Your Succulent Questions Answered — Watering, Soil, Grow Lights, and More
I recently went live on YouTube and spent a couple hours watering my plants while answering reader questions. We covered a ton of ground — watering methods, soil, grow lights, fertilizer, the Cheerful Plants app, and a whole lot more.
If you want to watch the full replay, you can find it here on YouTube. But since it's about two hours long, I wanted to put together a written version so you can get to the good stuff without sitting through all of it.
Here's everything we talked about...
My Watering Setup
The plant stand my husband built for me has grow lights built into it, and I've been using it for at least five or six years.
I started with shallow trays — the kind that go in the bottom of a dog crate — and they worked for a while. But I'd pour water on top of all the plants and end up with standing water in the bottom without a great way to get it out. I also had to put a grid on the bottom to keep the plants elevated so air could flow underneath. Without that, the bottom of all my plants just stayed wet.
I've since switched to heavy duty trays from Greenhouse Mega Store. They're two inches deep, which means I can water all of my plants without worrying about overflow. And because they have channels built into the bottom, the plants still have airflow underneath without needing a separate grid. They've been a huge upgrade.
The Turkey Baster That Changed My Life
The big remaining problem was water pooling in the bottom of the trays. I tried a siphon, but it was clunky. Then one of our Succulent Lovers Club members, Wendy, mentioned during a garden tour that she uses a turkey baster to remove excess water from her trays.
Game changer.
It works so well! I use it with the trays, but also with bigger plants — I'll pull them out, water them in a separate container, and use the baster to remove the excess water. Much easier than a siphon.
Reusing Water
One thing I really love about this setup is reusing the excess water. It doesn't matter how much I pour on — I could use a whole gallon on one little plant and it wouldn't be overwatering. Overwatering comes from frequency, not volume. You want to completely soak the soil, let it dry out, and then use the taco test to check if it needs water again.
Because I'm reusing the water that drains out, I use less water overall and I can be generous with every pour. With this approach, often I water a plant multiple times in a 10 minute window to make sure it's really soaked through.
What Kind of Water Should You Use?
I don't use distilled water. Our water is pretty hard, but I always use the kitchen tap because it's the only place in the house that isn't softened.
Do not use softened water. It will slowly destroy the roots of your plants. That's what I ran into when we first moved to Utah — it took me about eight months to figure out what was happening, and it was really rough on most of my succulents.
Is Distilled Water Better?
Distilled water is the gold standard. It doesn't have extra minerals, so you're not adding salts or anything that builds up over time. I just don't love buying water for my plants because I go through so much of it.
Is Hard Water OK?
Hard water is fine. The main thing to watch for is mineral buildup if you're bottom watering every time. Those excess minerals will gradually accumulate near the top of the soil, which isn't ideal. If you're top watering, you're typically flushing those minerals out.
One of our club members, Vinnie, goes through every month or two and does a thorough top watering with distilled water to flush out any buildup. That's a great approach if you normally bottom water.
Another member, Tim, uses tap water treated with an anti-chlorine solution made for aquariums, and his plants are doing much better without the chlorine. So if you know your tap water has a lot of chlorine, that's worth trying.
The bottom line: distilled water is great, hard water is fine, just flush your soil periodically if you bottom water. And no salt — no water softener.
Why Don't My Succulents Suffer When I Skip Watering?
The short answer: most succulents store enough water in their leaves that they can easily go 30 days or more without showing signs of stress. Unlike a lot of other houseplants that start wilting within a couple days, succulents are built for drought.
The more you water (to a point), the more your succulent will grow. The less you water, the less it grows. You can actually use that to your advantage. If you want your plants to grow quickly, watering more frequently is a great option. If you want them to stay compact, less frequent watering works.
The key is to water as frequently as you can without seeing signs of overwatering — super bulging leaves that fall off easily, or leaves starting to turn translucent. Those are signs you're headed toward rot.
One thing I always say: it is so much easier to revive an underwatered succulent than an overwatered one. Once rot sets in, it's really hard to save because so much tissue is damaged. An underwatered plant still has healthy tissue — it just needs to be rehydrated. If you're going to err on one side, err on the side of too dry.
That's why I wait so long between watering my own plants.
Fertilizer
Fertilizer is a tricky topic. You could use almost any fertilizer and be fine. I typically recommend one with equal numbers — a 10-10-10 or 5-5-5. Those numbers relative to each other just indicate how concentrated it is.
With succulents, I recommend a more diluted mix. If you have a 20-20-20, I'd do one part fertilizer to four parts water.
Here's what I've personally used:
Worm castings — these double as a pest preventative and help make the soil healthier. I've had really good results when I'm consistent with watering.
Bonsai Jack's slow release fertilizer — it comes in a shaker bottle. I take the lid off, pinch out five or six granules per pot, and it lasts a couple of months. I've generally been hesitant about slow release fertilizers because they can burn, but with just a few granules it hasn't been an issue.
