Beginner Gardening: Question about Schefflera.. , 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Whew! I just got home from an all day trip to Hidden Lake Gardens, where we met with a rep of the national arboretum & talked mainly about how to institute a program to help them decide when to cull problem trees. It was 6 hrs in 45* and horizontal rain, but ya know what? - it was da bomb - a good time .... but the story's too long, so back to the topic. ;o) Plant people are nutts, eh?

Thanks again to all of you - for the very kind words! They are much appreciated. I'm not absolutely sure if it's a good thing or not - sounding like everyone's hubby; but, you guys are really nice, so your hubbies must be nice, so that makes it a compliment - yes? I hope my reasoning is sound. ;o)

Yes, the root over rock is mine - started about 8 years ago from a cutting. It's much larger than in the picture now, where it was 4 or 5 years old. I have 2 or 3 others (scheffs) growing as bonsai, along with about 50 other tropical & subtropical trees/shrubs.

3Js - Any healthy scheff wants to grow the roots you describe that sprout off the trunk. The only thing that prevents them from occurring is low humidity. You can prune them off with no ill effect, or you can allow them to grow downward until they hit the soil, after which they'll lignify (get woody) and become part of the trunk structure as they (and the trunk) fatten. They're commonly referred to as air roots, or areal roots, but the botanical term for them is adventitious roots.

You want to shy away from fine mixes for rooting cuttings. Cuttings root best in damp soil conditions (but not wet) with lots of air in the rooting medium. My favorite for rooting cuttings is a 50/50 mix of screened Turface and chopped sphagnum moss (this is not peat moss - see picture below), but screened perlite + sphagnum moss is excellent, too. The sphagnum moss is superb for many hort applications, including air layering, and has anti fungal properties in addition to stimulating root formation and speeding the rooting process. When you're starting cuttings, you're in a race with fungi. You need to get the roots formed and a connection made with the vascular parts of the plant (the tubes that conduct water) before the fungi can destroy the tissue and make the connection impossible.

The whole moss. Chop it in a blender of food processor:

Al