kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Dec 30, 2019 0:51:19 GMT -5
I finally had time to try setting up my first ping rock tonight, I thought it would be fairly easy but I've had a terrible time of getting my pings to anchor at all into the little crevices I made for them. I put a little tiny bit of my ping mixture in the hole & then tried my best to stuff the roots into the hole but I feel like I'm doing more harm than anything. Is there a trick for getting them to stay in their new holes long enough for the roots to anchor? I decided to try it out with some spare pings. Any tips would be great! Thanks
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Post by dvg on Dec 30, 2019 16:51:20 GMT -5
Hi Kell, do you have any pics of your ping rock and where the "crevices"/ grow pockets are located on the surface of the ping rock?
Also, what is the rock composed of, and is it soft enough to be carved by hand?
It sounds like you are trying to plant them on a steeper vertical surface, and they keep rolling downhill.
It's easier to have them growing on flatter terrain, so your "crevices" or grow pockets might have to be made on the rock where there is support directly under the ping.
And you might have to carve the rock, to create that support, by having small pockets in the rock that are not so steep.
Otherwise, you could tie them in place, with string, tying down a few bottom leaves of the ping to gently hold it in place, until its roots can finally anchor itself.
dvg
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Dec 30, 2019 18:13:07 GMT -5
It is very steep, I didn't have much selection where I got it. The flatter pieces were so thin that they were shattering just by being picked up, I was wanting a more vertical look anyways. I may need to chisel out some flatter spots but for the moment they seem to be doing fine after some rearranging. From what I was told it should be red lava rock which is lava that had the iron in it oxidized during eruption & that it should be alright for pings. I also did a test right after getting it and the water does get wicked all the way to the top which was more of a concern for me. I was hoping they'd have longer roots to stuff into the holes I carved but they do seem relatively young.. If this doesn't work too well then I may end up trying to split it in half to get 2 flatter pieces.
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Post by dvg on Dec 30, 2019 20:09:53 GMT -5
That's a good start, with three pings on the rock.
You might be able reshape the rock in places for planting your pings, with a rotary tool, such as a Dremel type instrument.
In time, your ping rock will be covered in moss.
To speed up that process, you can take live mosses, some pure water and either buttermilk or yogurt, and run all those ingredients through an old blender, until a slurry is made
This chopped-up mossy slurry can then be painted onto the ping rock with a small brush, and if kept moist, that rock will be a green mossy mass, in a mere fraction of the time it would have taken, if left to its own resources.
And it need not just be a green mossy ping rock either.
You could also grow red Sphagnum mosses on one half of the ping rock to contrast nicely with your green pings, and then grow green moss on the other side to highlight your pink and red pings
Good luck, and keep us posted with some updates on your successes.
dvg
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Dec 31, 2019 0:04:26 GMT -5
The moss is a great idea! I may do that once I see how these 3 react, I like the idea of using it to make contrasting backgrounds
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 2, 2020 15:41:19 GMT -5
They're looking really good today, I decided to try this out with some laueana, Bonefield's gigantea "purple flower" x emarginata "red, large rosette" #14 (Did it get an actual name yet?!) & a tiny pirouette. I may switch out the #14 with a laxifolia as I forgot how big it's gonna get. It may try and cover half the rock like it's mother! Now if only my pure gigantea would decide to get some size to it..
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Post by dvg on Jan 3, 2020 12:14:09 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing that pic of your #14 clone of Bonfield's P. gigantea (purple flower) x emarginata (red large rosette). Your clone has some noticeable purple coloring in its rosette - very nice! Has your clone flowered for you yet? I see that you used smaller sized pings on your ping rock, which was wise on your part. It's easier to fit smaller plants onto the rock, until the pings can establish their shallow roots on the rock surface. You can even try to fit a few ping leaf pulls into some of that ping rock's nooks and crannies. The resulting plantlets will fasten their roots right into any crevices they find around them. Also, if you have access to any of the small and compact rosettes from the esseriana/jaumavensis/ehlersiae complex, I think you might like how those mexi-ping species will look on your ping rock. Looking good so far, keep us updated! dvg
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Post by muckydoo on Jan 3, 2020 23:35:03 GMT -5
Nice rock!
I have such a terrible time finding any decent size Lava rock, or even large pumice around here I have one single large pumice stone I got off e-bay. It's around the size of a softball.
