NEED HELP ASAP! STEM BROKE!

[fasten1]

Anybody with botany experience, please help me

My very young salvia plant approx. 1 month old, around 10 inches tall, broke with only 2 inches remaining on the bottom. It is dangling on a very thin margin (1mm?). For now, I put it on a stick to support it and to make sure the ends of the broken stem are touching each other. Within 10 minutes of it breaking all the leaves are now flaccid. It is now around 30 minutes since.

What should I do to properly care for it? Do i need to water more? Less? etc.

Thank you for your time.

 

[UTHTURN]

you did about all you can do make sure it gets as much light as possible. water it normally. depending on the plant, i would think about just cuttiing it and transplanting it
Good Luck :wink:

 

[Ilian]

this is the nature of salvia, if it gets long it breaks down and new plants will begin to grow from this natural 'cuttings'

i suggest you cut it into cuttings yourself. cut almost all leaves of the plant and then slice the plant into parts so they will continue growing.

edit:
found an old pic which i used to explain it to someone else.
cut the plant at these parts:

dont forget to take off any leaf that is bigger than 1cm!

 

[fasten1]

Ok. Thanks for all the suggestions. All of the leaves of the upper broken stem are still flaccid and it has been 24 hours since. Should I wait a few more days to see if there will be any recovery or should I go ahead and try to propagate the rest as cuttings? Will waiting longer reduce the chance of cuttings surviving if I decide to do that?

I would assume the upper portion is not dead for now because the leaves are not drying out, although browning around the edges and overall the upper portion looks very sickly.

The stem and leaves above the breaking point are EXTREMELY soft, pliable and limp, however.

Thanks.

 

[Ilian]

i suggest you cut them up as soon as possible. i think its very unlikely that the plant will recover as youre trying now.

the faster you are with taking the cuttings the bigger chance they survive, but if the stem is already soft it could be getting too late already..

 

[fasten1]

I see, I removed the broken stem off and I will try my best to salvage the top half.

The bottom (and still healthy) part of the plant has its stem exposed. Is this anything I should pay careful attention too? Rot?

Thanks.

 

[Ilian]

if you make a picture of it i can tell you more. most likely its not something to worry about but the question is if it will start growing again
good luck with those cuttings ^^

 

[Maru]

Sorry, too late for the reply :?
The top half should have been put in a jar with water, hopping it could generate roots to make a cutting (although it's not the good season)
At least a stem with leafs in water can stay alive for months that way (own experience).

The small broken stem have some chances to survive if it does not rot. Unsure hint : no water in the soil until it is almost dry (not totally of course), then place around the stem a plastic bag so it has enough humidity. Lot of light but no direct sun light.
I had a similar case but the stem rotted. I guess this was because the soil was too wet.

 

[fasten1]

The cutting has blackened and I fear it is lost. I will now focus my attention on the remaining of the first plant.

Here are some pictures of it. The stem is around 2 inches from top to soil.

Because of this scare I have been reading up more about how to take care of salvia D.

I fear salvia may soon be illegal in my state (NY) and it is of utmost importance that I propagate enough for personal use

I do have another question, although off-topic. Surfing forums, somebody claimed that good drainage consists of water coming out of drainage holes VERY quickly after you pour some on top.

My plant seems to have a compressed ball of soil where the plant emerges and I am afraid that this might not be good?

After this plant recovers (hopefully), is it possible for me to remove the whole plant from soil and loosen up the ball of soil around the roots (with my hands?) and then repotting it?

What is the correct way in doing this?

Thanks!

 

[Ilian]

@MARU:
i think making several cuttings has a higher chance of succeeding.. you are assuming the stem can take up enough water to keep the plant alive, but it will depend on the size of the plant and the amount of leaves..
without a picture you cant really judge it and taking several cuttings means you will more likely end up with a few living plants..
IMO moments like this, like a stem breaking, are perfect for harvesting and starting with more smaller plants.
started with 3 cuttings and 0 growing experience a year ago:

these cuttings are all from 1 plant! its already the 3rd generation im growing (they are cuttings of a cutting of a plant i bought)
i also have a pretty big bag filled with leaves


EDIT: Oops, i was posting this at the same time you were posting this..

first of all congrats! the cuttings are living! you can clearly see that they are already developing new branches..

How many days ago did u take them? amazingly fast new growth..

im not too sure about the soil actually.. i user normal potting soil

Another edit: please dont post such huge images on the forum :/ it could easily be 25% of the size if not less..

 

[fasten1]

It seems my pictures were too big! Sorry!

EDIT: That is an amazing collection of plants you have there!
You store your leaves after drying and smoke them later?

Oh I'm sorry if I wasn't clear but that is the remains of the old plant which is almost at the ground.

The cuttings have zero chance of surviving unfortunately, all plant material has blackened and is extremely soft.

The remaining of my surviving plant should recover with no problems right?
Is the top of the exposed stem anything to worry about with rot?

 

[Ilian]

Yea i store the leaves to smoke them later, although i havent had a breakthrough experience yet. I might try to make some extract some day ..

Anyway sorry i thought they were the cuttings, cuz it looks exactly like one it seems to be growing fine and brown stuff is actually normal (all my cuttings have it).
i hope youll have more succes the next time youre gonna take some cuttings!

 

[Maru]

Bombski,

i think making several cuttings has a higher chance of succeeding..

Probably... I can't say. In my experience, too small cuttings (one nod) rotted pretty quickly. But it might depend on the season, temp, humidity level, light... At least I know that a broken stem always stay alive if it is quickly placed in water with bigger leaves outside water.

But your cutting collection shows that you may be right :wink:

I only have few cuttings from accidentaly broken stems. I wait spring for making more cuttings.

Fasten,

Seeing your plant I guess that it should survive because it has still some nice leaves and is not that small. Do not overwater it.

 

[Ilian]

hehe, i take my cuttings all year long. actually the cuttings in the picture were taken around 1-2 months ago when it was starting to become too cold over here.
i always take cuttings of 1 node and ive only had a few cuttings rotting away.. i dont use anything to keep up the humidity, i just put the cuttings in some wet potting soil and when the leaves start hanging i give them some more water.. after 1-2 weeks you can usually see them growing already.

i will make a nice how-to-take-cuttings tutorial here some day

 

[fasten1]

Nice, it seems that BombSki will have many bags filled with leaves by the time I even get to take any

Well, I've done about all I can for my first plant. I will be more careful and use sticks for support so it does not fall over again!

Thanks for the advice