It's been four weeks since I put my plants into leca to propagate. As people who love taking care
of plants, me and you both know that it's very important to know how to propagate and how to
propagate in very different ways. Using water or nutrient solution to propagate, like this plant
here, is something a lot of people know how to do. Today we're going to see what my plants have
been doing in the four weeks since I put them into leca to propagate. We'll start off with
my Painted Lady. That is my Painted Lady right there. She looks fabulous! Look at those leaves
looking really, really good there hasn't been any leaf loss at all here. There's a new leaf coming
through right there. I will show you what the roots have been doing. Look at that that right,
there is a root that's another root there another root all the way up there fuzzy fuzzy leca roots
looking fantastic. This is my Pothos, these are my Pothos cuttings, they are also doing really well
I haven't had any leaf loss with these either the difference between this one and this one was when
this one started off actually for the first few days when I put it in leca it started wilting a
little bit it wasn't very happy you could see that the plant was starting to take a downturn
in a sense but it wasn't a real downturn it was just getting used to its new medium getting those
roots going and eventually this is what the plant started doing and it got really good it perked up
so there wasn't too much to worry about there and then eventually that happened so I got lots of
roots for both of my plants. I'll bring you down and take the plants out of the pots and actually
show you what the roots are doing now this isn't a procedure I would normally do I wouldn't disturb
the plants just to take a look at the roots I'm only doing this just to show you because of course
this was uh how to propagate in leca experiments so don't do this at home if you do put your plant
into like a for propagation just leave it there and let it grow and try not to disturb the roots
as much as you can let's go down Painted Lady here I'll just take that plant out of the leca.
I'm not shaking the leca off the roots, I just want to show you what that's doing so you can
see that these are the old roots that were on here before these dark ones and when I touch
them they're actually sloughing off they're not sturdy at all and I'll just pull off those black
exteriors you can see that's coming off that's that would actually come off in the long run and
end up in my leca and when I flush it those would come off. So those are what was there before but
these you can see that leca dangling off that root that is a completely new route there that one
over there as well this is a completely new root just look at that fuzziness that as well all these
fabulous leca roots doing so well in that pot now that you've seen what this plant is doing
I'm going to gently put it back I have no reason to change this leca at all I'll just put it back
and let it go on its merry way.
Gentle squeeze so that's it that is my painted lady back in its pot and that'll
go back in its reservoir. Let's take a look at my pothos cuttings and see how they are going
And what is really interesting is there's no leca roots there whatsoever but look at the cutting
it's been four weeks and nothing has happened but what I will say is if I put this in a water
propagation something would have happened by now so that's the thing I think it takes a lot longer
for the roots to catch on when you put it directly into leca definitely this would have rooted by now
this one as well look at that leaf doing so beautifully but look at that
nothing absolutely nothing in the root department it's as dry as a bone and
when I say it dry as a bone I don't mean dry dry but there's just no roots there nothing.
there's two cuttings that have roots so this one has actually got two leaves there
and this one root there has taken off and you can
see the leca attached to that look at how fuzzy that root is beautiful.
This one as well great leaf
look at that beautiful beautiful root there look at the fuzz on that root, beautiful.
I will put these cuttings back and let them keep doing what they're doing
and hopefully I will get a lot more roots soon so I just put all those back
this was a little bit interesting to be honest I was not expecting this to happen this is actually
the first time I've propagated in leca I prefer to use the nutrient solution method I was really
surprised to find that half my Pothos cuttings actually haven't rooted yet it's really really
surprising but what's even more surprising is the fact that the plants are actually looking exactly
the same if I show you this plant right now you wouldn't be able to pick out which cutting has
rooted and which one hasn't which makes me think is it maybe maybe the other cuttings that haven't
rooted a tiny microscopic roots that are already you know catching on and growing that I can't see
possibly I don't know but definitely something is happening because they were quite sad before
they've perked up now so definitely something is happening in that department really really strange
the take-home message for me really is because I like looking at roots I love this process I love
to see what the roots are doing in the nutrient solution look at that you can see which ones the
new roots are the white ones over there are the new roots and I like instant gratification. I just
like to see what's going on so I prefer to use this and with the results that this has shown me
that it's it's been over four weeks there's no way a pothos plant that's propagating on a heat mat
and is being given a lot of light would not have sprouted roots by now if it was living in this it
the roots would look like this so going forward I think I probably wouldn't be propagating in leca
I think it's just way too slow a method for me but you know for the sake of not disturbing the plant
using leca might be a good way to go so take a look at this Painted Lady for instance this is
really telling me that if you put a plant like this straight into leca it will do well as long
as you know you give it a lot of light you put it on a heat mat don't disturb it it will grow
in this like a pot and you don't have to disturb it again so you don't have to put it in the water
solution once the roots are going then put it in leca and hope that things go well you know
doing things twice in essence so this is good the plant has done really really well it's happy
that's really all you can ask for this Pothos surprised me I absolutely wasn't
expecting these results you learn something new each day go and watch this video over here
and see how I started off with these two plants if you have seen this video go and
watch this video which shows what happened when I moved a fern from soil to leca using
the long method and using direct to leca very very interesting results I'll see you there.