Note: These are my opinions and experiences, I am no expert and I have not been paid or incentivised to share my thoughts and reviews of any sellers, products or people mentioned in this post.
Last year I shared my experiences with Amydrium medium green and silver and I thought I’d give an update as I had some failures and some successes since then and also some propagation updates. If you haven’t seen the post you can find it here.
Now I said I had successes and failures. Failures are often more interesting as we can learn from them. So let me tell you about this first.
Failures – Amydrium medium green
My green version of this plant was loved too much by me and it got root rot … twice. Initially the plant was in soil and I noticed that after it went limp and I watered it, it didn’t perk up again and the tip of the leave went yellow. The yellowing prompted me to take a look at the roots and they were really rotten.
I cut off the roots and washed them with hydrogen peroxide mix and decided to water propagate the plant again. At the same time I chopped all the runners into 1-2 nodes and placed them into a clear box with moss. Water propagation went reasonably well and I then used pon to plant the plant again. BUT I let the plant get too cold (this all happened in winter) and I got root rot again. Back to water propagation it was and I ended up chopping the plant and propagating some of the stem cuttings.
What did I learn?
- If after recent watering the plant droops quickly again – leave it alone and don’t water again especially if the soil isn’t any dryer yet.
- Sudden yellowing of a healthy plant can mean problems with roots
- Amydriums propagate quite well in water for me.
- Propagating the runners takes a long time (more on that in a minute.
Where is the plant now? The plant happily lives in pon after all of that and has very long runners again. This is my fault because to avoid the long runners, the plant needs a moss pole to root into and I didn’t give it that. So I might be propagating more runners soon.
Propagating – Successes
When I wrote my original post I did not add an experience section on propagation as I had not done this yet. My issues with the roots has forced me to gain some experience so here we go.
- Propagating runners takes a long time. I used a box with damp moss and kept it in a bright and warm place. 18 weeks later, a handful of them have some growth. I have heard that it took 6-9 months for some people to see any growth.
- Propagating stem cuttings seemed to work much faster for me especially if there is more of an aerial root already. These seemed to root and grow new leaves quite quickly. 3-4 weeks. I used the same method as with the runners and they were actually in the same box.
- Propagating leaf cuttings worked best in water for me. This kept the leaf plump and only caused a tiny bit of crispness. I lost a couple of tips but generally the leaves still look great.
Despite the root rot issues I have actually not lost any of my plant and have loads of propagation. Some I already shared or sold and some I will plant with the mother plant once they are bigger to create a bushier looking plant.
Successes – Amydrium medium silver
If you follow my instagram you will have seen my amydrium medium silver. It put out the craziest massive leaf. I am so honoured that it liked me enough to do that. The only way I can explain it doing that are the conditions it was in. It was in a warm place of 20-22 degrees, 50%-60% humidity and I gave it a moss pole that I kept damp. The runner it started to put out quickly rooted into the pole and got very thick and strong to put out this leaf. It is stunning. BUT it did make the plant super top heavy so I ended up air layering it and cutting it off and planting it back into the pot. It has already put out another smaller but also nicely fenestrated leaf.
It has been a joy to watch this plant grow. I hope it continues to give me these lovely fenestrated leaves.
Have you had successes and failures with Amydriums? I think the main thing that puts people off are these runners but if you give it something to really root in to it should be growing leaves on a regular basis.
Thank you for sharing good information.
When you propagated amydrium cuttings in water, did you use any rooting hormone? Spring water? What was the lighting situation for rooting? How much stem was included in the leaf cutting? Mine ( silver blue ) was doing great and outgrew it’s pot fast, she was transplanted by a well meaning friend. He included a bunch of peat moss in the soil mix , which I think kept it too wet. He keeps monsteras so I felt he had relevant experience, thus I deferred to him rather than doing my own research. Normally great as he is basically the best plant dad…. Anyway, It rotted pretty quickly and now I have a very sad tall plant with about 7 big leaves and zero roots. There are some air roots. I have it tented sitting atop some sphagnum moss. This is my first go around with this plant but I adore it. Hoping to save it if I can. I’m great full for any suggestions .
Thanks for updating your progress. I can learn from you