Potting Up Seedlings and Plantlets

The first seedling leaves (cotyledons) pushing above the sand or soil are not the true leaves, which generally will be of rougher texture. When seedlings have 2 or 4 good leaves, it is time to transplant to larger flats, or to “individualize” by planting

27. Another view of Dr. Irving’s tool house-potting shed-work room.

Since time is money, whatever you spend in setting up handy tool

racks, portable storage cans and other time and money-saving features

will be repaid richly and frequently. (Photograph by Roche)

singly in plant bands, 1-inch clay pots, or prepared containers, Ferto-Pots, Jiffy Pots, or Peat-Pots.

Make this first shift into soil screened through -inch wire mesh. If you are using plant bands, place the bands in a flat. Fill with the screened soil and, with a pointed stick (or dibble) make planting holes. Commercial growers press a board with dibbles spaced on it into the soil to make several planting holes at once. Insert the rooted seedlings into the planting holes and firm the soil with thumb or dibble. Water the seedlings and place them in a shaded place for a day or two to help them recover from the shock of transplanting.

Potting Plantlets

Plantlets which form on leaf cuttings of African violets and similar plants have stronger root systems than seedlings and are easier to handle. This applies also to plants formed on the split veins or wedges of rex begonia or gloxinia leaves.

When the plantlets show four or more leaves, lift the original leaf cutting from the soil and carefully cut off the tiny plants. Set them in individual “thumb” (1 -inch) or 2-inch pots of the recommended growing soil and firm it around them. Moisten with a fine spray and set the plants out of bright light for a couple of days to help them become established. Speaking of thumb pots, use them with care. They dry out very quickly and are easily tipped over if not massed together. Plantlets forming on the split veins of gloxinia leaves form tiny tubers. Separate plantlets and tubers from the leaf and pot them the same as other small plants.

Many profit-making plants will be rapid growers requiring shifts to larger pots. Shift to pots but one size larger. You save no time by placing plants in pots too large for their root balls. Instead, the fine roots may suffocate due to an excess of water in the soil. Potted correctly, plants can use all the water you give them. Water large plants thoroughly before shifting them. Within an hour or two the water should have drained sufficiently for the plant to slip easily out of the pot.

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