Osmocote is another option that a lot of bonsai growers use, and it works for succulents too.
The Most Important Thing
The biggest factor in keeping your succulents healthy isn't fertilizer — it's light and water. Those are the real food for your plants. If they're not getting enough of both, fertilizer won't help.
If your succulents are stretching (meaning they don't have enough light), don't fertilize. Adjust your lighting before adding fertilizer. Otherwise they'll just stretch faster. Make sure you have plenty of light first.
What Grow Lights Do I Recommend?
The four foot lights on my plant stand are actually just shop lights — not marketed as grow lights at all. I've used them for at least six years, I have 12 of them, and I've only ever replaced two. They run 12–14 hours a day.
Other plant people feel strongly about specific grow light specs. Personally, I'm going for inexpensive and effective. The majority of my succulents keep their color and stay compact under these lights, and that's what matters to me.
My general advice: find the cheapest, brightest LED light that works for your space. Run it about 12 hours a day. If your succulents are stretching, you have three options — move the light closer, leave it on longer, or add more light.
The Three Factors That Affect Your Grow Lights
Duration — up to 16 hours a day. Your succulents do still need a period of darkness.
Distance — closer means more intense light and less stretching. Further away means less intensity and more stretching. If you can't adjust the height of the lights, put the plant up on a riser or flip a pot over to bring it closer.
Brightness — I'd recommend at least 2,000 lumens. The brighter, the better.
I prefer white light over blurple. White works well for succulents and looks nicer in your home. Mine are around 6,000 kelvin (the bluer end of white), but anything in the 5,000–6,000 range works great. I don't think it significantly impacts plant health — it's mostly an aesthetic preference.
Soil Mix
I use Bonsai Jack's gritty mix for almost everything.
For plants that dry out too quickly in straight gritty mix, I'll add some coconut coir or another organic material.
When I say "organic" here, I mean materials like pine bark fines, peat moss, or coconut coir — basically, anything that isn't rock. Two thirds of the gritty mix is inorganic material, which gives it great structure, drainage, and airflow. But some plants want a little more moisture retention, and that's where the coconut coir comes in.
I also really like using Magic Succulent Soil from Andrea at Just Succ It.
A lot of people mix up their own recipes and adapt based on their climate. There's no one perfect soil mix for succulents, but I do feel like Bonsai Jack's gritty mix is a great starting point if you have a tendency to overwater.
Why Are My String of Plants Not Thriving?
A lot of people struggle with String of Pearls, String of Dolphins, String of Hearts, etc. They don't always do well in the same conditions as other succulents, especially under grow lights.
Here's what I've found:
Use a more organic soil. String of plants don't thrive in gritty mix for me. They do better in something with more coconut coir or peat moss — something that holds a little more moisture but still drains well.
Get more roots at the top. If you just have one or two strings hanging down, bring them up and circle them on top of the soil so they can root along the strand. The more roots and leaves they have at the top, the better they do when they trail over.
They need more frequent water than most succulents. This is especially true under grow lights. For the amount of light they're getting, they probably need water more often than an Echeveria or Sedum.
String of Pearls are a great plant to start with if you want to try string of plants. They're very easy to tell if they need water — you just wait for the little beads to deflate a little bit. When they look like a slightly deflated balloon, they're ready for water. If the leaves are still very firm and very round, then wait to water.
"String of" plants are challenging for a lot of people. I'd still err on the side of underwatering over overwatering, but know that they'll probably need attention more often than the rest of your collection.
What About Aeoniums?
I'll be upfront — Aeoniums are not my strong suit. For indoor growing, mine have not done well, so I'm probably not the best person to ask.
A few things worth knowing: Aeoniums are slightly more tropical than most succulents. They don't like cold weather and won't tolerate frost. They also bruise very easily — if you order one online and it arrives with black spots, that's usually just bruising from shipment. Mountain Crest Gardens actually stopped carrying them for a while because of how many complaints they got. They've since worked out packaging that helps them to arrive in better condition. While the damage doesn't go away, it doesn't kill the plant or cause long term problems either.
My advice is still to use a gritty soil, pay attention to watering, and use the taco test. That's the best starting point. But I don't have a definitive Aeonium care answer because I'm still figuring it out myself.
If you have positive experiences growing Aeonium indoors, please email me! I'd love to know what's working for you.
Can Elephant Bush Recover From Cold Damage?
Elephant Bush is pretty tough. It became one of my favorite plants when we were living in Arizona — it tolerated both the heat and the cold.
If you had a good stem and the plant got hit by a cold snap, it'll very likely bounce back. It may not look great for a while, but cold damage usually affects the outer leaves and older growth first. The main stem tends to survive.
If you had weeks of freezing temperatures, that's a different story. But for a few cold nights, pruning back the damaged growth and giving it time is usually enough.
Stress Coloring — Getting Those Gorgeous Reds and Oranges
Stress color typically comes from sunlight, and sometimes from cold temperatures.
