The sight of a shriveled and sunken-looking succulent filling a spot on your shelf or hanging basket is the last thing you want to see!
However, it is an all too common succulent problem with which many succulent owners experience one time or another.
At this point, you might be reaching for the watering can because your thought is I can just fix this by watering the plant back to its health, but it is important to understand that succulents get wrinkly for a number of reasons, and you need to understand how to diagnose and cure the root cause.
In This Article – We will review: the causes of wrinkles in succulents, steps you can take to remedy the drying of your beloved succulents, and how to prevent the wrinkling of your succulent plants.
A shriveled and wrinkly succulent is a sad sight
An unhappy plant is one that has soft and wrinkled succulent leaves.
If your succulent displays any of the following you need to start thinking based on the list below so you can do something about it:
- Fingers shriveled leaf structure
- Wrinkled skin/crepe like
- Leaves appear brown or rotting
- Translucent, soft or mushy leaves
This situation will not resolve itself and if left alone, your succulent will probably begin losing leaves and eventually die.
Once a plant displays some significant symptoms and is advanced along the spectrum and is significantly wrinkled, it probably won’t recover. You can have good hopes to remedy your plant more effectively at the early symptoms.
There are several causes of a wrinkled succulent
After seeing a wrinkled succulent you are likely already reaching for the watering can, but there are several reasons for a wrinkled succulent.
Here are the top ones.
Overwatering
Because succulents are drought-resistant, the wrinkled plant is most likely an overwatered plant.
Your succulent stores water in its tissues, but when water is in excess, the water storage cells swell, burst and stretch, causing the leaves to become limp and wrinkled.
When the succulent droops and turns color, the leaves will become transparent, because the excess water will dilute the color.
If the green-colored chlorophyll in the leaves is diluted, the plant cannot make its own food, and it will not survive.
Wrinkly-leaved squishy plants like this will begin to rot with roots, drop leaves and die.
Underwatering
If you’ve underwatered a succulent, you’ll also get a shriveled up succulent, you may notice that the leaves have shriveled up and are dry, they may also have brown tips on the leaves or curling inwards from the edges.
The leaves will lose all water from their storage tissues and start to dry from the bottom up, so the leaves will be limp and flat if you pick them up and you will see almost all of the water has been depleted.
Most importantly, with an underwatered succulent, you will find that the soil of the plant is bone dry, in comparison to an over watered succulent.
Once a succulent has dehydrated to the point of shriveled or shriveled leaves, it will continue to degrade rapidly, by dropping leaves, and the plant dying if not dealt with.
Inadequate sunlight
If a succulent is suffering from insufficient light, it may also look a bit wrinkly because of a lack of growth.
The leaves lose color and become:
- faded
- flattened
- and stretched
The process of growth or stretching of the plant to seek light causes a succulents leaves to spread with wrinkled or large gaps between leaves with an elongated stem.
Too much sunlight
An excess of sunlight can also lead to an unattractive succulent behind drying and wrinkling.
This reaction is a defense to help the succulent evade intense UV and heat. You may also notice beige spots or being tightly shut.
If the succulent continues to receive too much sun, it will establish dormancy. The extreme burn will cause the leaves to lay flat and turn yellow and brown as they dry up.
Compact soil
Densely packed, inefficiently aerated soil can negatively affect the ability of a succulent’s roots to uptake water from soil and appear wrinkled and dehydrated.
Tackling a wrinkly succulent
How you go about recovering your wrinkly succulent will depend on what you perceive to be the cause of the problem.
The problem isn’t always straight-forward, but being open to treating common problems can get your succulent back to recovery.
You will need to put in some experimenting and you may lose your plant while experimenting.
In order to get the best outcome to your problem, you will want to treat it as an overall plant health problem, instead of wrinkling.
Adjusting water should always be the first step
With wet, soggy soil, you should reduce watering to allow your succulent to recover.
To dry out the plant quickly, take the succulent out of the potting soil before it starts to rot. Place the succulent on a roll of kitchen towel and allow it to air-dry for a few days.
If the roots haven’t rotted, you can go ahead and pot it back into new soil.
For an underwatered succulent – you can water your plant straight away. If the dehydration is extreme, and you’re feeling particularly brave, you can even soak your succulent in water.
Water therapy is the process of placing sulfur succulent plant roots in clean water so that it can absorb the amount of water it requires to recover.
Be careful though because this can also damage the succulents so should be used as a last resort.
From now on, you may invest in a succulent water moisture stick or, like we discussed earlier, use a cocktail stick to monitor the moisture levels of the succulent’s soil like a dipstick!
Switch the soil
Consolidated, unfit soil can negatively impact the health of succulents.
Use managing moisture levels as an impetus to repot succulents into an appropriate potting mix, ideally free of soil, and incorporates aeration and drainage – it works better!
Great choices: Terra-Cotta pots are also best for succulents because they great drainage features. Clay can absorb excess water and release it when the succulent needs it.
Getting the lighting just right
Dealing with too much sunlight is simply a matter of relocating your succulent to a better shaded or tolerable location.
It can be easy to seriously underestimate the sunlight needs of an indoor succulent.
If your succulent takes too long to dry out after watering, it may not be provided with the proper sun to transpire correctly:
- Make sure the succulent sit directly by a window where they receive at least a few hours of sun each day.
- Putting a houseplant outside for a few hours at day would also help these succulents to perk up and flourish.
- During the winter months, you may want to consider the use of a timed grow light to respond to the soil needs of your succulents.
Rounding up
In terms of plant care, succulents are probably some of the most easygoing plants around, so if you notice your plant starting to wrinkle, that should be an alert that your plant needs attention.
If caught early, the main causes for a succulents wrinkling can be fixed.
Water, light, and soil should be the first three areas to really get to the bottom of for long-term plant health.