Help, my painted lady lost her baby! I posted here a while ago about how incredibly nervous I was taking care of a sempervivum. Everyone was wonderful and helpful and the antithesis to the aggressive “you’re doing EVERYTHING WRONG” attitude on other plant forums. To my surprise and suspicion, that plant is still alive! Having an incredibly hard time rooting, but…that’s for another post. Thank you to everyone who helped keep my plant alive! I’ve added three more plants to my collection, including this painted lady who has been doing well up until the last few days. I noticed a few times that small leaves would dry up and fall off of the “tail” and I wasn’t too worried. This plant was shipped to me, so I figured it would take a few weeks to “settle in” (it was introduced to light slowly, has been on Planta recommended watering schedule, if not a little longer between) and the tail seems to be fully dying. I’m not sure if it’s part of the growth cycle, if it can be trimmed(?), or if there’s anything I should do. She has lost some lower leaves (a few that were dying when she arrived) and I used a clean plastic stick to carefully move them off and away from the plant without “ripping” any still-living leaves off. That seemed pretty normal for an echeveria with leaves that are close to soil and getting such little light, and isn’t a recurring problem. I can leave it alone fairly easily (overbearing plant parent) but it seems like it’s angry at me and I’m not sure what to do. I can add more detail if needed — any advice is appreciated! I don’t know how this plant is supposed to act! Also: I use, for four ~2” plants, two 10w grow lights, plus another that I’m *almost certain* is also 10w but leaves a bit to be desired. If I’m awake (could be as long as from 7 am to 11 pm) they are getting light. I’m not even sure how to check for root rot without absolutely traumatizing them, but I can see visible drainage when I water and I’m just…so confused. I tagged the plant in the post so that the original “tail” is visible.
