My experience with air layering has not been the most successful, although I confess I was excited because apparently everything was going well and I had found an effective way to reproduce my adenium.
After watching a few videos I thought I had mastered the technique, it actually seemed like a simple method, so I took the plunge and did some air layering on my Desert Rose plant. After about three weeks, I checked one of the layering and to my surprise it had a well formed root, so I proceeded to separate it, but after a short time it rotted, however I had two more layering left on the plant.
A few days later I noticed that my plant was losing its leaves, they had a yellowish colour. Every day I watched it, but I thought it was just going to change leaves. One day I happened to touch the stem and to my surprise it was full of water, I almost had a heart attack because the plant had been with me for years and was rotting.
I immediately proceeded to cut all the rotten stems, trying to save it. More than a month has passed and my adenium has not recovered. Subsequently I made a second cut, but now only the root and the base of the stem are left. 😞
I honestly think it wasn't a good idea to do the layering on it, maybe the soil infected the plant and hence the rotting. At least I should have had a younger plant to test and not put my plant at risk.
See how my plant looked before the layering and in another photo in full bloom.
Maybe it was not the best season to reproduce it by layering, because in my country it is now the rainy season and this year it has rained very often. Although the plant was indoors it got some rain from the sides but very little sun.
This has been a lesson learned not to put my plants at risk when I go to practice new techniques. I recommend having a plan B for these inventions. For now I am trying to save it in many ways, hopefully I can do it because this plant was one of my favourites. My adenium now looks like this: 😭
If anyone has any ideas to help save it, I would be very grateful. Greetings fellow gardeners. 🤗
✨Credits:✨
The content is my authorship, the images are my own and the digital editing has been done by me. The original text has been written in Spanish and translated using www.DeepL.com
I wish I could help but know nothing about them. What a shame!
I still don't give up, I would like to see at least one offspring so that my heart has more hope that it will be saved. 🙏🏽
I hope it recovers. Unfortunately air layering is asking for trouble with adeniums, it WILL rot. Air layering is for woody plants, not succulents. The way to propagate stems is to make a cutting, seal the end with 3% hydrogen peroxide and then leave it in a warm place until you see roots forming and immediately cutting the still-healthy stems was also the correct way to save it. Then you can place it in a small pot which has well draining soil and begin watering carefully.
When cutting rot, you need to keep cutting until there's no brown flesh remaining and then seal it with peroxide. Don't water it until you see leaf buds forming, which may or may not be possible that low down on the root
I appreciate your comment, I hadn't thought about 3% hydrogen peroxide. 👍🏼
I didn't know that air layering was not recommended for succulents. 🤦🏻♀️ I don't think I'll forget my lesson. I'm really looking forward to seeing new buds on my plant. Thanks for your comment. 👍🏼
You gave it a good try, I'm sorry that you lost so much of your plant. I never tried air layering as I thought it to be too much effort.
Unfortunately in gardening some mistakes due to inexperience are fatal. If I manage to save it, it would be the greatest success. 🙏🏽
I sure hope you do save it.
Sorry for your plant but yeah the many cutting technique really risk, so that is really big lesson learn. We should not learn new technique on our lovely plants.
Hope you can found new things to save your plants
I have learnt my lesson very well, in the meantime I am trying to find out how to recover it, the root is still healthy. I tried putting cinnamon on it. Hopefully I succeeded 🙏🏽