Rooting Tips: Lighting & Watering
When to turn on the lights? How much & when to water?
LIGHTING TIPS
☀️ I am not a lighting expert, so can’t help as much in this aspect. But I know that LED shop lights work great for indoor rooting. 5000k is good for warmth and the more lumens, the better. Keep the lights close to your plants, but leave room for the growth that will happen.
☀️ Do not rely on window lighting for your cuttings— it typically is not sufficient and is likely to cause leggy growth. Windows, unless very well insulated, also can have too much temperature fluctuation and are not good for the rooting period. So it is not recommended to place your rooting cuttings on the window sill. Sunlight through a window has fried plants and nighttime coldness can stall a cutting & prevent successful rooting. It’s a case of knowing your house.
☀️ 98% of cuttings will leaf out before they root. (That’s a random number I made up based on how it seems to work out. 🤓) This is not a bad thing. The leaves can become a source of energy for the cutting. And one type of growth seems to stimulate the other type of growth.
☀️ I do not worry about keeping my unrooted cuttings in darkness. I have not found that to improve success rates, in fact, I found the opposite to be true. Sometimes it seems as though the cutting burns out on root growth and then has nothing left for leaves to grow. Other times it seems as if the cutting just rots in the darkness. Getting the cutting activated and growing is the priority, not roots or leaves coming first. Put it in an environment to simulate what it would receive outside, which is not pure darkness.
WATERING TIPS
💧 Water or moisture is also important for rooting success. Moisture is what will stimulate root formation on your cutting. So, it is important that your rooting mix is not too dry. It should remain damp, but not soaking wet. Remember, we want a balance of both air and moisture.
💧You can easily tell if a pot needs water by feeling the weight of it. A watered pot is much heavier and a pot needing water is much lighter. The difference should be perceptible. If you cannot feel a difference, then it probably does not need water yet.
However, if you struggle to feel a difference regardless, then get the starting weight of your pot right before you bag it, write it down somewhere, such as on your pot. Weigh your pots before watering to see how much the weight has changed. Add water to bring it back to weight.
Whether the pot is bagged and how rooted a cutting is will determine how often to water. For an unbagged pot, it is good to check for water about once a week starting out. Very aerated mixes will need water sooner, less aerated mixes will need water less frequently.
Let the plant use what is there before watering again, and make sure something is there for the plant to use.
(Unrooted cuttings should be able to go weeks between waterings when the pot is bagged unless you are using an extremely aerated mix.)
💧After about 8 weeks from initial rooting, (not potting,) the young plant should start to stabilize and become less sensitive to watering issues. After about the 3 month mark, I’m usually able to water more like my other plants without as much worry of overwatering. (This is just an average, the amount of individual growth & development affects this.)
