By anonymous
2009/10/10 Other plants thread - Stevia clones in Park Starts Block
Submitted on Sun, 2009/10/11 - 11:44am
Last updated on Sun, 2009/10/11 - 11:56am
Okay. I have had some mini roses in water for my Mom for a few weeks now and they are putting down roots but have not had any success in cloning Stevia in water yet. So when my Mom talked about trimming the 3 Stevia pots to bring them indoors, I put the cuttings in water on Oct 3 until I can get the Park Starts Peat plugs home. (thanks Gisette for the recommendation).
To experiment it a little, I used 6 used AG peat plugs and 6 Park Starts Peat replacement plugs and for good measure thrown in one Park Starts with a few mimulus seeds.
The right most row and the 3rd row from the right are Stevia in reused AG peat plugs and the 2 leftmost rows are Stevia cuttings in Parks Starts Peat plugs. There is one rosemary cutting there in old AG used peat plug and I left one in water to compare the progress. I did move a Stevia cutting into the SS6 and temporarily moved out the Cinnamon Basil into the Park Starts and still have some water to see how the SS6 one does in comparison to the plain water vs in peat plug with cloning powder.
Sun, 2009/10/11 - 12:22pm
#2
The only thing about the park starts plug is they are a little small. I had a hard time this afternoon taking a rooting that had been failing even after 1 day and try to replace it with a pineapple sage with a pretty sturdy stem.
Being reluctant to give up on the failing Stevia, I cut off the drying stem and put it in a very small vase to see if it takes. Stevia have trouble taking root in just water since I have had 3 failed attempts so far..
Sun, 2009/10/11 - 3:38pm
#3
I tried a bigger size Park plug. Everything I've used that on has died, though. 
Sat, 2009/10/17 - 9:31pm
#4
The pineapple Sage seems to be doing well and top half of the rosemary have already dried out so got a haircut and see if the remaining bottom survives or not.
3 of the Stevias in the park starter block seems to be doing well but the others were a bit too floppy on the top or draping to the base after a week. Checking them again, they are more 6-8 inches so cut the ones not doing as well in half with tops in a small crystal vase and hopefully the bottoms with less to support would do better.
Sat, 2009/10/17 - 11:30pm
#5
Congrats, Mary, sounds like it's coming along.
I should get a picture of the flowers on my pineapple sage and post them tomorrow! They're pretty, droop crimson mini-bugles. Seems like end of season almost-frost signaled them to bloom.
Fri, 2009/10/23 - 11:35pm
#6
I don't see ny roots yet but the cuttings with the exception of couple of them seems to be doing well...
I do find those blocks handy.
Especially for flowers and coleus that are so small for so long, that growing them from seed in the AG seems a waste.