Transplanting, Salvaging and Rerooting Haworthia Guide

Transplanting, Salvaging, and Rerooting Haworthia

Written by Miles Ridgway - Henrys Haworthia (owner)

(Photos coming soon!)

 

Whether you received a mail order plant that has no roots, took cuttings from or separated a plant that you already had, had a plant suffer root rot, or simply want to transplant a Haworthia that has grown too large for its container, this guide will help ensure your success. This also applies to bare-root Haworthia plants that you have received in the mail! (Skip to Re-rooting a Haworthia section)

 

Contents:

Transplanting

Dealing with root rot

    Recognizing root rot

    Assess the damage and clean the plant

Physical damage

Re-rooting a Haworthia plant

Transplanting

You may want to transplant your Haworthia for a variety of reasons. We recommend only doing so if: a) Your plant has outgrown it's current container and needs to be separated or potted up. b) Its current container and/or growing medium makes it difficult for you to properly care for it. or c) You want to propagate the plant. In general, we try not to transplant Haworthia unless absolutely necessary. The reason for this is that they take a surprisingly long time to establish themselves, and they are very sensitive to being disturbed or having damage done to their roots. Even with utmost care and seemingly perfect conditions, there is always a chance that a well-rooted transplant will lose its entire root system after being transplanted and have to be re-rooted from scratch. This guide will help you to minimize that chance as much as possible.

Unpotting a Haworthia

This seems fairly straightforward, but there are a few things we've learned that may help. Unpotting is a very different process depending on whether you use soil or a gritty mix. Unpotting from grit is generally very easy: hold the container upside down, cradle the plant with your other hand, and gently shake until the grit and plant have come out. If using potting soil, sometimes it's much more difficult, particularly with very large Haworthia growing in clay containers. 

In any case, take special care to avoid damaging Haworthia roots. They are very delicate and sensitive. Avoiding root damage is usually much easier when dealing with grit and can sometimes be almost impossible when dealing with soil. Since most Haworthia varieties grow a large volume of tuberous, contractile roots as they mature, those roots will compact the soil, making the plant harder to remove without either damaging those roots or breaking the pot.

Once you do have the soil-root ball removed from the container, the next decision is whether to clean away all of the soil. This largely depends on your goal: do you want to split it and propagate it (or put a single rosette back in the original container), or pot it up and let it continue growing as a massive clump?

In our opinion, the only reason to clean the old soil away from the roots is for propagation. If you want it to remain a clump, your best option is to plant it as is, with the root ball intact, and disturb the roots as little as possible. In our experience, this is the only way to repot a Haworthia clump successfully. For some unknown reason, we have observed that if the soil is cleaned out and the plant is repotted as a clump, it will almost always suffer root rot, and then the clump may refuse to re-root until each rosette is separated. Following the logic, the only chance of potting up an ever-growing clump to use some kind of potting soil-based medium, and sometimes it may be best to just break hard-sided containers to avoid injuring the roots.

In our many years of Haworthia growing, I have never successfully reestablished a large bare-root clump. Despite our best efforts, they always lose their entire root system and then will either stubbornly sit and slowly dry out, refusing to grow new roots until separated, or each rosette will slowly start to re-root individually, at greatly varying rates. Some of them will root quickly; others never will and end up drying up after months. That's not to say it cannot be done; if anyone knows the secret, by all means let us know. Rather mysteriously, if the bare root clump is separated into individual rosettes and then each one is properly repotted and cared for, they will not lose their roots. It doesn't matter if they're in the same pot or separate pots; having their stems separated is enough. We have observed this phenomenon in many varieties and have yet to find an exception or a proper explanation. Even one small offset is sometimes enough to cause the plant to have problems reestablishing.

In any case, once your plant is unpotted, proceed with the "re-rooting Haworthia" procedure. 

 

Dealing with root rot: 

You might be a proper "green thumb," but I can almost guarantee you'll deal with root rot at some point if you keep Haworthia plants. If this is you, don't despair. As long as there are healthy rosettes left, your plant will (eventually) be fine.

Recognizing root rot

Haworthia are remarkably resilient, and depending on growing conditions, it might be weeks or months before you even realize a plant has suffered root rot. Usually the first sign is the classic "I'm watering my plant, but it just keeps shriveling." There are other conditions that can cause this to happen (see watering guide), but especially if the plant has been doing just fine for a long time and all of a sudden it doesn't seem to be responding to water anymore, definitely check the roots.

