Succulents are resilient plants, adapted to arid environments by storing water in their leaves, stems, or roots. Despite this hardiness, many perish in home environments, often due to misplaced attention rather than neglect. Their demise is usually rooted in common care mistakes that compromise their specialized anatomy.
The Primary Killer: Improper Watering
The single most frequent reason succulents fail is an excess of moisture, which leads to a condition called root rot. Succulent roots require air pockets in the soil to breathe, but when the soil is kept consistently wet, these spaces fill with water, effectively drowning the root system. Once deprived of oxygen, the roots die, creating an entry point and food source for fungal and bacterial pathogens that cause decay.
This problem is often a matter of watering frequency rather than volume, as the plant’s roots cannot tolerate prolonged dampness. The decay begins below the surface, turning the healthy, firm roots into black or brown mush. By the time above-ground symptoms appear—such as yellowing, mushy, or translucent leaves—the rot has often progressed too far to save the plant. To prevent this, the soil should be completely saturated during watering, allowing water to flow out of the drainage hole, and then allowed to dry out completely before the next watering, a cycle known as “drench and dry.”
Light and Temperature Extremes
While water issues are the most common internal threat, improper light and temperature conditions represent significant external risks. An inadequate light environment forces the plant to stretch its growth in a desperate search for illumination, a process called etiolation. This results in an abnormally long, pale, and weak stem with widely spaced leaves, which permanently compromises the plant’s structural integrity and health.
A sudden introduction to intense, direct sunlight can cause sunburn, appearing as bleached, scarred, or brown spots on the leaves. This damage permanently weakens the plant’s ability to photosynthesize. The most immediate threat, however, is cold exposure, particularly temperatures below freezing (32°F). Since succulents store a high volume of water, frost causes the water inside the plant cells to freeze, expand, and rupture the cell walls, turning the affected tissue into a dark, mushy substance that cannot be revived.
Hidden Dangers: Soil and Pests
The planting medium itself is a frequent, yet overlooked, contributor to succulent mortality, directly enabling root rot. Standard commercial potting soil is formulated to retain moisture for common houseplants, making it too dense and water-retentive for succulents. This lack of porosity prevents proper aeration around the roots and prolongs the period of dampness after watering. Succulents require a gritty, fast-draining mix, often containing inorganic materials like perlite, pumice, or coarse sand, to mimic their native arid, rocky habitats.
The container choice is equally important; a pot without a drainage hole traps excess water at the bottom, creating a reservoir of moisture that guarantees root suffocation and decay. Beyond the soil, a plant weakened by poor conditions is also an easy target for common sap-sucking pests. Mealybugs and scale insects are two of the most damaging, using piercing mouthparts to extract the plant’s internal fluids. Mealybugs appear as small, white, cottony masses in leaf crevices, while scale insects look like tiny, waxy, brown bumps fixed to the stems and leaves. If untreated, these pests drain the plant’s resources, leading to stunted growth and eventual death.