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.

New "Pots" and Fresh Rock

When asked if I would like to become the new owner of a hoarder's collection of old baby food jars, I couldn't have been more ecstatic!  Those jars are great for all sorts of of practical purposes, whether spray painted and bedazzled for storage solutions a la pinterest, or fill with snackage during trips or work, or, most applicably to this blog, for potting new baby plants!

Boxes of baby food jars after this post's pottings:

My first plan with these jars was to provide new homes for all of my succulent propagations which had been in mismatched clay pots and saucers and other random pots.  This involved probably 15-20 jars, not to mention I used up all of the stones I had.

Then I decided to repot my bamboo, which probably wasn't quite thriving in its unsupported "soil."  I took it out of the green pot it came in which had some tiny stones and dirty stone debris along with mostly the water storage gels.  As much as I like the gels, I really like the look of the bamboo growing in just straight polished stone as view through glass.  One day I may return to the gels, when my bamboo is on the verge of obliteration from water neglect, but for now I feel confident I can keep it watered and looking classy.

Not all of my orchids have been thriving lately.  The one and only orchid I've been able to get to re-bloom (albeit for a short while) was the one I had transplanted to a glass vase.  Since my little itty bitty orchid seems to be doing all right and has in fact sprouted a new babe, I decided to move this one into glass jar to hopefully continue its success.

And lastly, because I like to rearrange my plants so often - partly due to the ever-changing climate and lighting conditions, partly due to individual plant growth, and mainly due to my need for a fresh and interesting display - I will include a photo of my plant corner:

Note to future self: take more "before" photos...

Sunday Cleaning

I have been somewhat neglectful of my house plants the past couple of weeks.  This is partly due to an overbooked schedule as well as some extended out of town trips.  For the first time ever, to my knowledge, I let my aluminum plant get so dried out that it was drooping!  Of course this was so startling to me that I didn't even think to snap a photo, I just ran to my watering can as soon as I saw it.  My polka dot plants were drooping and wilting, too, but those don't seem to concern me as much as old aluminum.  Luckily, the resiliency of these plants pulls through and you can see below how the aluminum plant perked right back up after a thorough watering.

A couple days into the week I realized that my double pot technique was not working for this Chinese evergreen.  I had placed this draining pot that it came in into a non-draining plastic pot so that I could drop the pot into a porous rustic looking old terra cotta pot, and not need a saucer.  As it turns out, the plastic non-draining pot was a little too snug, such that it did not allow for any overflow water to escape and thus the overflow of the way from the draining pot filled up in this little reservoir I created and kept the roots way too wet.  The result is the yellowing and drooping leaves.  What you can't garner from these photographs is the stench the stagnant rainwater left in this soil.  It smells so foul, I thought about letting it outside to air out for awhile.  I surmised that just letting the original pot rest on a small saucer was the best move for this plant for right now.  I'll have to keep my eyes open for a larger pot for the evergreen.

In researching this plant (in an effort to affirm what I had already assumed - that the yellow leaves were the result of overwatering), I discovered that it is common practice to remove the flowers.  Since this evergreen's flowers appeared to have stagnated in development (probably due to the aforementioned overwatering), I decided to snip them.  Additionally, they had begun to decay and/or leach onto the leaves a brownish goo reminiscent of withering iris debris.  I also noticed an unusual clear sap-like array of drips on some of the leaves.  I suspect this is also from the decaying flowers.  After reading this info about removing the flowers, I went ahead and snipped them all off at the stems as close to the main trunk as possible.

Lastly today, I decided to migrate my gerber daisy propagations from the sill by my front door up to the east-facing sill where the rest of my bright light plants are.  I repotted the small one shown in the itty bitty terra cotta pot below, and I also repotted the one in the square plastic pot, which was doing famously until this photo where it appears a bit saggy and on the verge of wilting.  The middle-sized gerber seemed to be doing quite well, with a root sticking out the bottom of its inner plastic pot.  It appears that the seed in the larger pot grew the largest, the seed in the smallest pot grew the smallest and the seed in the mid-sized pot grew to be a mid-sized plant, thus far.  In spite of this, I think I will leave the medium sized plant in its current pot, since that pot does a good job of keeping the soil moist every day (its inner sleeve is much smaller than the ceramic pot, so a lot of water stores in the bottom, which that protruding root is able to suck up from.

Caladium Pest (Trying to Take) Control

Almost since I brought this plant home it has had a problem with this gnat-like insect spreading over its stems and in some cases the undersides of the leaves.  I have tried googling this problem, but I am having a hard time identifying the pest and therefore effectively eliminating it.  So far my method has involved drenching the plant with my kitchen hose and knocking off as many of the pests as a can.  Then I give the plant a thorough watering and spritz all the leaves and stems with a half-and-half (more or less) spray of rubbing alcohol and water mixture.  It's a home remedy I found online, which I figured I'd try before going out and buying some expensive (and potentially ineffective) pesticide.

I can't tell if this leaf damage is from the insects, or the alcohol sprays I've been applying, or if it's just a little weary from a hot and dry extended weekend when I wasn't home to water it as needed.  It was the only plant of mine to be particularly droopy when I returned home from Michigan this weekend.

With this most recent drenching and spritzing I ended up spraying out a lot of the soil, too.  I applied a topcoat of an African Violet potting mixture (the only fresh stuff I had), to cover up the roots that became exposed with the drenching.  I'm starting to wonder if reusing potting soil has its disadvantages.  I don't recall if I reused potting soil for this one, but I doubt I really shook it out when I transferred this pot from its store pot.