On Mother's Day I received an azalea from my Mother-in-law as a gift. I had it
a while in its' original pot and decided to plant it outside. I was surprised when
I tried to plant it! It wasn't in soil! It was in a 6 inch round oasis cubes!
Here it is in it's pot!
Close up look!
From the side. Oh my, someone needs a manicure!
Bottom!
Can you tell it looks like a brown sponge!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with oasis cubes, oasis cubes are a general-purpose growing media (foam cubes) for propagating vegetative
cuttings. This foam is use propagating most commonly poinsettias, geraniums,
hibiscus, New Guinea impatiens, fuchsia, foliage, perennials and woody
ornamental cuttings. It is that little square thing you see at the base of your Christmas
poinsettia and one of the main reasons that they die.
Oasis Cubes
per sheet. You can purchase a tray to sit them in that holds the moisture in.
I have include the picture above and links to a videos to further explain. Briefly, how
you use it is that you place your cutting in the hole in the center of the cube. You wet the
cube and keep it moist (not soaking wet) until it roots. It will be ready to transplant
when you see roots coming out of the cube. You transplant rooted cutting (cube and all)
into soil. And there you are! Oasis is sold by the sheet for mass production of cuttings
but you can remove one cube and use it alone if you are rooting just one plant.
In my experience, there are some pros and cons to oasis cubes.
The pros:
To me it is faster that other methods of rooting.
Your chances of a successful rooted plant are higher.
It doesn't go into shock when transplanting.
The cons:
It doesn't work as well as other methods on plants that like it dry like
cacti and some succulents.
It cost more than other methods of rooting.
It is not so easy to come by. It is normally a ordered product
with a minimum order price.
lastly, (and most important) it the cube dries out totally,the roots die.
Often when you have a plant, especially outside, you might miss
watering from time to time. Oasis isn't that forgiving. When the
cube dries the main roots at the base of the plant dry out and the
plant dies.
So what I did was I cut small wedges out of the cylinder of Oasis that
surrounded the plant. I stuffed soil into those wedges and then planted
the Oasis rooted plant. These allows the areas with soil to develop
"normal roots". The "normal rooted areas " won't die if the Oasis gets
too dry. I have never done this before with perennials so check back
in and I will tell you how it is going!
Thanks For Checking In!
