Trying to pirate plants (i.e. propagate my pothos/money plant) involves a lot of patience. My pothos cuttings took a few weeks to root via water propagation. After that, I tried to move one of the cuttings to soil. This cutting started yellowing and drooping really fast. The “soil” I was using didn’t have good drainage – it was some soil I had from some tomato gardening kit I got years ago (no tomatoes grew, btw).
I ended up throwing that first cutting away and put transplanting the cuttings to “soil” on hold. This week, I got this soilless potting mix at the Aquatic & Garden Expo. It contains “Vermiculite, Peat moss, cocopeat, perlite, Zeolite, Compost, Humic Acid”.
I still don’t know what counts as soil.
Anyway, I repotted 2 cuttings into this new mix, and look – one of them has a new leaf that’s unfurling. 🌀 I hope they continue to settle in to their new home and grow well.
Also learnt that plants can go into shock after being transplanted:
Transplanting shock happens to seedlings and cuttings that have been freshly planted into a new pot, planter bed, or true ground. The change in environment is very stressful for the plant, which causes it to show a number of symptoms that can look very concerning, but will eventually resolve as the plant settles into its new environment.
Sometimes, you need to go move to a new environment because you’ve outgrown your old one. But moving to the new environment comes with its own kind of shock. Sometimes you’re busy trying to grow roots and doing a more hidden kind of work rather than being able to grow something cool that people can see. That’s okay and natural.
Perhaps it’d help to treat myself that way too. When a plant’s not growing well, my instinct is to ask whether it has the conditions it needs to grow well, rather than asking the plant why it’s doing so poorly and whether it should maybe try harder.