hey guys
i'm really excited for today's video
because you know how much i love
propagating and today we're going to be
comparing and testing which of these
three substrates is the best to
propagate in soil water and sphagnum
moss definitely leave a comment down
below before you watch this video
letting me know which one you think is
going to perform the best i just want to
say i know this isn't like a real
experiment of course there are a lot of
different factors that can come into
play and it will definitely depend on
like the plant type the lighting they
get i only tested five of each plant in
each substrate so of course like you'd
have to test with a lot more plants to
get a more definitive answer just for
funsies we're gonna call it a science
experiment all right let's just get into
it okay so to get set up for this little
science experiment i took 15 cuttings
from three different types of plants so
15 cuttings from syngonium erythrophylum
15 from peperomia orba and 15 from good
old golden pothos and i did try to keep
the cuttings consistent so i tried to do
the same amount of top cuts of each
plant and then also the same like node
cut size to leaf size so i did try to
keep it consistent but of course like
leaves on plants do come in different
shapes and sizes so of course they're
not exact i'll be putting all the plants
into three ounce cups for the soil and
sphagnum i did put two drainage holes
into the bottom of each cup to pot up
the soil i just fill the cup halfway
with my favorite soil mix don't compact
it down then i put the node into the cup
and fill up around it then for sphagnum
moss i've put a little bit of sphagnum
down at the bottom of the cup i wrapped
the roots up with a like clump of
sphagnum not too tightly you definitely
want it to be have some airflow if you
do it too compact that's how you end up
with raw in the moss a lot of the times
so yeah then i just stick it in the cup
and that's that and then for water of
course i didn't put drainage holes at
the bottom of the cups for obvious
reasons i just used tap water nothing
fancy nothing added to it and put each
plant into the cup and filled it up with
water so that the water was touching the
nodes
easy as that
and i will say that these will all be
living in my ikea cabinet under the same
grow lights the same distance from the
grow lights so they are in a pretty
consistent environment that is it for
getting this whole thing set up i will
see you in a few weeks for the first
update okay so here we are with our
first update it's been two weeks since i
put these plants into the
substrates so we'll start with sphagnum
moss and so far not much has changed we
do have a little bit of slight yellowing
on a few of the plants
um the peperomia in fluorescence died
nothing really has rooted that i know of
because
i have been checking these and
there are no roots showing through the
sphagnum moss unfortunately and i will
say i did have to water these one time
since getting them potted up in here i
just added a little bit of water to this
tray and they soaked up what they needed
and the sphagnum moss is you know doing
its thing staying damp now moving you up
here to the soil which is
where i do actually have a little
something to
update you on so if you can see back
here
on these two peperomia we do have rot
the stem is completely gone on these
plants so i am actually going to
completely take these out this is a big
reason obviously i am a little bit
biased when it comes to sphagnum moss
and water propagation as opposed to soil
propagation another reason i prefer
sphagnum moss or water as you can see
roots a little bit more easily than in
soil and again a couple of the pothos
are yellowing a bit and then over here
we have our water propagations i have
not had to water these yet or add water
to these yet but we are getting some
roots on some of them so let's see so
this syngonium here does actually have
some roots none of the other ones have
any roots yet
but it is exciting that that one already
does and then some of the peperomia
they're very very small but i think you
may be able to see that tiny little root
there
they are beginning to root
and we don't have any rot happening yet
here oh that one's getting pretty good
roots
this is a definite perk of water
propagation you can see the root
progress
all but one of the pothos so four of the
pothos do have some
water roots coming in
this one has the most progress out of
any plant any of the plants we can see
looking really good so
yeah that is the
two week update
okay we're back with a six week update i
was going to do a four week update but
then when i came to look at the plants
you couldn't really see any root growth
in the sphagnum or soil substrates just
in the water so there kind of wasn't a
point to do an update but we are back at
six weeks with an actual update and okay
