Plant Cuttings

[leenkim]

Hi there i just got some plants from ebay today, but they are all unrooted cuttings. I removed the lead and foam and separated the bunches and just pushed the bottom of the plants into the sand with the bottom leaves still attatched, to sort of anchor them down.

Is this the correct way or should i pull them back up and remove the bottom leaves and replant them like this?

Also how can i keep them down as some keep getting dug up and float to the top?

thanks.

 

[wei0204]

This is what I normally do too. To avoid floating up, I normally try to attach the plant as deep as I could.

 

[leenkim]

So do i need to remove the leaves from the part of the stem that i plant in the sand?

 

[RadaR]

Yeh, I would. Saves them from rotting and causing bad water quality.

 

[BigIan]

i leave the leaves on, simply cut the stem up just below the bottom pair of leaves (this part is called a node) and will be the easyest part for the plant to root from...
and the leaves will be able to anchor the plant (some plants such as water wysteria (hygrophillia deformis) are VERY "floaty" and this is the only way i`ve been able to get them to sink

 

[wei0204]

I also normally remove the leaves at the lower part to avoid it from rotten and create the ugly look.