Saving a String of Pearls

Hey Everyone!

Showing my attempt to revive this String of Pearls is going to be a little less formal than my regular content, and I plan on sending out many more little projects like this in the future.

I’m constantly working on stuff like this, so I decided to start taking photos as I go so I can share them with all of you!

This first picture is my String of Pearls. It’s been super happy ever since I got it. I keep it next to a giant west-facing window where it receives almost entirely bright indirect light.

I always wait until the pearls are soft and then bottom water it. A well-watered String of Pearls will be nice and firm.

This next picture is a String of Pearls I was given to try and revive. It was left outside over the summer, and the top got scorched by the sun. It struggled for a while, but eventually all the top pearls dried up and died, leaving only the hanging pearls to survive.

I will be showing you step by step how I’m attempting to revive this plant! Hopefully, someday you can save a plant for someone you know and make their day :)

As you can see, most of the strings are hanging on by fragile, dried-up stems. If left any longer, they would certainly fall off and die. No nutrients can be passed through them anymore, and all the remaining pearls are surviving off their water reserves.

My first method of business is to cut away the healthy parts of the plant from the dead stuff. I cut a little bit into the healthy part to ensure I got rid of all the dead parts of the plant.

Living matter typically won’t mold, but any dead matter will cause issues and spread mold to other parts of the plant if left long enough. So we want to clear all that out.

After I started cutting, I realized it would take a while, and I was tired, so I quickly cut all the stems off. This left me with a tangled mess of healthy stems and pearls all tangled together.

You can see how many healthy vines I was left with after trimming all the dead stuff away. I went through and picked any individual dead pearls off the vines and put them in the junk pile.

As you might be able to see from this picture, the top of the vines do not have any pearls on them. I picked them all off so I could stick the bare stem in the dirt to root.

If I buried full pearls, I was afraid they would die and start to rot.

I kept all the healthy pearls I pulled off the stem, as mentioned above, to plant at the end.

I threw away all the old dirt and dead parts of the plant, cleaned out the pot, and mixed my own soil. I used regular all-purpose potting soil mixed with plenty of perlite and some pumice to make sure it was well-draining.

String of Pearls is a succulent, so it won’t do well in soil that holds a lot of moisture.

Once the new soil was in the pot, I started planting the stems I had prepped earlier. I just pushed them down into the soil with my fingers until the first pearl was right above the soil.

I’m hoping they will root quickly and grow a nice strong root system.

Once I had all the strings planted, I took the leftover pearls I had in the bowl and evenly spread them out over the empty spaces in the pot. It makes the plant look much more full, and I hope most of them root.

I will be keeping a close eye on them throughout the next couple of months and will pull out any of them that die before they start to rot.

It’s unreasonable to expect every pearl to root and start growing, but I’m hoping that with enough light and appropriate watering, I will get most of them to grow.

This little project was done about two weeks ago, and I would add a photo of it now, but it looks no different than when I first planted it. If I look really closely, I might be able to see tiny sprouts coming off some of the pearls, but I might be convincing myself I’m seeing something that isn’t there yet :)

I will be sure to post an update or two as this plant either lives or dies. I have never done this before with a String of Pearls, so it’s just an experiment.

I hope you enjoyed this style of newsletter. My goal is to keep these quick and entertaining. Feel free to leave any questions or comments, and I’ll be sure to reply!

Until next time :)

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