they are being watered as you can see in
the sphagnum moss there are some dead
leaves what matters in sphagnum i'm
actually just going to go ahead and pull
off the dead leaves the only thing that
really matters is that
the node is intact which they are on
screen it's looking on the camera it's
looking a little bit black but it is
still green and alive
um same with
that one in there this one's kind of
buried further down but that one is also
green
so they're doing pretty well i am
pleased although it is taking quite a
bit longer to get new growth on these
vining plants the syngonium and the
pothos that i was expecting
but the peperomia are growing really
really well we are actually seeing some
yellowing on the bottom leaves and i
actually think that's because they do
have pretty like you can see they have
pretty substantial root growth it would
be time to introduce nutrients which
this is once you start seeing root
growth is the point that i would start
giving them a liquid or plant food of
some sort some sort of nutrients i mean
look at those roots it is definitely
definitely time i know that sphagnum
moss does have some some sort of
nutrient ph thing i don't know but not
enough to keep them going and i am
noticing they have developed these new
root systems i am having to water them
quite a bit more frequently so i'm
probably to the point where i'm having
to water them every
five ish days as opposed to every week
and a half before there were systems
because they are just taking in so much
more water uh but yeah they're doing
really well here we are to the soil so
let's see if we can find any
um
roots can't see any there
obviously this is a oh and there are
some again dead leaves up here as well
but you can see the
node is oh there's no root on that but
there is a growth point
so that's kind of unfortunate but at
least there's a growth point one of the
perks of
or one of the cons of soil is you can't
see as well what is going on although
look
look you guys we have root this is a top
cut and top cuts tend to work faster
or better
like overall from all the propagations
there really are not i'm not seeing too
many
oh look at that
these pepperoni are killing it in all of
the substrates
so i mean we can see some roots
but in like these plants i'm in all of
the rest of them i'm really seeing oh
look right there in the golden pothos
there are some roots
so i mean
like stuff is happening it just seems
like it's happening a lot more slowly
here okay and then water of course we
are having root growth here is a dead
leaf so so far we do have dead leaves in
all of the substrates throw that aside
but the roots are looking really awesome
look at the peperomia although i will
say
the peperomia in the water propagations
aren't
as
voluptuous as in the soil
or the sphagnum moss the actual plants
themselves are pretty small the root
systems look great and i do think it's
because there's just not nutrients in
the water like i said once you get to
the point where there is
growth or root growth in the water is
when you would need to start adding
nutrients but i'm not doing that just
for the sake of the video experiment if
you will just keep that in mind that
that's something you would have to do
but we do have growth on all of the
plants top growth
for the syngonium killing it
i'm like really surprised by how little
like new growth point growth we're
having on all of the plants even in
water i mean i guess oh that's also
that's also a top cut
even in water i don't know just overall
like i'm kind of surprised the plants
aren't growing more in all of the
substrates a little bit surprised to see
that the sphagnum moss seems to be
producing especially on the peperomia
the most robust growth although i mean
we are seeing growth on the soil as well
so
i don't know let's see what's going on
this is a top cut
not seeing any roots there
but there is a new leaf
oh there are roots on that one
why aren't you pushing out a growth
point i definitely thought that by six
weeks there would be more growth points
i do think that having the plants in a
more humid environment does help with
the growth point as well as adding
nutrients to the plant substrate so i
mean
soil obviously we wouldn't have to do
that but there are still not really like
not a lot of growth happening here kind
of shocking i don't know but yeah that
is the
six week update i will be back in two
weeks taking everything
out of the cups and comparing the root
systems see you in two weeks
here we are going to clean off the roots
from all the substrates so here we have
our soil props the peperomia orba
the dirt was really difficult to wash
off of the orba plants because you can
see the roots are quite delicate and
hair like that's why they look a little
bit messy they really cling to that
soil even after washing them off here we
have our golden pothos cuttings and the
