Few questions on handling nep cuttings

[kevyn chan]

for me, the lanky vine and growth from the cutting poses the risk of breaking and not only from the natural elements ie water filled pitchers and strong winds but from pests such as monkeys and mischievious kids.

i have a pot of mirabilis red that never had a chance to flower because of uncountable times of breakage from the original stems and to the subsequence shoots. so now i have some weak cuttings (with its original growing young leaves as i did not cut off the leaves)...and the growths from the original pot are supported with bamboos. new basal shoots are forming too.

usually if i receive rooted cuttings from sender, i will bend and peg the long vine into the media and i will have a nice rossette plant sitting in the centre of the pot, this is because the packed plant is softer from dehydration during the postage. this is from my observation, not sure of others...

as for the cuttings, i still dont have any high success. out from 10 cuttings 6 will sprout shoots and 2 or 3 will survive into mature plants. what i did was, cut a slit on the base of the cutting, poke it in to the media and let nature take it course...i provide water dish for most of my cuttings...

air layering sounds interesting but have to risk the whole plant from the shock of slitting the (*) layer of the stem for the process....rather do it on common species as experiment...