Saturday, April 12, 2014

Adromischus leaf cutting

I've been doing some transplanting and rearranging today and was surprised this Adromischus I've been leaf-propagating has grown really nice fat roots. It is much slower with actual leaves :)

3 comments:

  1. At the heart of a strong, healthy plant is a strong, healthy root system. Good growers always recognize this connections and pay close attention to the root systems of their plants. Inexperienced growers rarely see the root systems of their plants. They are usually afraid to take the plant out of the pot. I learned many years ago that if you are trying to find out why a plant is having problems, always start with the root system.

    Great looking leaf cutting Rika. A grower who is good at propagation, and doesn't lose many established plants, ends up with one big problem -- more plants than they have space for.
    It is inevitable. Let me know when the Living Stones Nursery opens. ;-)

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  2. Thank you :)
    The roots are nice but these plants are so slow. I have another leaf with a good root system but not even a hint of new leaves!

    Very true. Everytime I tell inexperienced growers they should always first repot their plants after buying them they are so surprised. Like this is something absolutely out of the ordinary. "Why would you ever do that?" Others do their repotting by taking the contents of one pot and putting them into a bigger pot while adding more soil. They don't even try to remove old soil from the roots or look at them properly, check if they are partly rotten or if there are bugs. Doen't cross their minds. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

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    Replies
    1. "The roots are nice but these plants are so slow. I have another leaf with a good root system but not even a hint of new leaves!"

      You can't change genetics. Liebig's Law of the Minimum. A plant will only grow as well (or as fast) as the minimum factor will allow. Sometimes that minimum factors is genetics. You can optimize all other factors but the plant will still only grow within the confines of what its genetic make up will allow. When genetics is your limiting factor, then you start tinkering with breeding to change the genetics. Hope you had a great weekend.


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