Succulent with a brown stem - what's wrong with it?

[scouttherobot]

Hi there,

I'm new to Helpful Gardener and this is my first post. I bought a succulent (Graptopetalum amethystinum I think) recently, and at the store it was perfectly healthy. A friend wanted to propagate it so she cut off some leaves from the plant. Since then the stem has been brown and looking like it's dying. I'm not sure what caused this, or if it can be fixed?

Here are some pictures:

I know the plant probably didn't get enough water at the beginning, so I've been giving it water regularly now.

Any thoughts would be welcome on what I can do to help my plant and get it back to being healthy again! Thank you!

[LoveThePlants]

Hi there, there's a good chance you over watered it and to me, it looks like it is rotting now. Good news though! Simply cut it where the brown begins on the plant and gently take off some of its leave and stick it right into the dirt. Don't forget to remove the old rotted roots though. And let the dirt dry out before you water it again. One more thing, this succulent can get pretty leggy (tall) and flop over. Just cut off the plant, and stick it in some dirt. And the rest of leaves you can turn into more plants. Look up succulent propagation on google or Pinterest for more information. Hope this helps!

[scouttherobot]

Hi LoveThePlants,

Thanks for your quick response. I really doubt that it was overwatered - I actually didn't water it for 1-2 weeks by accident (I thought someone else was watering it). I probably overwatered it now, but the brown stem appeared way before that.

Also I have already propagated the plant and I was wondering if that's what caused the brown stem. Not sure if I should cut off the entire stem and roots basically, I'm scared this will hurt the plant even more... Plus, the other leaves are healthy so not sure there are rotting roots.

Do you have any other theories on what could have caused the rotting stem?