This weekend marked the end of a little experiment, inspired by posts made by Cindy and (who else?) Jimscott. And it turned out quite well!
Back in September or October, I bought a couple of Dionaea. One was relatively healthy for being trapped in a cube, maybe a little etiolated. The other had been in a dark corner of an air-conditioned supermarket for at least a month, and looked like hell. I took them home and uprooted them.
I then completely divided the rhizomes. I pulled off every leaf so that it had its chunk of rhizome still attached. Towards the center, there were little leaves just starting to form. They got their own chunk of rhizome, too. I cut off the traps. I put all the leaves in a small plastic dish filled with distilled water. As an afterthought, I sprinkled some rooting hormone on top. Problem with that was, it didn't absorb into the water as well as I thought it would, so it kinda clumped on parts of the leaves. But I left it, and covered the dish with a piece of plastic wrap, and stuck it in a northeast window. A week or so later, I think I read somewhere that it was bad to let rooting hormone stay on a plant's leaves, so I changed the water to pure distilled.
I neglected the thing, changing the water maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks. Most of the leaves from the sickly plant turned completely brown, and I threw those out. Around mid-November I moved the dish into a lowland-style terrarium, and a week afterwards I started seeing new growth on some of the leaves. I then moved the leaves to a new dish, with a layer of LFS on the bottom and filled with distilled water. I let the water evaporate, letting the leaves settle into the LFS and grow.
I then neglected it some more, keeping it damp but leaving it in the terrarium all winter. This past weekend, early April, it looked like this:
(sorry for the slime mold.) I thought, maybe a dozen plantlets. I decided to pot them all up. But as I uprooted them...
it seemed I had underestimated. 4 hours of repotting later...
Assuming everyone lives, there are 49 plantlets. From just 2 original plants...mostly from the healthier one.
Back in September or October, I bought a couple of Dionaea. One was relatively healthy for being trapped in a cube, maybe a little etiolated. The other had been in a dark corner of an air-conditioned supermarket for at least a month, and looked like hell. I took them home and uprooted them.
I then completely divided the rhizomes. I pulled off every leaf so that it had its chunk of rhizome still attached. Towards the center, there were little leaves just starting to form. They got their own chunk of rhizome, too. I cut off the traps. I put all the leaves in a small plastic dish filled with distilled water. As an afterthought, I sprinkled some rooting hormone on top. Problem with that was, it didn't absorb into the water as well as I thought it would, so it kinda clumped on parts of the leaves. But I left it, and covered the dish with a piece of plastic wrap, and stuck it in a northeast window. A week or so later, I think I read somewhere that it was bad to let rooting hormone stay on a plant's leaves, so I changed the water to pure distilled.
I neglected the thing, changing the water maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks. Most of the leaves from the sickly plant turned completely brown, and I threw those out. Around mid-November I moved the dish into a lowland-style terrarium, and a week afterwards I started seeing new growth on some of the leaves. I then moved the leaves to a new dish, with a layer of LFS on the bottom and filled with distilled water. I let the water evaporate, letting the leaves settle into the LFS and grow.
I then neglected it some more, keeping it damp but leaving it in the terrarium all winter. This past weekend, early April, it looked like this:
(sorry for the slime mold.) I thought, maybe a dozen plantlets. I decided to pot them all up. But as I uprooted them...
it seemed I had underestimated. 4 hours of repotting later...
Assuming everyone lives, there are 49 plantlets. From just 2 original plants...mostly from the healthier one.
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