An Unexpected Find

We've had some large succulents growing in a rockery in our garden for as long as I can remember. The crassula I repotted recently started out life as a cutting from one of them about ten years ago.

Lately those succulents have been taking a lot of strain and today I discovered several broken branches lying on the ground beside one of them. They'd obviously been there for some time as the wounds had already started callousing over.

Clearly not a new break

Despite the drought we're experiencing right now, there were already signs of roots starting to form and all the smaller branches were growing upwards.

This photo shows the smaller of the two as I found it.

The smaller piece, as collected

All I did to it was put it into a pot, wiring it in place so that it can't move around too much before roots form. The fact that everything was growing in one direction makes it look like good material for a windswept tree. However I'll have to wait and see what develops because these plants are so brittle that any attempts at wiring are likely to do more harm than good.

The smaller piece, potted as found

This is the larger one as found.

The larger piece, as found

It looked like good material for a raft, but I didn't have a big enough pot to follow that route. Besides, even if I'd had one, the resulting tree would have been too big and heavy for me to handle.

Instead I chose to chop it up and grow a few trees from it.

Keeping the main piece to a manageable height meant that I had to remove the foliage, so I've got a pretty bare trunk right now. The piece on the left is actually a branch, not a separate trunk as it appears to be in this photo.

The larger piece, cut back hard

This is the top of the larger tree. It's rather wide at the moment and I may change that later. I didn't feel the need to make any design decision right now. Again, what appears to be a second trunk is actually a branch. I didn't want to plant these trees higher in their pots in case their weight caused them to fall over before they had rooted.

The top of the larger piece

I was left with two smaller pieces which I planted in one pot. I'll decide later whether to grow them together or separate them.

Two thinner pieces potted together

For now all I can do is be patient while I wait for them to develop roots. These plants grow easily from cuttings, so I'm hopeful that all will survive.

With a bit of luck it won't be too long before I see signs of new foliage.