the stem are becoming at all mushy, you have rot and the rotten areas need to be removed before the entire plant is lost. If the roots and lower stem are rotting, remove the root system and cut up the stem until the interior of the stem is green and healthy, and then plant the bottom of the stem in completely dry soil and absolutely do not water until the plant has re-rooted. Any portion of healthy stem could be re-rooted, and a good place to let things root might be outside in a fully shaded location, not in the sun. Most importantly, I'd say probably nothing will improve if the plant remains a houseplant, as it needs bright light from an outside environment to thrive. If the plant is rooted, just very gradually acclimate it to more light, rather than immediately putting it out in the sun. A plant that has no roots: shaded area.

With proper outdoor light, the parts of the plant that are in poor health (the plant as it is now) will never return to how they looked originally. Because this growth will not improve in looks, a lot of us would choose to snip off all the growth, including the pups/chicks as you called them. I would. You would cut back to the stem(s) and allow the plant to start again in appropriate growing conditions. If you keep the plant where you have it now, any new growth won't look any different than it does now and you'd probably eventually lose the plant.

To see what will happen when you cut back your Echeveria to the stem, take a look at some threads like this one.

This post was edited by teatree on Thu, Aug 15, 13 at 15:24

Thank you for all of that information. However, I'm not sure I can plant it outside. Do you mean planting it in the ground? I'm under the impression that Louisiana humidity and rainstorms would not be good for succulents at all (my backyard floods somewhat when it rains hard, and doesn't drain fast, so I don't know where I'd put a succulent). Can you put a succulent outside with it still in the pot? I have a big, old gazebo.. Do you think that'd work as a spot (though I still worry about animals or something destroying it)? I'm concerned, because I'm going back to college in a couple days and don't have a lot of time left to try things, especially making an outdoor transition (since that'd mean I can't take it with me). :(

Ah, yikes! Thank you for bringing up that it might be rotting! It totally was!
Do the salvaged cuttings look ok enough to try to root? :(

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:614125}}

Oh, no, I just mean putting the pot outside. It cannot be in a place where it gets a bunch of rainfall. Preferably, you could have it sheltered by something so that you could control the water it receives. Full shade is not a great idea for Echeveria -- they want sunshine, albeit 90+ degrees hot summer sun is a different thing and something that not many plants really enjoy. During more mild temperatures, you want the brightest sheltered area you can find, like under the eave of the house, where the light is good but the rain doesn't interfere. Your gazebo is going to be shaded, I would assume, and especially so if any trees surround it. I might suggest under the eaves of the house or somewhere on a bright patio or deck instead, if that's possible. In the shade the growth on Echeveria can become stretched-out, like you're seeing but obviously not quite as severely. Shade also doesn't bring out their optimum color; the plant can still look kind of feeble and unhealthy.

In the ground is out of the question because succulents can't take freezing temperatures and wouldn't make it through the winter. In the winter I'm guessing you'd be forced to bring yours inside, and at that point you would probably need to steadily decrease watering in order to try to slow the plant's growth for the winter months and prevent it from growing really etiolated and spindly. You'd kind of be trying to make the plant go dormant.

The picture you posted on the actual thread above does not look viable to me. See how the bottom of the cutting looks brown inside? That's rot. I think you know that and that's why you were showing me, though. :) The link to the picture of the saved cuttings, however, looks very promising, as the three pieces all have healthy, green stems that could root.

I personally would recommend doing what the gal did with her Graptoveria 'Debbi' in the post I linked. Obviously, when you go to root these three pieces, you'll need to remove several of the lower leaves in order to expose clean stem that you can stick into the soil a little ways. Root them in completely dry soil with the rest of the leaves intact, and once the stems have strongly rooted, remove all the leaves and cut off the very top of each of the three stems. That would get rid of everything that looks poorly right now, and cutting off the tops of the stems would cause the bare stems to produce a few or several new pups. If you weren't to cut away the tops of the stems, the plants would continue growing from the top, and especially with the long lower stems, that would look pretty awkward and it wouldn't encourage new pups.

Water a succulent or cactus only when it has roots. Root cuttings in totally dry soil, and you can lightly mist the cutting with a spray bottle every few days, if you want, to help encourage roots to develop. But no actual watering. Without roots, the plants has nothing to take up moisture, so until there are roots, no water. Water a plant without roots and you'll get root rot immediately. Once roots have formed, you can water as you would normally, when the soil has completely dried out.

This post was edited by teatree on Thu, Aug 15, 13 at 18:12

Thank you so much for all this info! I'm pretty new to succulents (and plants in general) so what you say is an obvious thing to do isn't so obvious to me, ahaha. Thanks for the step-by-step instructions~ (and yeah, I knew that picture was of rot, I just wanted to show it, in case someone finds this topic one day who has a similar problem)
But so... Is it a general rule that while you're trying to root something, you keep it in the shade, and only move it into a sunnier spot once it has rooted? I think I'm getting confused with the plant's need for sun verses the supposed requirement for shade.. Why does it need shade while it's rooting? And unfortunately, the window it's currently at is the sunniest window (at least in the sense that it gets brighter, more direct sun at certain times of day, as opposed to indirect light) at my house.. I don't see any better location outside to put it.. Unless I'd need to put it out there in a hanging basket?
When I'm at school in my dorm, I have a west-facing window and no trees around, so I think it'd at least get more sun in that window than where it is now..
But yeah, I'll give that process a shot if they root well!

