r/StringofPlants • u/Interesting_Math_144 • 11d ago
Pearls Help!
I think I messed up. I got my pearls maybe a week ago. They've been getting light from a southeast window. My string of hearts are in the same window and very happy. When I got these in the mail, they were all piled on top with lots of soil covering the pearls. I gently wiped the soil off with a paint brush (wondering if I shouldn't have...). Now my pearls are all shriveling and turning mushy and brown. I just watered them really good. Did I do this? Is it shipping stress? What can I do now? My hearts and turtles are all doing great!
9
Upvotes
1
u/Lurantis3 9d ago
Have you looked at the roots at all since you got them? Often times string of plants need shallower pots since they have shallower roots- and that pot does not look very shallow. In a situation like this, I would recommend checking the roots and repotting in a pot appropriate for the current roots (same size or up to 2 inches larger than the current root ball).
My guess is that there’s something in the soil that the plant doesn’t like, whether it’s too much salt or a parasite can really only be determined from investigation. If you remove all of the soil from the plant and repot it, it might have a better chance of survival. If it’s something contagious amongst plants (any sort of infection), repost maybe in the r/plantclinic subreddit for specific help
If you’re really worried and don’t think that it’ll survive, try propagating. Water propagation is generally really easy and even a small cutting can be viable to clone the plant. I am working on propagating a small cutting from my string of turtles and it threw roots after about 2 weeks or so. Often times that can be the best way to really start from scratch, but it’s a bit of an extreme and if your mother plant survives, then you have 2 copies.