Kalanchoe

I first bought this plant from Frederick's Flowers back in September 2013.  It was in bloom already so I'm not sure how long the bloom typically lasts.  I believe blooms started to fall off in the winter time.  It didn't really get totally bare until a couple months ago.  In some recent research, you are supposed to cut the flower stems back after the blooms fall off, to promote new blooms in the next season.  I think I am in the blooming season now because some blooms are starting up again.

September 2013:

April 2014:

After my recent post about propagating some succulents, I remembered that this rascal was a succulent and, shoot, it's grown so much new foliage over the past few months, why not try ripping some of that off - excuse me, pruning it back - and using the clippings as potential propagations.  The first thing I did was to remove undesirable leaves.  In the photo below you can see I have cut off or pulled off the oldest leaves at the bottom, most of which had started to turn crispy brown at the tips.  I'm not sure why they turned brown like that, but that's a mystery for another post.  Another thing to note is that those leaves are monsters compared to the new growth.  I'm wondering if the new green leaves will enlarge as much as the older leaves are or if I should be modifying my care of this plant.

April 2014:

In the photo below you can see that I am trying some cluster clippings and some leaf clippings.  Usually I find that cluster clippings (for plants in general) develop faster, so we'll see how these pan out.  It seems that with succulents you need to let them "dry out" or "callus over" before you try to get the new clippings to grow roots.  So here I have laid them out on a dry East-facing window sill to sit for a few days.

 Here is the post-pruning mama plant with some minimal new blooms:

I also decided now would be a good time to repot, mainly because I had just purchased some potting soil that is supposed to be good for succulents and cactuses.  You can see in the photo below that this plant has not become "root bound" in the pot, so I figure I will just try to remove as much of the soil from the rootball without damaging the root system, and repot into the same pot using some new cactus soil.

I have to post photos of the newly modified succulent cluster - I moved it outside onto my front door stoop, hopefully so it can get some more direct sunlight throughout the day, since my door faces South.  Although I do have some concern that going from 9 months in my climate-controlled house to every day in rising and lowering temperatures and humidity levels may be a bit too much of a shock for many of the new clippings to survive.  Perhaps tomorrow I will take some out and bring them back inside to use as a "control group."