Hi Simounagta,

I tried to get a stem cutting michelia albas and soak it for several months. I only see a little fine roots. I don't know how long will it take for the cutting to grow alot of roots but I see the stem is trying to grow new leaves. But I have a question for you. I have a michelia alba that I transplant way back in April into a ceramic pot and it never grow. It kept on dropping the old leaves and the new leaves never grow. So, in August I decided to transplant into a regular nursery pot and within a week I started to see new growth. But now the new growth still didn't show much improvement. What can I do to make my plant grow?

Thanks,
Savy

Hi Savy4,

Thank you, Savy4. I will try your method. I will soak some stem cuttings of different lengths & sizes and observe for possible roots development.

Regarding transplanting Michelia x alba, I do not have a good learning experience. I had my first M. x alba in the mid-90s and it was contained in a ceramic pot. The plant was ~20-25 inches tall and healthy. With no experience about caring plants, I transplanted it without breaking the pot and just removed the whole soil & plant out of the pot. After transplanting it to a 100-liter half-drum container, the plant slowly deteriorated in appearance - dropping leaves, gradual rotting of twig ends, etc - the plant never made it. Since then, I have had other failures & some successes in transplanting M. x albas. esp. during the removal of the air-layered twigs from the tree and then putting them into the primary pots, then again transferring them to bigger pots. In few cases, I transferred the m. x albas from one ground location to another then back into a container pot, & then back again to a ground location. I believe, Savy4, that m. x albas are vulnerable to transplant shocks. Even a very healthy looking air-layered twig while still on the tree does not guarantee success after tranplanting it unto the pot.

In your last transplant you said you started to see new growth but then after that, you noticed no further improvement. Maybe, Savy4, your plant is at present on a root development stage and prefers to ease on developing its leaves until the roots are well-developed to sustain leaf growths. This is just based from observation I had when propagating Night Blooming Jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum) through stem cutting method. Newly planted stem cuttings with many newly developed leaf growths that looks growing better than the others of its batch sometimes died out while the less healthy looking ones keep on thriving. When I removed the dead cutting, I saw less developed roots. I then removed the still thriving cutting and inspected the roots and noticed it had much better root development than that of the cutting that died. This must be what plant experts say growth balancing of parts of the plant.

Let's just hope, Savy4, your plant in few days after having a well-developed roots already, will start growing new leaves.

This post was edited by simounagta on Thu, Sep 4, 14 at 2:34

Hi Simounagta,

Thank you for your advice about transplanting. The reason why I want my plant to grow fast is because in my climate here we are going into fall season. And when fall starts I will have to move the plant back inside the house that's when the growing period begin to slow down. So, I don't know if the plant will make it through the winter or not. Because if summer time is not growing well winter will be a challenge. I have 4 albas all together two I transplanted one does well and the other one doesn't. The other 2 I have not transplant them yet. I heard that michelia like to be root bound. So, I will wait until they are root bound.

Savy

Savy4 ,

Now I understand why you seem worried not seeing new growths in your `Michelia x alba' during summer time.

I think you and other plant lovers who are living in the temperate zones have more beautiful & special plants than those who are living in the tropics. For example this tropical plant michelia, here in my place many of my friends who love & keep plants in their homes dont know muchabout michelias and get excited during their visits here seeing my collections. So in my eagerness to share this beautiful plants, I made use of my existing michelia trees and tried other ways wherein propagation rate will be higher & the newly produced plant flowers early.

Thank you, Savy4, for your suggestion about soaking the cuttings.

This post was edited by simounagta on Thu, Sep 4, 14 at 2:31

Hi Simoungata,

I looked at my soak cutting last night. At the top it had a brown tip already and I looked at the bottom it also had the same thing. I think the reason why it did that because I changed the water I soaked the cutting in because the water was getting cloudy, so I changed the water it was soak in and the cutting started to change. So, I don't know what went wrong. For several months I didn't bother the cutting it was fine. Now when I started to pay attention to it the cutting starts to die. I don't know what went wrong. I guess propagating the michelia is very hard that's why the plant cost so much.

Savy

Hi Savy4,

Yes, propagation of Michelia x alba is very hard. In my case, I already got tired of air-layering because I can only at best produce 2 succesful plants out of 10-15 air-layered twigs. There was even a case of about 25 air-layered twigs I did on three of my mature Michelia x alba yet not one made it. The best result I had was 4 successful plants out of ~ 20 air-layered twigs and that was 5 years ago. After that, I had very discouraging results with air-layering M.x albas.

So, Savy4, I will have to try again this stem cutting method & hope for better result than my previous try.

Again, thank you for your information about stem cutting.

Simoun

This post was edited by simounagta on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 8:52