Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Spring Swap Signup, 1 by Hoya_24

Hoya_24 wrote:
Thanks for the offer Gabi, but I will be alright. I should have said that I completely destroyed the roots on 40 Hoyas rather than killing all of the plants completely. I don't want to hijack this thread, but the short story of how I rotted the roots totally off 40 plants is this. I was an idiot, and used a new potting mix that I was completely unfamiliar with to re-pot 40 plants over the course of 12 hours. 10 days later the roots were gone.

I used the potting mix extolled by Tapla on two other forums and because of my unfamiliarity with it destroyed my plants. This stuff looked dry after 12 hours and felt dry at a one inch depth after a couple of days. Little did I know that the stuff was like soup underneath. It was a death trap waiting to happen. It weighed 2-3 times what my regular mix weighed even when dry so it was impossible to judge when to water. So I thought I was doing good, because of his arguments about this stuff allowing the plants roots to breathe and outlasting regular potting mix 10-1. There is a moral to this story somewhere; anyhow, although I destroyed six month's work, I still ended up with a lot of plant material to take cuttings from. I have attached a photo of the hospital ward. I'm sure that 95% of the plants that I lost will re-root, and when all is said and done I won't be any worse off, and will have learned a valuable lesson - don't believe everything you read.

Doug