An easy and noninvasive way to check for root rot is to gently "wiggle" the rosette or clump. Don't pull on it just yet, but if the roots are in bad shape, the whole plant will feel very loose in the growing medium when lightly touched. This only applies to plants that have been well established. Re-rooting or reestablishing Haworthia will feel loose for quite a while.

If you find that your once-well-established plant is now loose, try to gently lift it up on one side and check the condition of the roots. In many cases, the whole thing will rather easily pull out of the pot while you're trying to do this.

Assess the damage and clean the plant

Whether the plant pulled out easily or you have unpotted it, now you need to remove all the rot-affected parts from the remaining healthy plant material.

Healthy tuberous (contractile) roots will be firm to the touch, stiff, and white to cream-colored (older contractile roots may be darker but will still feel firm). Rotted contractile roots will be soft, translucent, yellow-to-brown-colored, mushy, slimy, or dry/hollow. These should be removed.

Healthy feeder roots will be light colored and have a 'wiggly' or rubbery feeling. Rotted or dead feeder roots will be darker-colored, soft, slimy, or brown and dry. Dead feeder roots should also be removed.

Recognizing rot-affected leaves:

Leaves or parts of leaves affected by rot will often be darker in color, translucent, shiny, soft or squishy to the touch, wet, or slimy. If any part of a leaf is affected by rot, the entire leaf must be removed. If rotting leaves are left on the plant, the rot may continue to spread.

Recognizing stem rot:

A stem-rotted Haworthia rosette will have very loose leaves and will feel "limp." Leaves will also be affected by rot at the base. Unfortunately, once the rot spreads into the stem, that part of the plant is lost. All rot-affected parts of the stem must be cut away with a clean knife until only a healthy, firm stem and leaves remain.

Once all the rot, dead leaves, and dead roots are removed, proceed to the "re-rooting" procedure.

Physical Damage

Occasionally accidents happen. A plant might be knocked off a shelf, dropped, or snacked on by critters if kept outside. Whatever misfortune has befallen your plant, any crushed leaves or stems should be removed. If any stems are broken off cleanly and the rosettes are relatively undamaged, you could try re-rooting them. Cracked, broken, and especially crushed leaves have a high chance of rotting, and that rot may spread to the stem and cause even more damage. We also recommend that you refrain from wetting the leaves for at least a week after it's been wounded. If the roots were also disturbed, you may have to follow the re-rooting procedure (giving it a long dry period) so that the roots can heal as well.

 

Re-rooting a Haworthia plant

This applies to new Haworthia purchases, cuttings, separated props (even if they do have a few roots), transplants that have had all the soil or medium stripped from the roots, and salvaged root-rotted rosettes.

*Use this procedure for all Haworthia transplants, whether they have roots or not!

Step 1: Allow wounds to heal (if applicable)

If you are taking cuttings or trying to save rosettes from a root-rotted or damaged plant, lay the (cleaned) rosettes on a dry paper towel and place them in a cool (~60-70F), moderately humid, shady location. They should still receive some natural light, but absolutely no direct sun. Let them lay for about 7 days, or until the wounds have calloused over (become tan-ish, white-ish, or cream-colored, and no longer appear "wet" or "open"). They will not begin trying to grow roots during this time anyway, and keeping them out of the soil will prevent bacteria or fungi from attacking them in this vulnerable condition. 

Do this any time a Haworthia has open cuts in its stem, and no roots. If the plant has no large wounds that you know of and/or has healthy roots attached, skip to step 2. We usually pot rooted offset props into dry soil immediately, even though there are small wounds in the stems. The inevitability of roots drying out during those 7 days is worse than the risk of rot, in this case.

Step 2: Place plants in a container with growing medium

No "special" rooting medium is required, but if you're using a gritty mix, better results may come from using a small-grained grit during rooting. The soil or grit should be mostly dry or only very lightly damp at this point. Refer to our container and growing medium guide if you have questions about selecting a container or growing medium.

If your plant does have roots, be very careful not to unnecessarily wound them. Put about an inch of soil or grit in the bottom of the container first; this will help ensure that when you do start watering, the roots (which may still be healing) are not sitting in perched water. Carefully scoop soil or grit into the container while holding the rosette at the correct depth. It's sometimes helpful to gently shake the plant while scooping soil so that the soil fills in the spaces between the roots more easily. Once the container is mostly full, very lightly press soil around the edges of the pot, leaving at least a half inch of space from the top. If using grit, do not press at all; doing so will damage the roots.

