Kate
Far too old to grow up now.
My P. primuliflora has produced 3 plantlets. Yesterday I noticed that they were starting to crowd eachother out a bit so I decided that repotting would be neccessary.... If I had only known how difficult that would be I might have decided to wait a few more weeks until they were a bit bigger.
I started by using a chopstick to ease the plantlets out of the soil without disturbing the parent plant... this worked somewhat... that is until the last plantlet it was a bit closer to the base of the parent and when I lifted it out the chopstick slipped and flipped the parent out where it landed upside down on the hot tub
No damage done though!
So I now had 3 plantlets and the parent plant to pot up. Which is where I really ran into trouble. The parent had been sitting on the top of a hump of soil in it's pot so the leaves were kind of drapping down the sides of the mound and the tips were below the roots. The plantlets were also growing this way.
I won't go through the various angles, postitionings, and implements I tried to get the soil mounded back up around the roots under the leaves, I'll just say it took over an hour and I eventually ended up using a toothpick to ease the leaves out of the soil I had them accidentally burryied in and I still think the plants are just kind of sitting on the surface of the soil with a little soil around the roots
.
I am sure that this is not a normal experience with repotting pings, so what did I do wrong and how can I avoid it in the future?
Thanks
I started by using a chopstick to ease the plantlets out of the soil without disturbing the parent plant... this worked somewhat... that is until the last plantlet it was a bit closer to the base of the parent and when I lifted it out the chopstick slipped and flipped the parent out where it landed upside down on the hot tub
So I now had 3 plantlets and the parent plant to pot up. Which is where I really ran into trouble. The parent had been sitting on the top of a hump of soil in it's pot so the leaves were kind of drapping down the sides of the mound and the tips were below the roots. The plantlets were also growing this way.
I won't go through the various angles, postitionings, and implements I tried to get the soil mounded back up around the roots under the leaves, I'll just say it took over an hour and I eventually ended up using a toothpick to ease the leaves out of the soil I had them accidentally burryied in and I still think the plants are just kind of sitting on the surface of the soil with a little soil around the roots
I am sure that this is not a normal experience with repotting pings, so what did I do wrong and how can I avoid it in the future?
Thanks