Lessons Learned

Painful lessons learned.

1) Fancy pants ideas for humidification are great and all, but cheap and basic wins out almost every time. I bought some metal hanging water containers for the radiator and a USB mini humidifier, this has proven to be a much more effective strategy (though the tray with lights and pebbles is still pretty).

2) Propagating from etoliated stems is a LOT more difficult than I imagined, I've lost the original plant, the stems withered away on two of the cuttings, one of the top cuttings has got tiny roots, the other cutting from the top is doing nothing as yet but it doesn't look promising.

3) The levels of moisture in cocoa bark or coir or peat moss etc are MORE than sufficient to get a closed terrarium going. Any additional water will rot your plants, even if you do leave the lids open every damn day in an effort to dry it out some. If your plants look to be withering and the soil is dry, by all means water SPARINGLY but don't go adding any in after planting unless you want the plants to die a slow and painful death.

4) Some plants and me just do NOT get on. Pickle Plant, Boston Fern, certain types of Hypoestes (Polka Dot Plant) just hate me, and Fittonia (Nerve Plants) are about 50/50 for survival. My Ficus Golden King is also not happy with me, one of my Ivy plants (Karl, divided off from Troy) is unhappy, and my Silver Ribbon Fern (Pteris Parkeri) has dried out a lot faster than I thought it would, so I may repot in something else to ensure it holds onto some moisture in the future.

5) Overwatering is more detrimental to your plants than underwatering. You can fix underwatering. You can't fix rot from overwatering.

6) Patience and knowing when to put your cuttings in water - learned behaviours. If no little rooties have sprouted from succulent leaves after a week or two, THEN try placing the callused ends carefully in water and see what happens. If your other plants haven't started to root, or rot and die from being in water, just LEAVE THEM BE until they either root or rot. This shit takes time.