We cannot stress this enough, but once a cutting or plant is potted and placed in a good location, do not touch it—unless you need to move the container to a better location or for some other reason. Resist the urge pick up rosettes out of the soil to check for roots. Doing so will only lengthen the process. The leaves will tell you when roots are growing. 

Step 3: Find an ideal location for the plant to root itself

This is the single most important step for transplanting, rooting, or re-rooting Haworthia. Think of this location as the "hospital" for your plant. It's suffered a potentially mortal wound (stem or root damage), and now it needs the absolute best conditions it can get in order to heal.

In our experience, Haworthia transplants, cuttings, or rootless rosettes need the following conditions to reestablish themselves quickly:

Bright indirect light: AKA "full shade" (think unobstructed north-facing window if in the Northern Hemisphere). The plant should get plenty of "open sky light," but absolutely no direct sunlight at all.

"Just right" temperatures: mid-60's to mid-70's F for daytime, no lower than mid-40's F nighttime.

Moderate to high humidity: 60–80% if possible.

Airflow: this is recommended for all Haworthia but is especially important during rerooting.

Careful watering: see next step. 

Optional: Apply a fungicide or disinfectant, such as Consan 20. We have never found this to be entirely necessary. Following all other parts of this procedure, we lose maybe 1 in 100 props in total. However, there have been one or two instances when we lost our only specimen of a variety to, presumably, fungus or bacteria, and I wish I'd applied fungicide as a preventative measure. Consider doing this if you're dealing with very expensive hybrids or an irreplaceable variety.

Reestablishing "quickly" is a relative term; if the plants have no roots at all, expect them to take a minimum of 2 to 3 months for them to recover, sometimes longer. If you are transplanting a Haworthia that does have roots, and those roots do not rot, it may reestablish much faster, in as little as two weeks to a month.

Additional thoughts: Ironically, losing moisture too quickly from their remaining tissues seems to stop most root-damaged Haworthia plants from growing new roots. As you can tell, most of the conditions above are centered around preventing water loss while also preventing rot and disease. The goal is to "convince" the plants that it is safe to expend valuable stored water and energy to grow new roots and that they will not shrivel and die while trying to do so. Providing as close to perfect conditions as possible will hopefully get them out of "survival mode" and into "recuperation mode." This is also why, we believe, it is so important not to pick up rosettes and check for roots. Being disturbed seems to put them back in "survival mode" for a while. Disclaimer: I am not a botanist, nor have I studied out any factual information about these particular claims; they are anecdotal, based on my many years of experience. Take it for what it's worth.

Step 4: Water carefully

About 3–5 days after potting it, begin to carefully water the container around the outside edge without wetting the leaves. Do not fully saturate the soil or grit. Try to keep it lightly damp, giving small amounts of water a couple of times a week. If in doubt, keep it on the drier side. The leaves will likely be quite shriveled by now, but the plant will recover as long as it does not rot. 

After two or three weeks of careful and conservative watering, the plant should be starting to grow new roots, and you should be able to see some combination of leaves refilling with water, rosettes opening up, color changing to a brighter green, and/or new growth in the center. 

Step 5: Acclimate to brighter light and water normally.

Once you see a physical reaction to water in the plant's leaves, as stated above, you can be sure that it has started growing some roots. Congratulations! 

If it was completely rootless, it likely only has two or three small roots at this point, so it still needs special care. You can begin to water a little more deeply and less often, still trying not to soak the leaves. Also, avoid completely saturating the soil for the time being. You may also begin slowly acclimating it to brighter light, while keeping an eye out for signs of stress. Even the most shade-loving Haworthia plants need at least a couple of hours of direct sun to remain compact and prevent etiolation. We try to keep our recuperating plants in the shade as long as possible and move them to brighter light only when they start showing the earliest signs of etiolation. If needed, refer to our Fixing Etiolation and Light Acclimation Guide for a detailed explanation of the acclimating process.

Usually about a month or two, on average, after the plants first started responding to water, we consider it "safe" to water them normally. You must determine this for yourself based on the appearance of the leaves. The process of reestablishing can take a very long time, especially for plants that have suffered root rot, but it cannot be rushed. Watering too early or too much can cause transplanted roots to rot, and moving the plant to brighter light too soon can stress the plant, causing root growth to stop. If you have repotted a Haworthia clump in soil with its rootball intact, and it has been responding well to careful watering, you can generally accelerate the process without much trouble.

 

Sources:

www.haworthia.com

Personal experience

 

We would appreciate hearing about your experience after following this guide!

Questions, comments, or suggestions? Contact us directly:

henryshaworthia@gmail.com

 

John 3:16