A picture really would help, but I think I understand what you have done, and what your questions are. Can a large cutting of Euphorbia re-root? Almost certainly yes. If there is no rot, a large section of Euphorbia can easily stay alive for a year or more with no roots, and subsequently no water. The actions you took, starting with doing some research of your own, were all correct, and will give your plant the best possible chance for survival. Rooting hormone can help, but only when applied to a fresh cut. It sounds like yours has already callused over, and I wouldn't bother cutting it again just to apply rooting hormone. After you cut off/out the rotting flesh, you have to let the wounds dry and callus over. This can easily take weeks, especially in a cold, damp climate like I imagine you live in. Just keep it cool, but not cold, and also keep it dry. Once all the wounds are callused over (the rule of thumb is one week per inch of diamter), you can pot the plant into a soil mix. Euphorbias need a very coarse, free draining mix. For rooting, I would use pure pumice (not avaiable on your side of the pond, but for us yanks its the best) perlite, turface, or similar. Don't bother with any organic components. As you already mentioned, the plant is top heavy and without a base. Make sure to support or brace it some way to keep it from falling over. I use heavy gravel in the pot to act as a ballast or counterweight, and for really big plants, some sort of guy wires. Its ugly and unwieldy, but it works. The pot you use shouldn't be much bigger in diameter than the stem itself and shouldn't be too deep either. If the stem was 4" for example, a 6" standard or a 6" rose pot half filled with gravel would be my choice. I promise you it will look really silly, but once it has regrown some roots, you can transplant into a more appropriate looking pot. After you've potted the cutting into your coarse, free draining mix, you'll just have to be really, really patient. And whatever you do, don't give it a single drop of water until you are *certain* there is new growth at the growing points. If you water too early, it will start the rot all over again. Place it in a warm (but not hot), and bright location. Direct sun is probably a bit strong, but then again, that far North, it probably wouldn't hurt. Patience really is the key here. It probably won't do a thing until your weather warms up, and the daylight increases. Even then it may take months, if not a *year* to grow roots again. Fight the temptation to water! After a couple months, you can very carefully offer it sips of water, but don't soak the soil until you are absolutely certain there are roots, as evidenced by the new growth up top. In the mean time, be on the look out for more rot. If you missed a rotting section, or if the problem is more systemic, you may find more surgery is required. As a last ditch effort, you can cut the last few inches of each growing point and root them in the same fashion. At this point though, that is probably too drastic. Again, keep an eye out for rot progressing up from where the roots used to be. Now, be warned that all of this advice will be useless if your plant was already in very poor health. Unfortunately, these type of plants don't do very well grown indoors, and will usually end up weaker and more disease prone because of it. Then again, if it has gone 10 years, it couldn't have been doing that bad. If you have any other questions, or if something wasn't clear, please ask. It really is a shame to lose such a close "friend," and none of us want to see that!

I have no idea and i'm looking for a different way to disinfect pots myself, at the moment I just bleach them for an hour or more and then wash with dr.bronners sal suds detergent. I don't know if there is a cure for phytopthora.... (for root rot) I've heard hydrogen peroxide and i'm about to try neem - I've got a philodendron moonlight and geraniums plants also showing root rot although I don't think it's phytopthora although the philodendron is strange... anyway i'm about to try neem oil as a root wet ... at 1 percent... I've no idea if it works or not. (the hydrogen peroxide did not work..the ones that were healthy stayed healthy and the sickening ones died) my advice though is to cut leaves off the suspect plants... and replant as soon as possible... even then it might be too late since the fungus is already in the 'blood'. maybe some kind of fungicide will help but I've no experience. oh ... and keep every tool used absolutely sterilized ... I've been using a lot of rubbing alcohol on scissors/knives as well as bleaching and washing all pots.... also isolate suspect plants if you can... if it is possible it can be transmitted from plant to plant by fungus gnats or on the air as fungus spores....then better safe than sorry. all the best.

Thanks for the advise. I live in New York City. I did not see the sawdust material on the Armenian cucumbers that were pulled. But I saw the orange ooze on bottom of cucuzza this morning. this is not sawdust, so not sure if this is squash vine borer. thanks Kate

I think the critical factor is soil choice and watering habits. Ideally, you'd be growing in a medium that makes over-watering something you'd actually need to work at for it to become a problem. I build my soils so they hold little to no perched water, and can't remember the last time one of the fungaluglies was a player in the death of a plant. This is the ugly planting I referred to that was put together from what was available when a visiting bonsai 'artist' conducted a workshop. It's in the 5:1:1 mix topped with dead moss and there are no drain holes in the pot at all. I used R/O water for irrigating and fertilized with fish emulsion and STEM. I think we did the workshop in Aug and the plants were tiny things in little 1.5" pots - little larger than a cell pack cell, so the growth of the plant, such as it is, was from August to sometime in spring. You can see the closed buds on the hornbeam I'm layering the top off of next to it. Below you can see I pruned the mess hard I let it grow until the next spring Then cut it back again You can see the stub from the first chop. I summered it outdoors & did some pinching I'd neglected to do before to make it full, and pawned it off on the first garden visitor that could find promise in it. The bottom leaves are original on the plant, so about 3 years old, and they look pretty good for all the low light and other adversities they suffered. Like I say - it's never been a tough plant to keep happy. I've repotted several of them for others - did one very large one with a 2.5 - 3" trunk during a repotting demo for a garden club, and cut those back to reveal a decent structure too, and they all did just fine. Al