Hi everyone -

My dear girl Rosie had a rough go of it before I got a grow light. Now I've reported her and a couple of leaves came off in the process. She looks so bare…

Is it healthier to snip off the rosette and replant her? Or leave her as is assuming she's not stretching anymore? I don't mind the look at all. I just love having her around.

I just hate to "behead" the lovely… I'm a very gentle person and feel bad about the term behead!

Thanks for your help!

I would go for a while with the stronger light and make sure it's getting enough, then once you have that question solved maybe consider restarting the plant from a cutting taken near the top. I would cut at the red line (or an equivalent spot as the plant develops):

Beheading is very often the route to multiheadedness (as the mother plant will most likely respond by branching) and there's nothing to fear about this road as long as you are careful to provide strong light and exercise some discipline with the water.

Any leaves that have come off in the process of handling the plant you can just lay on top of the soil, so that the base of the leaf is in contact with soil, and there's a good chance a new rosette with its own set of roots will sprout from there.

I've had the light for a couple months now, since I first realized how tall she had gotten. It seems to have slowed down the growth a lot.

Is it healthy to leave her this way? Or is it best to trim once I know the grow light is helping?

And all the leaves that have come off have grown new rosettes! They're so cute!

The only issue I would see is stability. The stretched stem will be weaker than regular (normal) compact stem, and at some point the weight on top might go sideways. Otherwise this would seem to be mostly an aesthetic decision.

It sounds like you already have a new family started, and it will continue to go strong through the winter if you can provide that strong light and mild temps.

Thank you so much! You're my go to for succulent concerns!

Ehr_2131 said:Hi everyone -

My dear girl Rosie had a rough go of it before I got a grow light. Now I've reported her and a couple of leaves came off in the process. She looks so bare…

.................

I just hate to "behead" the lovely… I'm a very gentle person and feel bad about the term behead!

Perhaps it would feel more natural if you renamed her Marie instead of Rosie.

If you look in the plant database on this site @ pics of Sedeveria, Graptoveria, you can see pic of plants that were beheaded, plants that weren't and formed kind of a patch, plants that weren't and stretched to grow in more of a dangling form, they are very adaptive plants to whatever look you prefer. Your plant looks fine to me.

https://garden.org/plants/

I'm not sure what kind of succulent you have there, but it looks a little like a ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense?). They tend to have a longer "stalk", and eventually will lean over to grow pendant over the side of the pot. They look good in multiples in a hanging pot, sounds like you are on your way to starting more anyhow, you might consider this.
If "beheading" sounds too harsh, just call it "propagating"!

Just found her label - graptoveria "April dawn."