Messing around with some olderplants handing out in the rain...and repotting them...I thought to take a photo of some rotten roots....so the descriptions of the 'cuticle breaking down' is understood. If you rub your fingernail along the root and the 'sluff' comes off (sluff = cuticle)...exposing the sinew...here is what you will see. IT IS ROTTEN.
Then what you do is to pull the rotten stuff off until it doesn't do THAT anymore....dip it in some rooting hormone and start over.....
Excellent info! Thank You!!!
That's really interesting. Thanks so much for posting that image. Now I'll know what to look out for!
Thanks, Carol - really good info - going to go check some roots of a couple that aren't doing so hot -
Karen
Thanks Carol. It is hard to see if H. thomasonii is happy or not from the looks of the leaves as they obviously don't get wrinkled like some do. Mine just wasn't growing or blooming. So I popped it out of the pot yesterday and did your "rub between the fingers" on the root ball. Sure enough...a lot of rot. I took off all that was rotton, repotted the mother plant in new soil, and took a bunch of cuttings for assurance. I was never really sure what to look for when examining roots, but you helped make it clearer here.
Marcy
Really glad to help. H. thomsonii, for ME, always looks bad and it is funny, because I used to have a gorgeously beautiful basket of it!!!
