I bought a plant (a succulent, I think) today and I want to find info on caring for it. It needs to be repotted asap but I want advice on how to do so... Also, on the way home the top broke off and I wanted to know if it can be replanted or if its now a lost cause... Thanks for your help!!
Currently the name escapes me. I want to say it's a jade relative. Transplanting is fairly easy, a decent soil mix with pumice would provide a good growing medium. The ratio of each depends on how much you like to water. If you tend to forget to water until your plants have begun to droop use more soil (40:60 pumice:soil). If you're a constant gardener use more pumice (swap the above ratio). The pumice increases the drainage, very important for succulents. Winter transplanting is not recommended but if you keep your house fairly warm an indoor plant should be okay. Think about when the plant grows naturally to guide transplanting and propagating tasks. As for rooting the part that broke off, it is doable if it's that important to you. It won't be the easiest of things to accomplish and doing so in the winter will be especially rough. Broken or cut succs need to form a sort of scab over their broken end before replanting. This is done by setting the piece somewhere dry and warm so it can dessicate for a few days to a few weeks depending on succ size and room temp. Succs are essentially gooey inside and we want the goo to dry up before we try to repot a succulent piece. Once your succulent piece is dried and a bit dessicated I've had the best luck getting them to root in a 70:30 pumice soil mix in a very small pot placed on a greenhouse hotpad for several months. The big thing is a rooting succulent should stay warm and fairly dry in order to root not rot. Good luck
No, its not a Crassula. The leaves aren't in pairs. More likely a Pachyphytum or a x Pachyveria hybrid. Where am I when you need me? My postings are being arbitrarily held up in limbo while Mosquin is off somewhere. I'm giving up on these silly forums. I am tired of the Canucklehead moderator messing around with my postings and delaying them indefinitely. He can play with somebody else.
Crassula have leaves in pairs, so don't think it's a jade or that genus. Looks more like a generic cross to me, like a pachyveria; there are a lot of these. At any rate, agree with Lorax that it's leggy. Rerooting the top would be good thing.
It looks like a Sedum pachyphyllum to me ~ in need of more light for more compact growth. Here is an example: http://www.plantesgrasses.com/detail_specimen.php?id=114
