The Mystery Shovel Grow

[MstryShovel]

yup the mother plant is doing great, shes got tons of viable cutting material,  and grown over 3 inches after the last cutting i took from the tallest branch, anyways shes doing amazing even though I kinda shocked her a couple times over the last month by being lame on the watering. regardless, she has done marvelously.

the cutting is actualy in bad shape and has a lepard pattern of green and yellow from where i have almost killed it plenty of times, but its still growing and now sitting in my bubbler setup (btw my guide i just added on to the DIY: DWC hydro post in cultivation) im anxious to see how well it does,

have any sudjestions on good mixes to put into the water for it? like brands and ammounts, i wont be ferting the water for a little while but still it will be in a week or 2. also I'm planning on keeping the bubbler + lamp for it on a timed 3-4 hour cycle (plant also gets ambient room light) and my main question is the bubbler doesnt NEED to be on all the time right? 3-4 hours a day should be plenty right? just to keep it oxygenated.

[Paradoxic]

The bubbler must be on 24/7, its really not a good idea to do anything less. 3-4 hour cycle is fine, as long as theres decent ambient light.

As far as fertilizer, with Salvia I have only used the GH (General Hydroponics) 3-part and just used the typical vegetative growth formula. This set requires mixing and to be honest, in the case of Salvia it doesnt make it any better for it. Just get some kind of single bottle formula, I'd recommend organic. A good one I've used with other plants is GH Flora Nova.

[MstryShovel]

update:

the cutting is doing great at 6 days it has new growth (2 nodes in about half an inch of new growth(which i think is amazingly compact)) this little bugger(sd) is definitely more hardy than some guides give it credit for.

also a point of interest that im lawling over, is the root mass of that cutting, at one of the nodes, there is actually an underwater set of leaves, that is beleive it or not growing bigger, and has been growing since before i put it in the hydrofarm. point being its getting like 5-10% ambient light and surviving underwater, without rotting. i guess its all that O2 in the water keeping it happy  (im leaving the air pump on 24/7 and have the light to come on for around 5 hours every day while the sun is rising and setiting(mid day)

I also got a fertilizer for mixing with the water, Miracle-gro liquid houseplant food (8-7-6) and the cutting is loving it, As soon as another month goes by i will be adding it to the soil plant's water aswell, but right now i have these time release spikes that are gunna still be potent till another month or so

[Paradoxic]

Glad to see your cutting is doing well. Thats sweet you got some underwater leaves growing, can you get a close-up pic of that?

[MstryShovel]

Heres an update on my mother plant Clemence (so named because it means compassion and she has shown me some great ammount of it)



All cuttings I tried to make from her have failed, horribly, i suppose I am Simply executing the command incorrectly. Ive learened, just ran out of mother plant limbs to keep experimenting, clemnence is responding beautifully to my hatcheting though,  with alot of new growth:



shes done so well even with my bumbling hands but she knows i mean well and is slowly teaching me what she has to offer which as she visits me in my dreams is EVERYTHING!

[Crispy]

All cuttings I tried to make from her have failed, horribly, i suppose I am Simply executing the command incorrectly. Ive learened, just ran out of mother plant limbs to keep experimenting, clemnence is responding beautifully to my hatcheting though,  with alot of new growth:

I have also failed at cuttings, they lived for about 3-4 weeks in water, but one started turning brown and another wasnt looking so hot so I tried putting them in damp soil. They died.

It has occured to me to try propagating them like they do in the wild, make one of the limbs be in contact with soil until it grows roots, either that or wrap some damp peat moss or whatever around a stem, then wrap that in plastic to keep the moisture in- that should cause rootlets to grow out the stem. Then after a month or something, cut that stem, remove the plastic and put it in some soil.

[MstryShovel]

yeah the wrapping it idea is good, would be interesting to try later when i have a long enough stem, from what ive gathered is they need a good amount of stem and a good bunch of leaves to put out roots with any speed, i had a cutting sit in watter for a full month before i could even see any rootlets, and people have said they root for them in a week, crazytalk!

[Arcygenical]

Do your cuttings look like this when you take them?


A good 3/4" of stem below the lowest node (remove the leaves on that node) and at least 3" above that node? I've never had a problem if you do something like that.

After it roots, do you keep it in 100% humidity carefully for at least 5 days until it perks up?

[MstryShovel]

no ususlay
the cuttings are much smaller and usualy only have 2 sets of leaves, this along with the humidity tent baggie are things that i plan on doing in the futrue(having bigger cuttings)