Aluminum Plant Babes Sprouting Roots

I was weary of clipping the tips off of my recently thriving aluminum plant, for fear they would whither and die - both the clippings and the original plant.  However, after just 2 weeks in the water, these clippings have grown some serious roots!

The one pictured above had the most root growth, which I gauged to be sufficient enough for planting in soil.  The other two clippings I have immersed in water are a little behind, so I probably won't pot them until this weekend.

Flea Market Babes

At the Dublin Flea Market today, I stopped by the plant lady's stand to scope out her latest clippings.  I snatched up two varieties of snake plants (much more substantial than the one I got in April!) and a spider plant (finally!).

From the minimal research I have done, I believe the spider plant can thrive in one of my indirect or bright light locations (a few feet away from and east or west window).  I'm going to just water it a small amount every few days, like I do with most of my other plants.

This snake plant did not have much of a root system when I pulled it out of the styrofoam cup.  I wonder if she just broke it off of its prior stem a few days or weeks before bringing it to the flea market?  If so, that could explain why it took the other one so long to start showing signs of growth (it was spending all of its energy re-growing lost roots!).

Dealing with Some Root Rot

So, I may have mentioned that I quasi-drowned my new Chinese evergreen plant.  Well, in the hopes of preventing further deterioration and possibly inspiring new growth, I decided to repot it and give it some fresh soil and a new home.

Having bought this square pot at a yard sale for about 67 cents the day before, I laid in some clean stone base in anticipation of its new occupant!

And then, the climactic moment - yanking the root ball out of the old pot!  As you can see, at least half of this root system has become rotted.

I decided the nasty glob of mushy roots would probably not return to life and probably was not providing much nutritional infrastructure for the plant, so I might as well get rid of it and make room for new growth.  It didn't take much poking and prodding to drop the rotten portion.  In the photo below you can see the portion of healthy roots that remain and the mound of soil and roots that were removed.

In its new pot, I think the Chinese evergreen looks fantastic!  I trimmed off more leaves that had yellowed and I am hoping those were the last to go, but I wouldn't be surprised if more fell off - it lost a significant portion of its rooting.  However, I feel like there is new growth coming out of the top so I am hopeful that there is still hope for this plant!

Making the Most of My Aluminum...?

The surviving aluminum plant I have has been doing very well this growing season.  I would estimate it has tripled in size since April.  I have been wondering how these things are best propagated.  I watched a youtube channel where the gardener uses clippings in a similar strategy to what I have attempted for African violets.  Although I am probably doing it at the wrong time of year and in less than ideal conditions, I wanted to give it a shot anyway.  If it doesn't work out then next year I'll just let that thing get huge and mangy.

The original plant before any clippings:

Early in the week, I tried a test clipping using my African violet technique.  I snipped a clipping about 3 leaf clusters in length, cutting off just before the next branch of leaves.  Then I pulled off the bottom two leaves to give myself a decent stem.  I put the stem in a jar with a hand-mixed soil and stone base.  After drenching the jar, I covered it in a zip-lock baggie to create a terrarium or greenhouse type of effect.  I stuck it in a west-facing window to see how it would hold up.  Well, the next day it did not look so good.  The top leaf had started to shrivel significantly and the rest of the leaves were extremely limp. Here it is below:

I decided these clippings might be best left open-air and "simply" watered every day.  I also decided to try one using my wandering Jew technique, which is to prepare the clipping in the same way, but instead of plunging it into moist soil, setting it in a jar of water.

 Checking back in on the original plant, I am wondering if there is already some new growth around the clipped stem.  See below.

Yesterday I decided to give the rest of the plant a good clipping a.) to experiment with more propagation and b.) to keep the plant's shape regular. 

Below you can see the newly seated plants in their jars.

...And below is the original plant after its complete trimming.

I'll check back in a few weeks to show you how the newbies are doing.

Getting Real About the Caladium Pest Problem

So, after weeks and weeks of no improvement with my caladium pest problem, I decided to take a more aggressive approach.

To quickly recap, thus far I was combatting the aphids/mites/bugs/pests by rinsing the whole plant under the sink and wiping off whatever visible bugs I could find.  Then I'd douse the stems and top of the soil with a part-rubbing alcohol, part-water spray.  The stalks would remain relatively free of bugs for a couple days, but invariably after a week, they'd be coated with creepy crawlers all over again.

So, about a week ago, I put the caladium outside on my stoop (south-facing and mostly unshaded).  I don't know why, but I tend to think that houseplant bugs can't handle the outdoors (when my ivy got infested with what may have been spider mites, I shoved it outdoors for awhile too.  In that particular instance, the ivy died shortly after.).  This did manage to eliminate several of the bugs, to my relief (basically saved me the step of flooding the whole plant under the faucet).

Next, I did a little research and determined that keeping a shade-loving plant in direct sunlight all day was probably not a long-term solution.  I brought the caladium inside and decide to repot it.  When I started removing the soil and rinsing it in the sink, I noticed the "tubers" (like a bulb) were separating or separated.  I decided to use some more of my handy dandy baby food jars as pots and divvy those bad boys up.

Then I prepped 6 or 7 baby food jars.  I started by dropping in maybe a half scoop of river gravel.

The gravel is always dirty or dusty when you get it, so it's a good idea to give the stones a quick rinse in the jars.  Notice in the photo below the pre-rinse jar on the right with cloudy water, and the post-rinse jar on the left with clear water.

Then I prepped some soil.  I don't have a lot in stock, so I used about 5 parts African violet potting soil (which is sphangum peat moss and vermiculite) to 2 parts perlite.  This may have been too much perlite, but I did my best to eyeball the combination of the original potting soil that came with the plant.

Then I thoroughly rinsed off each leaf, stalk and tuber before dropping the little tubers into the jars.  Each tuber had one to three leaves.  Lastly, I packed the jars tightly with my soil concoction.  I'm not sure if packing in the soil tightly was a good idea or not.  I tend to think that a compacted soil is most reminiscent of soil conditions outside, but I guess sometimes houseplants don't always need the same conditions as the outdoors, particularly when things like drainage become a concern.  I guess we will see how these make out!

For now, the plants will sit in isolated areas near sunny windows, until a week or two has passed when I feel confident the bug problem has not returned.

Petunias for the Winter

Today I read this post and decided to give this petunia propagation a shot myself!

Here is the mother plant, in a hanging basket outside my front door, which faces south and gets solid sun pretty much the entire day.  It's a little sparse from this angle and definitely doesn't have robust bloom it did in May.

Below are a few cuttings I yanked from the hanging basket.

Pulling off the leaves and blooms...

Preparing some pots.  Lately I like to use plastic sleeves inside ceramic pots or decorative containers. I'll let the plastic sleeves have a stone base or some other sort of prop in the bottom so that there is a reservoir for excess water to collect.  I like how these sleeves are a little smaller in diameter than their pots because it will allow the water to evaporate more quickly, keeping the plants in a humid environment and not letting it get funky down there.  The soil mixture I used was a few scoops of African violet mix, a scoop of vermiculite and a scoop of perlite.

After stirring up the soil mixture with a water globe, I plug in the first crop of petunias!  These stems did not look like they had any life left, so I think I'll be pretty lucky if any of these take root, much less stay green for a few more days.

I'm setting them on the window sill in my kitchen.  That's where I like to stash propagations because by default I see them every day and they are right by a water source so I will be more inclined to water them regularly.  The light is pretty good in that sill, too.