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| I gave haircuts to a few of the hanging baskets at work a few weeks ago, and took the cuttings home with me. I'm fairly new to houseplants, especially propagation. So I stuck the babies in water in a fairly light location, and they seem to be surviving, and they have some new roots.
However, I have no idea how long to leave them in water. I'm planning on using Al's mix, as it seems to work wonderfully for my other houseplants (a diffenbachia, snakeplant, fittonia, and a few spiderplants). Are they doing alright? They get indirect light from the west, maybe an hour or so of direct sun right before sunset. (the darn trees at my apartment complex block most my sun!)
Thanks to you all in advance. I've been browsing the forums for months now. There's a lot of good info on here, and everyone always seems so helpful. :)
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| Philodendron scandens If they are starting to root, pot them up now. Or you can just leave them in water but if you do they can be slow to adapt back to soil once it grows "water roots" P. scandens do fine permanently grown in water though. |
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| thanks! I have maybe 15-20 vines, I might just pot up most of them, and leave a few in the water. i think it'd be neat to compare how they grow. :) How many can/should I pot together, and what size pot? Since they don't actually have a root ball, i don't know how to choose a pot size. |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Mon, Jul 9, 12 at 9:55
| I would use a pot at least 2" deeper than the "bottom" of the cuttings/roots. Philos tend to wilt when going from water to soil, so don't be tempted to water too much because of that. IME, your roots are just the right size for the easiest transition. You may lose a couple leaves but that's OK. At those nodes, a new growth tip will almost certainly (eventually) emerge. Those cuttings look robust, I would have every confidence in them. |
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| Glad to hear, especially "from experience" Purple! I also just started to wonder, A few are browning already at the very ends, should I trim the excess stem off below the roots? I'm assuming that will eventually wither away anyways? |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Mon, Jul 9, 12 at 12:11
| If you're going to pot them, I wouldn't bother trimming but no reason not to if you want to, I'm just lazy about doing anything unnecessary. For those you leave in water, trimming that off will help keep the water from going nasty. Anything dead in the water will rot. It looks like there may be a couple dry leaf sheaths in the bottle. You may want to change the water and rinse the bottle before you put the manicured cuttings back in. And agree, they will stay alive indefinitely in water but probably not grow at the same rate as those in pots. The leaves will stay small. Everyone should satisfy their curiosity on this, it's fun and helpful to become more intimately acquainted with this plant. And no risk of overwatering! In fact, I don't think I've ever had one of these in water that died of anything besides me forgetting to add more water. You can trim the roots if they fill the bottle too much (and you can get it out of the opening.) Here are some cuttings I potted a couple weeks ago with different supports because I want to see if they will grow even bigger, mature-form leaves (although these supports may not be tall enough. That's about as much as I can do and still get them in the house for winter.) One of them is using part of a little wire cart that fell apart and the other has oak branches. There's also a risk of the branches rotting but by the time that happens, the vine should have done what it can and I'll repot and start over. These cuttings went straight from the mama to the pots which has resulted in a lot of wilting but few lost leaves. They were the biggest cuttings I've had to work with so far, some were about 4 feet long. They're finally perking up in the past few days so I'll be moving them back into a little sun soon, early AM or late PM, depending on which end of the front porch they get put. |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 11:58
| Got Philo on my mind this AM and remembered this thread. How's it going, raelynn? I was worried our giant dog would pee on the one with the sticks in the pot, which I've left in the back yard under a tree due to it being far too uncivilized for front porch culture. Luckily, he doesn't seem to think this looks like a good target. The aerial roots have affixed themselves to the sticks in places, but I put wayyyy too many cuttings in this pot. |
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