Friday, December 7, 2007

Monstera Obliqua, mini AV, mix and......winter : (

Winter is once again here; the snow is here to stay. It gets pretty cold in this house, and my windows ice over when it gets really cold. So as I am looking at my hoya's the other day, I noticed some new growth on a cutting I had, and noticed it's backdrop was a sheet of ice. It was a pretty neat thing to see.
A few months ago I got a cutting of a Monstera Obliqua. This reminds me of a heart leaf philodendron, but with splits in the leaves. This is not to be confused the Monstera deliciosa, which is a kind of like a giant version of the obliqua.I started the cutting ( 4-5 nodes, 2 leaves) in water and it started to root. Then it fell out of it's glass, and the root dried up. Take 2. Again I put the cutting in water and put it high up on my cupboards, again it started to root. And again it somehow fell out and the root dried up. Take 3. I gave up on the water rooting since it was jinxed from the start. It did have the little white callouses that sometimes become roots, so I was optimistic. Well it has finally rooted quite well, and even put on a couple new leaves. This plant had a rough start so I thought it deserves to be mentioned.The next thing I want to write about is the mix I use for most of my plants. I have noticed over time that my mix has changed and ratio's have changed.I prefer not to use peat at all because I have an under watering problem and I find it to hard to re wet. In it's place I use coir that is low in sodium content. I also use perlite and lots of it. Lately I have been using Orchid bark as well. I still have some plants that are in very heavy peat mixes mixed with perlite and vermiculite, but over time I am noticing they are not drying out as well, and some have started to rot. They have compacted quite badly and it has only been about a year for them. So here is a pic of the basic mix I use that I mentioned above. Depending on the plants needs, I adjust ingredients slightly, but not too much, and nothing other than what I mentioned.And last but not least I wanted to capture this little cutie while it bloomed. It is a NOID Mini AV. It is in a one inch pot, much like a Dixie cup, that will give an idea as to how small this one is.

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