segonium erythrophylum cuttings which
these roots were a lot easier to wash
off in the soil
next up we have our sphagnum moss and
i'm honestly not even going to attempt
to remove the sphagnum moss from the
orbo roots because they are so fine and
sphagnum really clings to the root
systems making it super easy to you know
tear the root systems apart if you try
to remove all the sphagnum moss
from them so yeah it is easier on these
thicker roots to remove it but it is
definitely still hazardous because as
you will see i did end up accidentally
tearing the roots off of two of my
cuttings which i am so mad at myself for
two of my golden pothos cuttings you can
see here
oops but yeah we are going to be keeping
the roots just for comparison purposes
because that was totally just my bad
oopsy but it happens and then the
syngonium cuttings so yeah here they are
and then of course the water props which
are definitely the easiest to clean off
although i did end up with two plants
that had these slimy kind of rotten
roots
but for the most part they are
definitely easier to keep clean so just
a little note there here we go comparing
all of our pepperoni orba cuttings so
top row we have sphagnum moss middle row
we have the soil props which of course
we lost two of them in this process and
then bottom row is water and you can
just kind of compare the root systems
there here's kind of a cluster view to
see how much like foliage growth they
got
so yeah to me it looks like the sphagnum
moss ones performed the best the soil
ones performed the worst simply because
we ended up with two that were rotten so
of course it doesn't look as thick um
yeah from this view i definitely say
sphagnum moss looks the best okay so
moving on to golden pothos top row is
the sphagnum moss props with again the
two that i accidentally tore the roots
off of but you can see the roots look
pretty awesome on the sphagnum props the
middle row is soil the roots look pretty
good here too but definitely not as long
or established and then bottom is water
which clearly the water roots look the
best although they have less secondary
root growth than sphagnum moss or soil
props so sphagnum moss probably had the
best secondary root growth water just
kind of resulted in these long swirly
single roots
and here we have our cluster views so
definitely in my opinion the water
props look the best by far in both their
foliar growth and then also root growth
last up we have our syngonium
erythrophyta lum cuttings to compare so
top row once again is sphagnum moss we
ended up with three cuttings without
any root growth or really like foliage
growth either which was kind of shocking
to me
middle row is the soil growth which
again we have three cuttings that also
didn't didn't result in any kind of
growth really a little bit of a little
bit of um auxiliary butt growth but
that's it and then bottom row is water
which again i think performed the best
it's kind of hard to say but in all of
the substrates we did have difficulty
propagating these which is kind of
shocking to me because syngonium are my
top favorite plants to propagate
so i don't know what was going on and
then here we go with our like cluster
side by side comparison so by far the
water looks the best i would probably
say that the sphagnum moss was the worst
and soil not far behind that but by far
water was the best because we ended up
with less foliage raw which isn't a big
deal i usually remove foliage anyway but
yeah that's just what it is okay and
then here we go cluster comparing all of
the plants side by side so top row we
have all the soil propagations middle
row we have all of the water and then
bottom row we have all the sphagnum moss
and overall
i
definitely think that the water
propagations by far look the best
overall and i don't really think that
that's a surprise we did end up with a
few that have like kind of slimy
beginning to raw roots but they're
definitely not like dead and there was
still hope for them i do think sphagnum
moss
would be my next favorite especially for
plants that have finer root systems like
the peperomia varieties i mean i think
the soil and sphagnum are like pretty
close
to one another and how well they
performed but let me know what you think
i'm really interested to hear what you
think of these comparisons or this whole
like experiment thing i did um i don't
know what do you think overall i just
want to know your opinion that is it for
this video let me know what you thought
of this if you like this kind of content
i hope you found this video helpful or
entertaining um it was really fun for me
to make it took me over two months to do
so
i hope you like it please please leave a
comment if you liked it so that you know
it was worth it
but if not that's okay too uh but that
is it for this video thank you so much
for watching and i will see my next one
bye