And about the moss.. So you're saying I can take some of this wonderful fluffy sphagnum moss I got from Labine and blend it up? If I just use water and sphagnum, can I pour that on my Nep soil and by summer I might have a pot full of fluffy sphagnum?
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Post by labine on Jan 4, 2020 9:24:05 GMT -5
Try to look on your local fish/aquarium store for stones, they might have what you are looking for
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 4, 2020 12:41:10 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing that pic of your #14 clone of Bonfield's P. gigantea (purple flower) x emarginata (red large rosette). Your clone has some noticeable purple coloring in its rosette - very nice! Has your clone flowered for you yet? I see that you used smaller sized pings on your ping rock, which was wise on your part. It's easier to fit smaller plants onto the rock, until the pings can establish their shallow roots on the rock surface. You can even try to fit a few ping leaf pulls into some of that ping rock's nooks and crannies. The resulting plantlets will fasten their roots right into any crevices they find around them. Also, if you have access to any of the small and compact rosettes from the esseriana/jaumavensis/ehlersiae complex, I think you might like how those mexi-ping species will look on your ping rock. Looking good so far, keep us updated! dvg I got my rock at Big Al's, it was the only place that sold large chunks of lava rock instead of small chunks for landscaping
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 4, 2020 15:04:10 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing that pic of your #14 clone of Bonfield's P. gigantea (purple flower) x emarginata (red large rosette). Your clone has some noticeable purple coloring in its rosette - very nice! Has your clone flowered for you yet? I see that you used smaller sized pings on your ping rock, which was wise on your part. It's easier to fit smaller plants onto the rock, until the pings can establish their shallow roots on the rock surface. You can even try to fit a few ping leaf pulls into some of that ping rock's nooks and crannies. The resulting plantlets will fasten their roots right into any crevices they find around them. Also, if you have access to any of the small and compact rosettes from the esseriana/jaumavensis/ehlersiae complex, I think you might like how those mexi-ping species will look on your ping rock. Looking good so far, keep us updated! dvg Sadly isn't hasn't flowered yet, but then again it was very tiny when I got it and a few leaves broke off which probably put it into a little more shock than normal. It wasn't doing too much until recently where it doubled in size. It's putting out so many air roots (are those a thing?) that I won't be surprised if it tries to flower soon. It keeps trying to invade neighboring pots!
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Post by bonfield on Jan 5, 2020 2:32:23 GMT -5
It's looking great, keep up whatever you're doing! No official name yet, it will still be quite a while before I figure out which of the numbered types are my favourite. It's one of the more resilient Pings I've grown, so it probably shrugged off losing a few leaves, did you manage to propagate any more from them? Pings do typically produce aerial roots for anchoring, and this one is certainly no exception, a few roots are usually torn off when I have to separate two containers with overlapping growth, but they don't seem to mind too much.
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kell27
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by kell27 on Jan 5, 2020 15:05:44 GMT -5
I honestly haven't bothered to propagate more as the 3 leaves you gave me that fell off it while separating have turned into some nice looking plants themselves. I think I have 4 now? 1 on the rock, 1 in my ping tray, 1 that's promised to my friend Kitty if she wants one since she wasn't sure when we were there, and then one extra I may save to gift to someone at some point. It's slowly becoming one of my favourite pings due to the colour alone! It's a pink that's deeper than the P. weser. It's caught up to the gigantea I have size wise. Here they are side by side
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Post by bonfield on Jan 9, 2020 18:50:55 GMT -5
No rush, they'll start propagating themselves even without any further assistance. I'm glad you like #14 so much, soon I'll be selecting a few more types that stood out and starting a few new batches of them. The gigantea would probably appreciate being carefully uprooted with a toothpick and re-planted so that its crown is flush with the substrate.
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Post by dvg on Jan 10, 2020 14:30:17 GMT -5
And about the moss.. So you're saying I can take some of this wonderful fluffy sphagnum moss I got from Labine and blend it up? If I just use water and sphagnum, can I pour that on my Nep soil and by summer I might have a pot full of fluffy sphagnum?
Hi Muckydoo, you can get better results propagating moss with buttermilk in the mix. Here is a link, that doesn't require a blender, although an old food processor on "pulse mode" might make for easier mixing. www.diynatural.com/how-to-grow-moss/dvg
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