Well, lots has happened in Sylvia's life over the last two weeks or so.
First, I broke two of her limbs right off when I simply tried to move one of them out of the way as I retrieved Ska Sway from behind her. Honestly, I've had so many problems moving my plants. . . .
So anyways, the two limbs were joined together on Sylvia's main stock and they both snapped. But I did not notice immediately. Only after several hours went did I notice all the droopy leaves. So, I harvested almost all of the leaves and cut each limb into two pieces. Two of the four I placed into water and two I placed into a soil mix.
Then, about two days later, another limb broke off all by itself. I awakened in the morning to find it laying over, attached to the mainstem only by its skin. So, I harvested it in a similar fashion.
I have a short metal shelf, sort of like a miniature pantry shelf made of chrome-covered wire and stuff, and I placed all of the cuttings onto it and I'm using two 13 watt and one 20 watt CFL bulbs with a remote on-off switch that I keep next to my bed. I turn the lights on before sunrise and turn them off at about 11 pm each day so they get a lot of light. I bought a $.99 combination thermometer and hygrometer and placed it on the shelf with the plants. All of them fit together on a baking pan in which I also keep a layer of water for humidity. Finally I'm able to follow "nothim"s suggestion that I keep the plants at or about 20C and they absolutely love it! I was using ziplock bags over each plant's container but several of them developed browning leaves and I suspect it was from too much moisture as I was also misting them every day and sometimes several times per day. Now I've removed the ziplock bags they're doing much better. Of the nine cuttings, six have already sprouted some roots. So now Sylvia has nine children!!!! Well, actually ten, because yesterday I decided to be proactive and I snipped off the end of one of her remaining limbs and placed it in with the rest. It is the only one of the bunch that has a ziplock bag over it. I'm not misting it at all, as the moisure already has formed inside the bag, and I'll probably remove that as well since the hygrometer says the humidity is hovering at about 60%. Well, it dropped a bit when I opened up the shelf to take photos and admire the plants but otherwise it is at 60%.
Oh, and i removed the two cuttings from the soil and placed them in glasses with water as well. The plant that is in the pot in the photo is the surviving tip of one of the Sway sisteres that I broke several months ago. I managed to nurse it back to life by placing a ziplock bag over the top of the pot until I noticed some growth and it has grown a lot since then. It was quite tiny and not growing at all when I decided to try the ziplock bag.
Finally, outside the view in the photo I have four "stubs" of stalk that I've buried in dirt in small pots and covered them with plastic wrap. I didn't know whether I should simply immerse these in water or not. They're only an inch or so long and would simply lay completely underwater if I did and thought maybe it would be better to place them in moist dirt so they could get a little bit of air. What do you think, folks??
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:59 am
Silly question! I know