Beginner Gardening: Braided Money Tree/ p aquatica question, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Best use of rooting hormone is very plant specific, so in many cases, growers shoot themselves in the foot by grabbing what's available instead of what's really going to get the job done; so it's likely you haven't really done much to cut yourself short in that regard.

I make a soil others have dubbed the gritty mix, and that's pretty much what I use for propagation. You want a medium that is very airy and doesn't hold perched water; or, you at least need to be sure the proximal end of the cutting isn't stuck so deep it ends up submerged in that layer of saturated soil that commercially prepared mixes based on fine particles (peat, coir, compost, composted forest products, sand ......) all seem to support. Cuttings need to breathe, and they like moist/damp and not wet/soggy.

Good rooting media in no particular order:

1) screened & rinsed perlite
2) gritty mix (see pic below)
3) screened Turface
4) screened calcined DE (NAPA floor-dry)
5) 50/50 mix of grower size crushed granite (chicken grit) or #2 cherrystone and screened Turface
6) Haydite or Haydite mixed with any of the above

Al