Yes, shade or part shade is good for rooting, but not shade for normal growing of Echeveria. The sun is just too harsh on the plant when it doesn't have roots. But I don't mean to say, move the plant away from the window while it roots. Light indoors is generally dark compared to a shaded place outside, and artificial light inside doesn't help anything live. A shaded place outdoors, with good air circulation, would encourage rooting. If you must do it indoors, keep it by the best window you have.

Outside light, even shaded light, is always twice as bright as the brightest window inside the house. Outside is always better... although just not in a rainstorm.

This post was edited by teatree on Thu, Aug 15, 13 at 18:22

C,

You're a verified mentor.

I agree with Colleen, Amy - that's ready for the compost heap. We've all done it, and, to your credit, Echs can be some of the easiest of the New World Crassulaceae to rot (I've got at least 10 notches in my belt for this genus).

*blush blush* Do hope it was helpful. And yep, I've rotted some things too. Everyone has. At least E.s give you a second or third chance, if there's a good section of stem left or leaves to root.

Ahhh I don't think this is supposed to happen... The bottoms of the stems are shriveling up...? :c Are they just a lost cause? How much of a stem to you have to have in the soil, and how many leaves can they stand to lose? I'm so bummed out...

Were they stuck in some soil and you pulled them out to find them like this? This looks to me that they've been in soil that has not been completely dry, and that the stems are rotting upward. The soil needs to be bone dry.

If you've been misting them with a spray bottle every so often, I'd wonder if you're spraying too closely/too heavily. I might recommend stopping misting altogether if it's too tempting to want to get the plant and/or soil at all moist.

Try again. Cut back to healthy stem.

{{gwi:614135}}

This post was edited by teatree on Mon, Aug 19, 13 at 20:11

Yes, I put them in soil, but I hadn't misted them at all.. How strange.. I'll try again, thank you for the picture to follow. :)

Well, as a check-in to this, the two little stems have once again done a weird shrivel callous at the bottoms, though it doesn't look exactly like how they were before, and have not grown any roots. I don't think they'll make it, sadly. However, I had tried putting the removed leaves on some soil to see if they might root, and while it seems most haven't, two of them actually have a couple of new white roots, maybe half a centimeter in length..! I wonder if they'll actually grow into new plants, as they're really small leaves (around a centimeter or a bit more in length)?

Small leaves can root and form new plants, yes. Just continue keeping them really dry until roots are strongly formed. And about the shriveling of the cuttings, I still question whether there was any moisture whatsoever in the soil they were in. If it's not brand-new dry soil, you're bound to get rot like that.

The best part about succulents is that you can grow a new plant out of every little leaf! This tray is where I throw leaves that fall off of my plants. There are five different kinds of plants growing out of dropped leaves here: echeveria, graptopetalum, two kinds of crassula, and some sedum. I barely water them, and they just keep growing (mist once a week, lightly water once a week). Eventually they get large enough to get their own little pot.

Rereading teatree's post, I should add that all of the leaves in that tray sat on the counter next to the tray until they had roots ... no water until the roots are already present.

This post was edited by Danielle317 on Mon, Sep 23, 13 at 19:14

That's interesting, because I advocate for misting every few days or so, in order to get those same roots to appear and grow, giving the leaves/cuttings impetus to root.

{{gwi:528680}}

I love misting too. I would recommend that, Amy, happily, so don't be fearful of it. But if you've had problems with being heavy-handed with the watering can in the past, maybe stay away, if you don't trust yourself. :) By keeping things dry, I mean no actual watering, misting aside. I've just encountered people using the same soil they've previously had the plant in, and thinking there's no moisture in it because no moisture can be detected at the top of the soil. And that's the real issue. Lightly misting is great, but be careful that the soil itself isn't damp. I'm wondering if there was moisture down in the soil that was re-rotting the cutting.

If you were using brand-new dry soil, not reused soil, then shoot, I don't know what to guess went wrong.

Some of us are lazy and leave the leaves out without soil, and get rewarded.

{{gwi:578969}}

This post was edited by teatree on Tue, Sep 24, 13 at 0:40

I used to mist the callused leaves, but then I noticed that roots would appear whether I misted or not, and I've read so many people cautioning against misting rootless plants/leaves, so I just wait for roots to show up and then put them in the soil that gets misted/watered. They probably catch some moisture when I mist the tray anyway, but I tend to just let them sit.

This is the tray this morning (seriously overgrown at this point). There are some gollum leaves I set out last week ... I just found roots on four of them, so I'll stick 'em in a pot ... somewhere. I have to start finding homes for these little suckers.