GREEN CRUSHER'S LIFE SPAN (SALVIA)

[Hero4Evz]

I use regular tap water and I'm lazy and don't even let it sit out. Campus water here is TERRIBLY full of iron (to the point it tastes similar to blood) and my clones love it. Personally its all up to the water in your area, but most minerals in tap water (minus the chlorine that SHOULD be left to evaporate) should be sufficient in most areas of the country.

[incensesalvia]

March 27
So what I did was in a way, "fix" all the problems on March 25.

1ST STEP- Separate both plants from each other. Grabbed 2 terracotta ceramic pots and filled the bottom of the inside  with marbles (for excellent drainage). Mixed 1/4 Perlite with 3/4 potting soil. Poured into pots. Placed plants in separate pots, and sprinkled Rootone around the base of the stem. Then I lightly watered the soil to make it damp.

2ND STEP- Placed 2 liter bottles over the plants to act as a humidity chamber. I misted the inside of the bottles and took off the caps. Placed bottles over plants and moved both to area of my house where it received the most indirect sunlight exposure my house could get on the inside.

Don't forget to place your pots on a surface like an oven rack. It allows the drainage to happen. Otherwise, the water pools around the base of your pot and the soil will never dry, causing root rot on your plant.

As of today, I see leaves sprouting around the nodes where all the previous leaves had fallen off. This little guy survived with only one leaf. Too bad my other salvia plant died due to root rot. It was already rotten when I transplanted it, but I had hope. Only one didn't have root rot, and it's thriving now. Slowly but surely, I will have a great salvia garden.

[drift]

Nice job recovering that, dude. You should consider renaming it Stumpy for now - I hope it grows into a badass plant for ya.

[incensesalvia]

Stumpy?  I dunno about that one. I'll be nice to it and keep calling it Green Crusher. I want it to think it's real big and scary so that it'll grow into a perfect big and scary plant.

... it's all in it's head..

[incensesalvia]

NEW PICTURES JUNE 12 2009

It's been 3 months since I've had this plant, and growth is super slow. I'm not quite sure why it's so slow, as I feel I'm doing all the right things:

-I mist it 3x per day
-Sits by the window out of direct light. It gets northern exposure from North California = never in direct sun
-Watered lightly 1x per week.
-Take off chamber each day thus increasing the time without a chamber


Why is this little guy suuuper slow?
Any ideas?

[stoney7713]

Well that chamber, being the type pf plastic it is, might block out a lot of the needed spectrum of light.  Do you have a different plastic maybe? 

     Also I'm just gonna throw this out there, at work I deal with UV lights almost all night long.  We had to make these lights "shatter proof" and so we put the florescent tube covers over them.  They are nothing more then a thin plastic nothing special just to cover the bulbs in case of breakage.

      What I found out is even though the tubes were not listed as UV blocking DID block a lot of the UV light.  Also with more study, trial and error, I found a lot of plastics do block a good portion of UV light, which could also block other usable light for plants.  Now I know to much UVB can harm plants, UVA is still debatable about plant use but it gets close to the  range at which plants start photosynthesis. 



200 - 280 nm    UVC ultraviolet range which is extremely harmful to plants because it is highly toxic.

280 - 315 nm    Includes harmful UVB ultraviolet light which causes plants colors to fade.

315 - 380 nm    Range of UVA ultraviolet light which is neither harmful nor beneficial to plant growth.  Research being conducted and is debatable)

380 - 400 nm    Start of visible light spectrum. Process of chlorophyll absorption begins. UV protected plastics ideally block out any light below this range.

400 - 520 nm    This range includes violet, blue, and green bands. Peak absorption by chlorophyll occurs, and a strong influence on photosynthesis. (promotes vegetative growth)

520 - 610 nm    This range includes the green, yellow, and orange bands and has less absorption by pigments.

610 - 720 nm    This is the red band. Large amount of absorption by chlorophyll occurs, and most significant influence on photosynthesis. (promotes flowering and budding)

720 - 1000 nm    There is little absorption by chlorophyll here. Flowering and germination is influenced. At the high end of the band is infrared, which is heat.

1000+ nm    Totally infrared range. All energy absorbed at this point is converted to heat.


If anyone can provide more info on this help me out.  I don't want to give bad info, this is just what I've researched myself.  Thanks

[Hero4Evz]

You could probably afford to not water so much to. I've cut watering down to almost all of my plants to once a month. Make sure for certain the plant it drying out as not enough oxygen to the roots can really slow growth. Acclimation will also slow down plant growth as it now has to focus on growing new leaves not it's current ones that are not acclimated. As soon as you get that humidity tent off you plant should start to take off.

[incensesalvia]

Alright alright.
Here's what I'm going to do, based on comments.

Step 1- Immediately switch to a Diet Coke bottle, since the current bottle may be blocking UV light. And I love Coke.

Step 2- Keep trying to get my plant acclimated to Northern California (Sacramento) weather.

Step 3- Water less. My soil is always appearing to be dry. Because if I tug on the base of the plant, it almost seems like       the plant can pop right out of the soil. But I don't EVER EVER want that.

[stoney7713]

     Use your finger and push into the soil at the side of the pot, if it feels moist 1/2in to 1in down that plant has enough water.  If in doubt use your finger...lol

[incensesalvia]

If I forget to mist the plant for a few days, say I go on a 3 day trip, how much damage could I be doing to the plant?
I knew it wouldn't be good, so I gave it a good watering before I left. I hope it does just fine. I assumed as long as the soil is quite moist, it would at least create some kind of humidity in the soda bottle chamber.

[nitelife]

If I forget to mist the plant for a few days, say I go on a 3 day trip, how much damage could I be doing to the plant?
I knew it wouldn't be good, so I gave it a good watering before I left. I hope it does just fine. I assumed as long as the soil is quite moist, it would at least create some kind of humidity in the soda bottle chamber.

It will be fine, if you mist the bottle really good, and even consider laying a 1/2 inch layer of damp/wet perlite on top of your soil to keep humidity high.

[Hero4Evz]

You should be perfectly fine. I think the benefits of misting are overrated, especially when using a humidity tent already.

[nitelife]

You should be perfectly fine. I think the benefits of misting are overrated, especially when using a humidity tent already.

This is true, "why mist the plant when you have a humidity tent?"; However, Misting will help hang your plants over for another day or 2

[incensesalvia]

The reason I mist it is because the humidity tent (soda bottle) doesn't keep moist. It dries after several hours. The humidity tent works temporarily. It's because there's no lid, so the mist on the side of the bottle evaporates.

[nitelife]

Maybe make a ceran wrap lid, or get your clone used to the top being open!