Picture taken August 7, 2009.
Haworthia herbacea
This drought tolerant member of the Aloaceae family is cold hardy in zones 10a-11 (30-40 degrees F). It grows to about 6 inches in height. It is light green and kind of resembles a miniature Aloe. Now, I bought this from Lowe’s and the tag says it is the herbacea species, but it looks kind of like a different species to me. The tag says they grow best in filtered light, but other information suggests sun to part shade. Mine has been growing well in morning sun during the summer. This is another plant I re-planted into a larger pot with the WRONG mix. I almost lost it until I re-planted it into a smaller pot with the correct mix. It still has been touch and go but the plant seems to be hanging in there. They are supposed to have white blooms but mine has not bloomed yet. As with all Haworthias, it is summer dormant, so most of the growth will occur in the fall-spring or early summer. They are drought tolerant, but water thoroughly when dry and avoid damp soil especially in cooler months.
Use a professional soilless medium when re-potting specially formulated for cacti and succulents. I grew up using my own mixture of soil, some organic matter from the compost pile and a little potting mix because it has vermiculite in it for aeration. I would throw in a little sand with cactus because, heck, they are from the desert! Well, that doesn’t work so well with succulents! Soilless doesn’t mean “artificial” dirt! It means that there isn’t any top soil in the mix. The mix is a blend of organic materials like bark, sphagnum moss, vermiculite, etc. Some mixes have bat guano, worm castings, etc. in it also. The professionals know what they are doing! We have to learn by experience… Experience tells me to use a professional mix!
2-27-2010 UPDATE on my Haworthia herbacea… This really has been a nice little succulent, however it seems to be a bit touchy. At times, it looks as if has been trying to die. A few days ago, I decided to re-pot it again in a Miracle Grow Cactus medium, but I actually wound up separating the clump into four small pots. From the first time I re-potted it till now, the roots seemed not to grow at all. It is a very difficult succulent to re-pot because it is hard to get the roots down into the soil when the root system is so small and the top growth is kind of fuzzy-like and stringy. All those stems you see in the above picture are actually individual plants! So, you have to be careful about planting… If you re-pot the whole clump you have to be careful it doesn’t fall apart. It almost makes you want to mash the whole clump down into the soil, but that might just kill it completely.
So far, dividing and it transplanting it into four smaller clumps seems to be successful. None of them seem to be dying yet anyway!
