Question of the Day Hobby Hacks - your best tips, tricks and time-savers!

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

6/ Bushes can be achieved with cheap amazon plant supporting pin. Planting horizontally is a thing and the shoot will space themselves

I've been wondering about this for a long time! Plant hormones for new growth tend to travel upwards. There are many terrestrial techniques for laying plants horizontally to get new growth to sprout from each node, rather than a single stalk growing long and skinny upwards.

I've thought that if I took a long 8" rotala blood red stem, snipped the newest node of growth, and pinned it sideways to the substrate length-wise, it would put out new vertical growth perfectly spaced from every node along it's stem. Are you saying you've tried something similar and it worked?

 

[JacksonL]

I've been wondering about this for a long time! Plant hormones for new growth tend to travel upwards. There are many terrestrial techniques for laying plants horizontally to get new growth to sprout from each node, rather than a single stalk growing long and skinny upwards.

I've thought that if I took a long 8" rotala blood red stem, snipped the newest node of growth, and pinned it sideways to the substrate length-wise, it would put out new vertical growth perfectly spaced from every node along it's stem. Are you saying you've tried something similar and it worked?

This would be very cool. 5 stems of rotala pinned in rows and a nicely spaced clump grows out of it.

 

[TianChen]

I've been wondering about this for a long time! Plant hormones for new growth tend to travel upwards. There are many terrestrial techniques for laying plants horizontally to get new growth to sprout from each node, rather than a single stalk growing long and skinny upwards.

I've thought that if I took a long 8" rotala blood red stem, snipped the newest node of growth, and pinned it sideways to the substrate length-wise, it would put out new vertical growth perfectly spaced from every node along it's stem. Are you saying you've tried something similar and it worked?

yes, but you really need to do some kind of signal rerouting for that - around 15 days a trimming is required, you need to chip off the main stem top so the cytokinin can be released. It can go way further than just pinning a stem - you can pin, chip, and repeat which means repinning the secondary stem and repeat. However it tends to lose its magic when it is already too bushy...but there are MORE magic into this than you can think about.

7/ this might sound highly stupid, but if your tank is fishless, and during the initial trimming ( where you trim off the emersed stem), rather than removing them and causes a massive mess in your substrate ( BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO REMOVE THEM IN THE END), have you guys thought about burrowing them into the substrate? Burrowing them a bit deep and they will return the nutrient partially to the soil, not much ( your plants can't really hog this first because bacteria eats it already) and it doesnt cause a mess which you have to change water