The Mystery Shovel Grow

[MstryShovel]

Strain: Divinatum ...  
Lighting: window cill and lamp with "full spectrum" bulb
Grow Media/Soil Mix: pottingsoil/45% vermiculite
Fertilizer: miricale grow 3-15-3
Temperature Range: my room 75-85*
Humidity:
Started From:  Clone
Start Date: june 15

Other Details/Images:

Got mine from sage wisdom it came pretty decrepid looking, just overall very wilty, on the verge of dieing. but apparently not, I immediatley re-potted it in a 5 inch pot and soaked it with water, and let sit in my windowcill. I was optomistic but many of the leaves were battered to hell with thier main "veigns" broken but surprisingly over the last 10 days or so the leaf itself stays intact with only a small brown spot where it was broken (I have since trimmed the leaves of thier brown-ness as this causes strain on the plant (any plant) because it continues to try and revive the dead zones, thus taking energy away from growing.  it has 2 main stems and the leaves are pretty close together, im trying to give it as much light as she will take so the nodes dont get too far appart. Its currently 7 inches tall and has grown around a centimeter since i got her alll settled down. I now have it growing under a "full spectrum bulb" most of the day, but then pop it in the window when im here once direct light gets in my window. and leave it there untill the next day,

the top node leaves are getting bigger like its about to shoot up again,


the plant has two main stems which are fairly thick, compared to other peoples pictures they have, would this mainly be due to the compact-ness of the plant since its generaly kept under constant light ect (not having to "reach" for light?) im also using some padded wires to pull the two main stems appart to allow the lower foilage some light

Heres just another picture



I have some questions tho:
Ive alredy noticed its severe sensitivity (i let the soil dry out a little to much while i was gone all day at work and the damn thing was drooping to the ground (so i recognise what droooping is), but the other day i woke up and the leaves were raised up(the tips were at more than 45* up and then soon into the day they regained thier normal posture, does this mean anything or mabey ti was because they were looking for more light? that day i had given them around 15-18 hours of direct light under the lamp and mabey i just fooled it into wanting more?

Also on that note, has anyone tried giving them 24/hour grow cycles? (light 24/7 while they are growing the leives)
just curisous cause i want to try to get a good harvest out of her as soon as possible, but without rushing it aswell(or hurting the plant)

anyways enyjoy any coments appreciated!
thanks for looking

[Paradoxic]

Cool plant, I like the erie nature of the pictures. To me your plant looks very healthy, I think you're doing a good job.

Its interesting that the leaves were pointed up, I dont know if I have ever noticed anything like that. It might be cool to get a picture of that. I doubt its due to lack of light, but its certainly possible. Thats something that would be relatively easy to test. What kind of light are you using? Flouroescents?

You can definitely do 24/7 light cycles, Salvia will grow quite fast that way. As far as I know that wont hurt the plant as long as it doesnt get too hot as a result of continuous lighting. So if that is a concern you should use compact flouroescents, they stay very cool and give out plenty of light.

I wouldnt worry about lower leaves not getting light, by the time the light gets down there its of very low intensity anyway. As far as your plant being compact, that is good if you want a large leaf yield because if it stretches too much the stem will break. You can encourage your plant to branch out by pruning, read about how to do that here: http://salviasource.org/index.php?page=View&id=19

I hope that is of some help to you. Welcome to Salvia Source!

[MstryShovel]

thanks for the link I was actualy about to ask a simmilar question, but it had to do with , removing the main big leaves, and letting the littel sprouts (in between the big leave and the stem, to grow out, and incurage busshing) i guess thats the idea thwough right

But a tradgedy happened not an hour after posting! through my medeling with the whole wireing and moving the stem idea i accidentaly snapped one of the twin stems off, the other is healthy and fine, and I used a rooting solution and popped the broken one in a moist pot



thats the first day after the horrible accident,  but im fairly optomistic as some of the smaller leaves in between the nodes are still being held verticle while the stem itself is generaly droopy aswell as the leaves but everythign is green still so ive got my fingers crossed

i think im gunna go ahead and keep them on a generaly 18 hour grow cycle SDiv looks like a weed that used to grow in my Gparents yard, a resilient cuss that only needed a bit of water and it would come back
so anyways ill keep updated with the cutting

[Paradoxic]

Yeah you definitely got the idea with pruning, nice image. Would it be alright for me to add that image to the pruning article?