What I've been finding with my Haworthia and Haworthiopsis is that as long as I give them a ton of light — treating them more like Echeveria instead of keeping them in lower light — they maintain their red and orange coloring.
To shift a green plant into those stress colors, I've had the best results by letting the plant get slightly dehydrated while keeping it under really bright light. Give it enough water to stay alive, but let it dry out and get stressed. Then gradually increase the water while keeping the light intensity up.
I got a plant care card from a seller on Palmstreet, Cactus Cat Succulents, that summed it up perfectly: all succulents can essentially be full sun plants as long as they're getting enough water and they're not getting too much heat.
Don't be afraid to experiment with lighting — just make sure you're compensating with water when you increase it.
Transitioning Plants Between Indoors and Outdoors
If your succulents struggle when you bring them inside in the fall or take them outside in the spring, the issue is almost always that the change happened too fast.
Moving Plants Outdoors
Even if it's not hot outside, taking a plant from a window in your house and putting it in full sun will cause sunburn. Think of it like waking up in a dark room and having someone throw the curtains open at noon — it's blinding. Same thing happens to your succulents.
Move them to a shady area first. After a week or two, shift them to partial shade. Then eventually full sun. Do this after the last frost so they get cool nights without freezing. And if possible, give them morning sun rather than afternoon sun — it's less intense and easier to adjust to.
Moving Plants Indoors
The two big changes: less light and less airflow. That means soil dries out slower, so you'll need to water less frequently. If you were watering every two or three days outside in the summer, you might need to cut back to every two or three weeks indoors.
Give them time to adjust. Don't repot right away. And don't fertilize before bringing them in — the fertilizer will make them grow faster, and without enough light, that growth will be stretched and weak.
Heat and Humidity
High heat — over 100°F — is brutal for succulents, and the signs of heat stress look a lot like overwatering. It's basically heat exhaustion.
Arizona taught me this the hard way. I went through a lot of plants before I figured out that most succulents don't thrive in extreme heat, even with shade cloth. I eventually started doing the opposite of what most people do — bringing plants inside for the summer and putting them outside for the winter.
Humidity is another challenge. It makes watering harder because succulents absorb moisture through their leaves from the air, not just through their roots. In humid climates, you might see a plant with almost no roots that still looks plump and healthy — it's getting water from the air. But humidity also slows soil drying, which makes overwatering more likely.
The taco test helps standardize things no matter what climate you're in. Learning to read your succulents and understand what they're telling you makes a bigger difference than any specific watering schedule.
How the Cheerful Plants App Helps With All of This
One thing I hear sometimes is that the Cheerful Plants app doesn't seem to help organize a large collection. I think that comes from expecting it to sort everything out on its own — and it doesn't work that way.
However, as someone with hundreds of plants, I can say that my plants would be a disaster without the app.
What the app does is give you tools to organize your plants the way that makes sense for you.
For example, instead of listing all my plants under one shelf, I have five different locations per shelf in the app. That lets me view them in smaller groups, which makes watering much easier.
I also use the tags feature in the app to label plants with things like: where I bought it, whether it's a propagation, if it's in a specialty pot, etc. You could tag plants as "winter dormant" or "summer dormant" to help adjust watering seasonally. You could tag plants you're getting ready to sell. The tagging system is flexible enough to fit however you think about your collection.
Those tags act as custom groupings that can help make it easier to care for them too.
The app also lets you create custom care schedules beyond just watering — fertilizing, repotting, pruning, treating for pests, taking photos, or anything else you want to track. So when I'm going through my plants and I notice one needs to be repotted, I can add that as a task right then. It shows up in my task list later, and I don't have to keep it in my head.
If you're not sure how to set things up for your collection, send me an email. If you describe your watering flow or how you care for your plants, I can usually help you figure out an organization system that works.
Or, just try out the app and play around with it. It's fully functional and free to use for up to 5 plants. If you want to add more than 5 plants, it's just $2.99/month or $29.99/year.
Smaller Pots Tend to Work Better
This is a quick but important one. Most succulents do better in smaller containers (relative to the plant size) than bigger ones. Smaller pots dry out faster, and succulents don't like sitting in wet soil. A big container holds moisture longer, which makes rot more likely.
Succulents don't need a deep root system to thrive. So if your plant has shrunk or isn't filling out its pot anymore, try sizing down. You might be surprised at how much better it does.
Want More Help With Your Succulents?
There are a lot of components to plant care and it's hard to keep everything straight if you have more than a few plants. That's actually why I built the Cheerful Plants app. It helps you track your watering, set custom care reminders, and keep notes on each plant so you're not trying to remember everything yourself. It's free to try, so if you haven't checked it out yet, I'd love for you to give it a go.
And if you want more personalized help — like figuring out what's going on with a specific plant, or getting feedback on your setup — come join us in the Succulent Lovers Club. It's a community of people who are all learning and growing (pun intended) together, and I'm in there answering questions regularly. It's one of my favorite places to connect with people who love succulents as much as I do.