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Just realized I've been killing my cuttings with kindness for 2 years
I used to baby every single cutting, misting them 3 times a day and keeping them in this humid plastic box until roots showed. Then I moved to Denver last spring and my whole routine fell apart, the air here is so dry the mist evaporated in like 10 minutes. So I stopped fussing and just stuck the cuttings straight into damp perlite on my kitchen counter, no dome, no spray bottle. Within 4 weeks my pothos had roots thicker than anything I got in 8 months of the old method. It's like they needed less attention, not more. Has anyone else found that their fussy habits were actually the problem once they switched environments? What made you finally simplify your propagation setup?
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victor_adams951mo ago
Moved from Seattle to Tucson a few years back and had the exact same wake up call. What nobody talks about is that high humidity actually slows transpiration way down, so your cuttings sit there in wet medium barely drinking anything, and that is what rots the stems. Dry air pulls water through the cutting fast, which forces it to push roots to keep up. Basically the plant is thirsty so it grows a bigger straw. Your Denver air did you a favor.
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the_lucas1mo ago
The whole "plant is thirsty so it grows a bigger straw" line from @victor_adams95 is honestly the best way I have ever heard this explained. I killed so many cuttings in my early days because I kept them in a sealed plastic box thinking I was being a good plant parent, and all I really did was build a tiny swamp where stems went soft and brown overnight. Nobody warns you that pampering a cutting is basically the fastest way to murder it. It is kind of funny that the lazy approach wins, you just shove it in dry air and let it panic its way into growing roots. Turns out tough love works on plants too, who knew.
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