Hot take: People treat every succulent like it's a cactus from Arizona

I was at a nursery in Portland last week and watched someone buy a lithops and water it right there at the counter. My lithops died in 3 days when I did that same thing after reading some generic guide online. Has anyone else killed a plant by following bad advice from one-size-fits-all care sheets?

3 comments

3 Comments

rivera.hannah24d ago

The whole "succulents are easy" thing is such a lie honestly. People forget that a jade plant from South Africa has totally different needs than a barrel cactus from the Sonoran desert. My first echeveria rotted out because I watered it weekly like some blog told me to. It's wild how much misinformation gets passed around as universal plant wisdom. You really gotta look up the specific species before you do anything to it.

ray_burns24d ago

Honestly, that's so true. My buddy Mike got a lithops from a big box store and the tag just said "succulent, water sparingly." He kept it on a regular schedule and it basically melted into mush within a month. He was so bummed because he thought he was doing everything right. Turns out those things need like zero water for half the year and then a tiny sip. People just don't realize how much the conditions vary between species, and stores just slap a generic label on everything. It's no wonder so many people give up on them.

hernandez.gavin24d ago

Blame the stores for that. They just want to sell plants, not teach you how to keep them alive. Generic tags set people up to fail.