Doing a little experiment with my super sad crotons....
Maybe a year or two ago, my crotons started dropping leaves like crazy, and I kept burying the stems deeper and deeper in the soil. This fall, rather than just pushing the plants to the back of a shelf to wait out another season, I decided to take the plunge and chop the stems. I cut where the brown stem turned to green (roughly two inches beneath the leaves), dipped the newly cut tip in root hormone, and plopped them in these recycled tea tins my fiancé drilled holes into. (The leaves could for sure use a wiping down) I also decided to take the rest of the leafless stems and, rather than just throwing them away, see if they would grow new leaves too. So, I cut the two stems in half, dipped into some root hormone, and stuck them in dirt too. I realized the original plants had been grown from plugs, and it appeared the roots had been unable to get through the fabric, which would explain why my plants dropped their leaves. The roots were teeny tiny.
Anyway, if you were able to keep up, my experiment includes the following:
Two propagations that have leaves, but no roots (shown);
Two propagations that have roots (I cut the plug fabric off, so the roots are freeeee), but no leaves;
Two propagations that don’t have roots and don’t have leaves.
All of these are in zip-lock bag greenhouses, and they are sitting on the same surface to get the same amount of light. I’m confident that the propagations with leaves will grow roots, and I am very interested to see what the other propagations are capable of.
