I recently received some cuttings from a member, and did my usual method of rooting.  Yesterday I noticed one with a lot of leaves and quite a few roots, so I took it out of it's baggie and was amazed at the lenghth of it!  The roots were at the bottom and the leaves were coming from the tip.  I had no choice.  Couldn't cut it.  Too late for that!

It wouldn't fit into a regular 20 oz plastic cup with another on top.  Too tall already!! 

JD helped me figure out a way.  We sliced up 3 tall bottles, and used one for the middle section.  Call it creative, but it took a long time!  There were so many leaves, I did spray inside the bottle to help those leaves stay moist until the roots can support them. 

I have several cuttings showing root initials and green shoots, so I went through them all, and made sure they are all short enough to fit into my two cup system!

Here's what we ended up with!



Suzi

Great imagination and engineering.

so cute, you may wish to wrap the top with newspaper to provide some shade for new shoots, it gets super hot in there for them.  I also found that when that happens, I let the leaves breath the normal air, whereas the roots get all the extra heat from the bottle.    looks very cute, will keep my fingers crossed here for you.    it is a fun to watch them grow.

Hey Grasa!

That's one of your unknowns!  The others are starting to show roots too, but this one was ready for the light.  Don't worry!  It's inside now.  I took it out for the picture and brought it back in!

Suzi

You know, Suzy... it may very well be from my tree. So, it is a good fig! just does not have a name...and you have better weather, so should be great there, if nothing, you can use it for grafting other plants into it.   

I think I would have used clear packing tape....If that is masking tape, likely to come apart due to the moisture/humidity.  Just curious, did you consider putting a 2L soda bottle over the top for the humidity rather than taping multiple segments together?  Looks like a very workable solution, though.   JD must be an engineer. 

What is your potting mixture?....that seems to be my downfall...moving to this stage....I seem to get them too wet. 

Dear Alan,

JD is not an engineer!  He is a project manager for construction companies.  His worst nightmare is building my chicken coop.  He wanted to use the packaging tape, but it won't work!!  Wrong!!  The potting mix is simple.  Some Sphagnum Moss, some peat moss, some perlite.........  Not wet, just damp!

Me, I'm worried about the chickens!!

Suzi

Nice job Suzi and wonderful idea.

there are also some tall/skinny water bottles that work very well also.

Hi Suzi,
One thing you have to watch out for in your set up is leaf rot,
The leaves will rot where they contact the condensation on the plastic.
One solution I have used is to put cereal box type material inside the plastic so the leaves touch it instead of the bottle.

Hmmm,

Maybe I should drop some pure Sphangum moss in and let it cling to the sides.

Suzi