Sorry to hear about your accident. It should be alright though, mist it daily to help it get through. If it doesnt end up working out you could always take a smaller cutting and root it in water. Good luck.

[MstryShovel]

yeah man i dont mind at all, always like to help. Here i put together something thats a little bit better



Ill also throw together a small illustrated guide for basic care and information and ect, it will be a basic gardening guide, tailored to sally but hey, every little bit helps ill post it in this topic so its easy to find


as for the planting its day two still green still wilty though, but im optomistic im keeping it well wet and whatnot, the other plant is still growing strong, so if it doesnt catch hold, I'll at least have my first harvest (lol) and a good learning experience when it makes any change ill try to take some pics of it so others can see whats up.

[MstryShovel]

[Highdroponics]

gotta say, nice plant, nice drawings. i think you need to change the font on the guides though, thats kinda hard to read. anyway, keep up the great work.

[Paradoxic]

Awesome pruning guide mystryshovel, I definitely will add that to the article. But I agree with Highdroponics, the font is a little hard to read. Maybe make it a little larger and use some clearer font, like ariel or something. Also you should put your name at the bottom, you need some credit for that sweet ass pic

That other guide is cool too, nice and concise. I like the diagram at the bottom left. You should upload that to the image gallery. That would be a good candidate for the 'Other' category. Right now all we have in there is some random image of a cow.

[MstryShovel]

updated the guides or whatev u wanna call them with diff faunts,  dunno about the drawing one prolly change that one again.

heres another update on my plant 4 days later

shes grwon over 2 inches in that time (the grey stick on the right has a starting mark and shes growing like dag nabbits


thats the emergency cutting, i put it in a make shift humid chambernot really looking specificaly better, but its still green and actualy rather green on the places facing the light, so still hoping for the best

[Crispy]

hey Mystery Shovel, is your house on fire? Whats all the fog/smoke?

 What the hell are you doing in there?  LOL

[MstryShovel]

hah, yeah i know right, constant haze up in my room, no its acutly my camera, the only one i have is the one on my cell phone, and that in itself is pretty shitty. hey, if you want to send me
http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=2&productNr=25420
 i would be fine with that

[MstryShovel]

ok so its July 15 now and my cutting has fINALY taken hold and looks health (the leaves are starting to support thier own weight)
 
again sorry for the crappy pictures.
heres the main plant, shes doing fine, not much verticle growth (i had taken them off of a grow light) but theres alot of under growth, the nodes shooting out little stems themsleves

looking good!

[MstryShovel]

so that cutting you see in the pot died i over watered it and the poopie roots it had going just rotted out) ive got a new one going in a water thats doing well, the main plant has been outside since pretty much the time of the last picture and look how well shes doing

!!! almost every node has 2 stems with 3 nodes themselves !!
i almost over fert-d her, with these slow release things but i think i just did it before the old time release were done, but still doing well and growing like weeds.\

[MstryShovel]

here she is about a month later doing much very well, so well in fact i plan on making at least 3 more cuttings very soon. OH MAMA BEAR!~!

heres a little cutting i made a month ago and despite the time has very little root growth, once it did shoot out roots, HAZARDS! the stem would tip out of the water and then all the little roots would dry out before i would get home in the evening. but shes still working, got new stuff and ive got the little kid in a new Hydro setup i made ::Real big grin:: i making a guide, will post it soon.

[Paradoxic]

Great to see another update and its even greater to hear you're going to be posting a guide 

You momma plant is looking great! At first I thought the cutting you had was completely dried, but then I realized it was just your camera. We need to figure out how to get you a better one.